The body of an elderly man lay decomposing in his Indiana home for over nine months before he was found, the Lafayette Journal & Courier reported.
Gerald "Scooter" Francis Gavan Jr., 88, was found in May on his living room floor in Tippecanoe County. The County Coroner finally announced on Tuesday that Gavan's date of death was last July.
"The entomologist will say and prove that at least July 15, 2013, if not before, was the date of death," Tippecanoe County Coroner Donna Avolt told the newspaper.
Residents in the Highland Park neighborhood say they had no idea Gavan was dead, or that he was rotting in his home- the same home where his wife continued to live like nothing was wrong.
"It's really disturbing, the fact that we've been living here the whole time and talking to her," Tyler Imel, who lives next door to Gavan, told the newspaper.
Imel said he even had conversations with Gavan's wife, Ila Solomon, on the couple's porch on Shawnee Avenue.
Meanwhile, Gavan's body was rotting just inches behind the front door.
"If I lived with a dead body in my house, I couldn't compose myself the way she did every day," Joe Childs, Imel's housemate, told the Lafayette Journal & Courier.
The circumstances of Gavan's death are currently being investigated by Lafayette police. The cause of death is pending further investigation by the coroner's office.
Solomon would not say why she did not report her husband's death to the authorities. But she did claim her husband died of a small stroke on April 28 instead of nine months ago.
Dehumidifiers and rats inside her home sped up her husband's decomposition, making the corner think he died earlier than he did, Solomon said.
When asked how she could stand the rotting smell, the wife said she was forced to spend her nights in the home she owned next door.
Solomon said she wants to have her husband's body moved to a Texas "body ranch," upon Gavan's request, to be used in a study involving vultures eating human bodies.
"I love Scooter," she told the Lafayette Journal & Courier. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for him."
