Man is accused of living with the dead body of a relative for days without reporting it, authorities say

CNN
 — 

A 61-year-old Alabama man was arrested after failing to report that he’d been living “for days” with a dead relative in his home, investigators said.

Deputies with the Walker County Sheriff’s Office responded on June 9 to a house in the small town of Sipsey, located 32 miles northwest of Birmingham, following a report of a family member found dead, the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

Leandrew Smith Jr. was charged with abuse of a corpse and was taken to the county jail, where he remained on a $10,000 cash-only bond, according to authorities.

They discovered Smith had been living there without alerting authorities that his relative had died, according to the post.

Walker County Jail authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN.

It is not clear whether Smith has legal representation or how many days the person had been dead in the home.

“Treating a human corpse in a way that would outrage ordinary family sensibilities is a Class C felony,” the sheriff’s office’s Facebook post said.

Investigators are looking into the cause and manner of the person’s death, according to the post.