A grand jury found Tabitha Zelida Wood guilty of malice murder and other charges in connection with her fiancé’s death (Picture: Hall County Sheriff’s Office)
A woman has been found guilty of killing her fiancé and concealing his death – and living with his corpse for two months.
Tabitha Zelida Wood, 46, concealed the death of her 82-year-old fiancé Leroy Franklin Kramer Jr, show court records obtained by WSB-TV. A Hall County grand jury on Friday found her guilty of killing him.
Sheriff’s deputies arrived at Kramer’s home in Georgia in June 2022 and found his corpse. Wood then told them that he had died during the first week of April of that year and that she had been living with his dead body in the residence ever since.
An autopsy showed that Kramer died by homicide
An autopsy showed that Kramer died by homicide. The preliminary cause of death appeared to be blunt and sharp force trauma, according to the sheriff’s office.
Hall County Sheriff’s Deputies discovered Leroy Franklin Kramer Jr’s dead body after his stepdaughter said she had not heard from him in months (Picture: Hall County Sheriff’s Office)
Deputies discovered Kramer’s body only after his stepdaughter contacted them and said she was worried for his safety because she had not heard from him in months.
Wood has been found guilty of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, concealing someone’s death, exploitation of an elderly individual and financial transaction card theft.
Her sentence has not yet been disclosed.
Wood was found guilty after another woman, Jennifer Maedge, unknowingly lived with the corpse of her husband missing for eight months.
Jennifer reported her husband Richard missing on April of last year. Police searched their home in Troy, Illinois, but could not find him. They noticed a ‘sewer-like’ odor, which a plumber said was sewer gas. Then in December, Jennifer was searching for her Christmas decorations and went into a concealed closet, where she discovered her husband’s mummified body.
‘I decided to put the Christmas tree up, and I was looking for a tote of Christmas ornaments, and that’s when I discovered him,’ said Jennifer at the time. ‘He had committed suicide.’
The couple’s residence was like a ‘hoarder home’, making it hard for cops to initially find the missing man’s body.
An autopsy of the corpse showed that the man died by homicide.