Legacy MattersBeing a huge fan of mystery stories, I've toyed from time to time with ideas for writing my own. To plot a murder, you have to figure out the means - I've always favored poison - and a way of disposing of the body - far more difficult. Somehow I never could figure out the body disposal part.
Neither could Geraldine Kelly after shooting her husband in the head. Thirteen years ago, she killed her husband in Ventura, California, and stored his body in a freezer sealed in duct tape. Seven years later, when she decided to move back home, she had Allied Van Lines pick up the freezer with the body inside and move it across the country to another local storage facility in Somerville, MA. On her deathbed, she confessed to her daughter before dying on November 12 of breast cancer.
This gruesome deathbed confession opened up even more secrets. John Kelly had fled to California with his wife to escape indictment for murder after a brawl at a family wedding reception in 1981. Their children were estranged from both parents because of their incessant fighting and violence. Geraldine apparently killed her husband after such an episode. She told her children and his family that he had died in an auto accident. Massachusetts police have tentatively identified the mummified body based on tattoos of a panther, a Kewpie doll, and a skull.
She was described as tough as nails and often scared guests to the California motel she managed because she liked to drape a snake around her neck. Imagine her last conversation with her daughter. How could she find the words. How could Geraldine Kelly, God rest her soul, keep paying those storage bills month after month.
Posted by Jill Fallon at November 20, 2004 10:49 AM | Permalink