A Wisconsin woman hadn’t seen her neighbor in months. When police made a welfare check to the missing neighbor’s home in Peshtigo, Wis., they said they discovered the woman’s daughter had been keeping her death a secret to collect her mother’s Social Security checks.
Paula Ann Bergold, 60, is charged with two misdemeanors for failure to disclose her mother’s death and felony for hiding a corpse.
Christy Jardine hadn’t seen her neighbor, Ruby Bergold, since about May, according to the criminal complaint filed Monday.
The elderly woman wasn’t responding to the many concerned voice messages Jardine had left. Desperate to know that Ruby Bergold was fine, Jardine started leaving messages with Paula Bergold, who lived down the street from her mother. Ruby Bergold never called Jardine back, according to court documents.
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Paula Bergold finally responded to Jardine’s message when she expressed concern about the woman still being alive. She said her mother was fine and still living in the house. She denied Jardine’s request to see her mother on Sept. 6, claiming that her mother didn’t want to see anyone.
Unconvinced, Jardine called Ruby Bergold’s nephew, who requested that authorities perform a welfare check. Police had responded to two similar calls on Sept. 12 and 13, where they observed several small loose mothballs on the ground, according to the report.
Marinette County Sheriff Jerry Sauve said welfare checks involve looking at a person’s mailbox and noticing what can be seen through windows.
“When officers went they could see mail had been brought in. They weren’t overly suspicious,” he said in a telephone interview with The Washington Post, adding that groceries had even been brought in the house.
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Jardine went to her neighbor’s home on Sept. 12 to chop down weeds, which she regularly did for the elderly woman, and to check around the property, according to the report. Jardine had told authorities that she always knew when the woman was home because she could hear her TV or radio. But this time, she heard nothing.
She yelled into a window, hoping for Ruby Bergold to respond. She heard nothing.
Paula Bergold showed up that day and told Jardine she could discontinue the yard work she had been doing for her mother. Paula Bergold seemed fine with Jardine’s plan to see Ruby Bergold on Sept. 17, but when that day arrived Jardine was greeted with a note at the door that read “Ruby has gone out of town to visit some friends of ours,” signed by Paula Bergold. Jardine called police.
Deputies found more notes taped to a window and doors.
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One of the responding officers caught a faint whiff of decay, an odor his years of training and experience had taught him was from a dead body. The scent was drifting outside, but officers couldn’t trace its origin.
“Anyone that’s been in law enforcement for some time, when you smell that, it stays in your brain, and you can’t get that smell out,” Sauve said. “That smell stays with you.”
The moth balls that were previously seen had deteriorated.
Police continued to investigate the home from the outside, seeing several fresh packets of moth balls set up near each of the entry doors and newer handwritten notes on the counter tops, according to the criminal complaint.
Paula Bergold arrived a short time later, telling deputies that her mom was out of town and declining ways that they could reach her. She gave deputies keys to enter the home but told them her mother would not be there.
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Instead of finding the woman, they found a recliner chair covered with a blanket, large amounts of Borax detergent caked on the carpeted floor and a red-colored walker in front of the recliner, according to the criminal complaint.
Clothes on hangers indicated that someone had not gone on a long trip. The basement had multiple containers of bleach, ammonia and bags of unopened barn lime. The faint odor of decay could be smelled in the basement, according to the report.
Sauve said the cleaning agents can be very effective in getting rid of odor.
Officers photographed the home and later told a detective of their disturbing sightings.
Paula Bergold later admitted to a detective that her mother had died and that her body was in the house.
She said she couldn’t bring herself to call police when she discovered her mother’s dead body in the same reclining chair police saw covered with a blanket.
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When her mother’s decomposing body started smelling, she placed it in a plastic tub and dragged it down to the basement. The medical examiner later confirmed the body to be Ruby Bergold’s based on the serial number of the pacemaker found inside her body, according to court documents.
Paula Bergold, who served as her mother’s power of attorney, confessed that she had been living off her mother’s income of Social Security checks, stocks and dividends from her father’s retirement. Her father had set up a trust for all the money and residences that were controlled by the bank. The money, she said, played a role in her decision not to report her mother’s death, according to court documents.
She made her first appearance via video conference on Monday, where bail was set at $10,000. Her next court appearance will be Oct. 7, according to public records. If she’s found guilty on all three counts, she faces up to 13 years in prison and $36,000 in fines.
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“This is not only a very unusual case for us, it’s a sad case,” Sauve said. “The dignity of the deceased was not honored.”
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