From CBS3.com --
Pa. Widow Lives With Corpses Of Husband, Twin --
Jean Stevens Had Dead Bodies Of Husband, Twin Sister Exhumed And Stored In Pa. House
A 91-year-old woman found living with the corpses of her husband and twin sister will be allowed to keep them if she installs a mausoleum or crypt, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Jean Stevens has indicated through her attorney that she plans to build an aboveground vault on her property to store the bodies of James Stevens and June Stevens, according to Bradford County District Attorney Daniel Barrett.
"If she does that, the bodies will be released for that purpose," he said. "Otherwise they will be re-interred."
Stevens' attorney, Leslie Wizelman, did not immediately return phone messages left at her office.
Stevens previously told The Associated Press that she kept the embalmed remains of her loved ones because she wanted to be able to see them and talk to them. She also said she's claustrophobic and couldn't stand the thought of their bodies in caskets in the ground.
State police have been investigating the bizarre case since the corpses were discovered in mid-June. Authorities found the body of James Stevens on a couch in the detached garage and the body of June Stevens on a couch in a spare room off the bedroom.
Stevens had them dug up shortly after they died -- James in 1999 and June in October -- and tended to their remains at her rural property outside the northern Pennsylvania town of Wyalusing.
Barrett said a decision on charges could be made as early as Friday, after he meets with investigators.
He said authorities are looking into several possible violations, including misdemeanor abuse of a corpse. He also cited possible summary violations of the state health code, which regulates how bodies must be disinterred.
"There were some things done here that were not lawful," he said.
Police haven't said who retrieved the bodies.
If this woman is otherwise sane and not harming anybody then they should just leave her alone. I guess the judge did the next best thing by setting those conditions - it could have been a lot worse.
All human beings have Natural Rights either as "rational economic actors" at present (i.e. sane adults), or as
potential "rational economic actors" - children, prisoners, indentured servants, comatose individuals, the insane, individuals in cryonic suspension, etc all have a Right to Life and a Right to Emancipation. However, after the point of irreversible death is clearly documented, a human body is just a piece of meat whose ownership passes along the same lines of inheritance as any other property left by the deceased. Most people would expect their inheritors to bury them properly, or set up specific contractual guidelines for what is to be done with their bodies, but people should generally be free to do whatever the hell they want as long as it doesn't harm anybody else.