TOLEDO, Ohio — A Lucas County grand jury on Wednesday indicted Josephine Torres for abuse of a corpse after she allegedly left a decomposing body in her apartment.
Toledo police said the corpse, later identified through dental testing as Kevin Murphy, was beyond recognition.
Police discovered Murphy's body on Aug. 9 when they responded to a call from Murphy's friend, Robert Oberdorf, about searching a house in south Toledo.
"My daughter considered him an uncle, my wife considered him family, my family considered him family," Oberdorf said of Murphy, his friend for 36 years.
But Oberdorf said hadn't heard from Murphy in almost two weeks and "had a feeling in my stomach that something was wrong."
He spent the next few weeks looking for Murphy and received a tip he may be at an apartment duplex with Torres on Wayne Street, next to where Airport Highway turns into Western Avenue. Oberdorf said the apartment was his last known address.
"Something to do with this property was a part of Kevin's disappearance," Oberdorf said he told police.
So, they knocked on different doors and looked for Torres' place.
Police asked a neighbor if he knew where Torres lived. The neighbor responded she was in the upstairs unit. When police knocked on the door, no one answered. So, they called the landlord who came and let the officers in. Police wouldn't let Oberdorf enter, but he smelled something from outside.
"It was just horrific," Oberdorf said describing what he smelled. "It wasn't anything I had ever smelled before."
They found Torres in one of the rooms of the apartment. According to the police report, they found a body in another room. They arrested Torres, but at the time of discovery could not confirm the body was Murphy.
"What I was told, he was decomposed that bad that they couldn't identify the body," Oberdorf said.
But since the day Murphy's body was confirmed, Oberdorf said his family and everyone who knew him miss him dearly.
"He'll forever have a hot cup of coffee here and he'll forever have a Christmas stocking in my house," Oberdorf said. "It will be filled with candy and my kids will always love him. I want the world to know that we lost a good human being that day."
There are still a lot of unanswered questions. The family is still waiting for the coroner's report and hopes that it will tell them what exactly led to the death.
Torres has an arraignment hearing in court on Dec. 12.