An 85-year-old's corpse remained rotting in her Queens home until this week. (Representational Image)
A quintessential but tragic New York story goes like this: an elderly person, living alone, passes away and his body isn't found until the stench alerts the neighbors.
The death of Erika Kraus-Breslin included all the requisite components of this story - the 85-year-old died months ago, and her corpse remained rotting in her Queens home until this week.
Only her story contained two small wrinkles. She hasn't been alone. Instead, she's been accompanied by her grandson, 30-year-old Christopher Fuhrer, who is very much alive. And her body wasn't resting peacefully in bed. Instead, it was in 16 trash bags.
For this, Fuhrer was arrested this week on charges of not reporting a death to a health officer, burial/body removal without permit and improper burial, WPIX reported.
Fuhrer moved into his grandmother's two-story house on a tree-lined, dead-end street in Queens many years ago, when she was still alive. Kraus-Breslin had acquired the house when she moved to New York from Germany many decades ago, and she spent the intervening years working at Rudy's Pastry Shop, just a few blocks away.
Fuhrer was considered by neighbors to be quiet and perhaps a little strange.
"He would rarely come out; he would never say hello to the neighbors; we all say hi to each other on this block," one neighbor, Tony Guzzardo, told the New York Post.
Even so, Fuhrer and his grandmother seemed to share a tight bond.
"She loved this kid," Toni Binanti, owner of Rudy's Pastry Shop, told the AP. "Out of all of her grandchildren, this was the one she talked about the most."
In an interview with the New York Post, Binanti said Fuhrer had lived with his grandmother for 10 years, after moving to New York from the Southwest.
"She told me he was living in Arizona but his stepdad was very abusive. He ran away from him and came here," Binanti said. "She loved him to death."
But recently, Kraus-Breslin's health had been in decline. Neighbors had noticed as much, they told CBS, and then about five months ago, they no longer saw her walking around the neighborhood.
"I used to see her when she was healthy once in a while, and then I stop seeing her," one neighbor, Tony Guzzardo, told the station.
They weren't the only ones who lost contact with the ailing woman. Her daughter, Fuhrer's mother, grew concerned after she hadn't heard from Kraus-Breslin for five months. She lives out of state and can't check on her mother herself, so she called the police and asked them to check on Kraus-Breslin.
When they arrived at the house, Fuhrer answered the door and brought them to the second floor.
There, they discovered a gruesome sight that seemed more fitting in a Hitchcock film than real life: the badly decayed body of Kraus-Breslin, wrapped in sixteen layers of black plastic bags.
Fuhrer told the police that he added layers as the smell emanating from the corpse continued to worsen, the Associated Press reported.
A small fan sat spinning in the corner, and the room was filled with air fresheners, which police said was to mask the overwhelming stench of death.
Perhaps most shocking is why Fuhrer kept the body.
He told police that he didn't want to lose the house.
An autopsy is yet to be performed, so her cause of death is unknown, but police told CBS that more charges might be brought once it's completed.
"It's a suspicious death," a police source told the New York Daily News.
Neighbors were appalled.
"She was his escape," Binanti said. "She gave him everything."
"It's heartbreaking, honestly," Lizbeth Gomez told CBS. "I feel so bad. I wish we knew what was going on and maybe we could've helped in any kind of way."
Anita Zale, another neighbor, echoed the sentiment and offered a potential motive.
"It's horrible, horrible" she told the station. "They said it's probably because he wanted to collect the benefits and that's why he kept her."
Police have not stated whether Kraus-Breslin's most recent benefits checks were cashed, and Fuhrer was not arrested on charges of theft.
It is unclear if Fuhrer has a lawyer or if he has entered a plea.
"Last time I saw her - she said, 'Ya know, Christopher keeps me young,'" Binanti said.
© 2016 The Washington Post
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