Woman lives with dead husband, sister
Source: Agencies |
July 7, 2010, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE 91-year-old widow lived by herself in a house on a desolate country road in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania. But she wasn't alone, not really, not as long as she could visit her husband and twin sister.
It didn't bother her that they were already dead. Jean Stevens simply had their embalmed corpses dug up and stored them in her house - in the case of her late husband, for more than a decade - tending to the remains as best she could until police were finally tipped off last month.
Much to her dismay.
"Death is very hard for me to take," Stevens told an interviewer.
As police finish their investigation - no charges have been filed - Stevens wishes she could be reunited with James Stevens, her husband of nearly 60 years who died in 1999, and June Stevens, her twin who died last October. But their bodies are with the Bradford County coroner now.
She knows what people must think of her. But she had her reasons, and they are complicated, a bit sad, and in their own peculiar way, sweet.
She kept her sister on an old couch in a spare room off the bedroom. She sprayed her with expensive perfume that was June's favorite.
"I'd go in, and I'd talk, and I'd forget," Stevens said. "I put glasses on her. When I put the glasses on, it made all the difference in the world. I'd fix her face up all the time."
She offered a similar rationale for keeping her husband on a couch in the detached garage.
"I could see him, I could look at him, I could touch him. Now, some people have a terrible feeling, they say, 'Why do you want to look at a dead person? Oh my gracious,'" she said. "Well, I felt differently about death."
Part of her worries that after death, there's ... nothing.
"Is that the grand finale?"
Dr Helen Lavretsky, a psychiatry professor at UCLA who researches how the elderly view death and dying, said people who aren't particularly spiritual or religious often have a difficult time with death because they fear that death is truly the end.
For them, "death doesn't exist," she said. "They deny death."
Stevens has talked extensively with Bradford County Coroner Tom Carman, who calls it a "bizarre case."
But the coroner has nothing but kind things to say about Stevens.
"I got quite an education, to say the least. She's 100 percent cooperative - and a pleasure to talk to," Carman said. "But as far as her psyche, I'll leave that to the experts."
It didn't bother her that they were already dead. Jean Stevens simply had their embalmed corpses dug up and stored them in her house - in the case of her late husband, for more than a decade - tending to the remains as best she could until police were finally tipped off last month.
Much to her dismay.
"Death is very hard for me to take," Stevens told an interviewer.
As police finish their investigation - no charges have been filed - Stevens wishes she could be reunited with James Stevens, her husband of nearly 60 years who died in 1999, and June Stevens, her twin who died last October. But their bodies are with the Bradford County coroner now.
She knows what people must think of her. But she had her reasons, and they are complicated, a bit sad, and in their own peculiar way, sweet.
She kept her sister on an old couch in a spare room off the bedroom. She sprayed her with expensive perfume that was June's favorite.
"I'd go in, and I'd talk, and I'd forget," Stevens said. "I put glasses on her. When I put the glasses on, it made all the difference in the world. I'd fix her face up all the time."
She offered a similar rationale for keeping her husband on a couch in the detached garage.
"I could see him, I could look at him, I could touch him. Now, some people have a terrible feeling, they say, 'Why do you want to look at a dead person? Oh my gracious,'" she said. "Well, I felt differently about death."
Part of her worries that after death, there's ... nothing.
"Is that the grand finale?"
Dr Helen Lavretsky, a psychiatry professor at UCLA who researches how the elderly view death and dying, said people who aren't particularly spiritual or religious often have a difficult time with death because they fear that death is truly the end.
For them, "death doesn't exist," she said. "They deny death."
Stevens has talked extensively with Bradford County Coroner Tom Carman, who calls it a "bizarre case."
But the coroner has nothing but kind things to say about Stevens.
"I got quite an education, to say the least. She's 100 percent cooperative - and a pleasure to talk to," Carman said. "But as far as her psyche, I'll leave that to the experts."
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