X-Message-Number: 13348
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 20:18:25 -0500
From: Jan Coetzee <>
Subject: Freezing Roommate

'Shumate faces one to 10 years in prison if she is convicted of
unauthorized removal of a dead
body. She is also charged with destruction or desecration of human
remains, which carries a
maximum penalty of 60 days in jail, Lucas said.'

Woman Charged With Freezing Roommate's Corpse

LADSON, S.C. (APBnews.com) -- A 65-year-old woman is in jail today after
police found the
well-preserved body of her former roommate in a freezer in her garage,
authorities said.

Wynema Faye Shumate has been charged with the unauthorized removal of
James H. O'Neil's
corpse and may be charged with embezzlement. But authorities have not
determined how the
70-year-old man died, and an autopsy will be performed when his body
thaws in a day or two,
according to Charleston County sheriff's spokesman Mitch Lucas.

Shumate told investigators that O'Neil died a year ago of natural
causes, Lucas said. She
allegedly hid his body so she could continue to use his money.

"She couldn't afford to live without his income," Lucas told
APBnews.com.

Shumate cared for O'Neil, who was in poor health and in a wheelchair,
Lucas said.

Daughter became concerned

Authorities became aware that O'Neil was missing after his daughter in
Maine contacted police
in nearby North Charleston in June 1999 to report that she was unable to
find him, Lucas said.
She had not spoken to her father in several years, and the last address
she had for him was in
North Charleston.

Police were led to Shumate after she was photographed using O'Neil's
bank card at an automated
teller machine in North Charleston, Lucas said.

North Charleston police, who first interviewed Shumate in September,
discovered O'Neil's body
by chance Tuesday after they went to her home in this community near
Charleston to investigate
her alleged misuse of the missing man's money, Lucas said.

A 28-year-old man from England, who had become engaged to the
65-year-old Shumate after
meeting her on the Internet, was at her home when police showed up.
Shumate had told the man
that O'Neil's body was in the garage freezer, and he in turn told the
investigators, Lucas said.

They opened the freezer and found O'Neil's well-preserved body inside,
he said.

Dismemberment 'messy and gross'

Shumate told sheriff's investigators that she came home one day in
February 1999 and found
O'Neil dead, Lucas said. She allegedly rented the freezer and used a
medical hoist to put his
body inside. She also apparently set out to cut off his limbs, but gave
up after it became "so
messy and gross."

Lucas said Shumate's British fianc  must have been in shock at what he
encountered shortly after
arriving in South Carolina.

"They had fallen in love over the Internet, and he was coming over here
to be with her," Lucas
told APBnews.com. "The pictures she put on the Internet were 30 years
old, and he gets off the
plane in Charleston, and she's a big old gal. She's 65, and she looks
like she's been 65 for a long
time. Imagine what this guy's thinking about after getting off the plane
and seeing her, and then he
finds out there's a body in her freezer."

Shumate faces one to 10 years in prison if she is convicted of
unauthorized removal of a dead
body. She is also charged with destruction or desecration of human
remains, which carries a
maximum penalty of 60 days in jail, Lucas said.

She is being held in the Charleston County Detention Center on $90,000
bond.

By Richard Zitrin, an APBnews.com national correspondent
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