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SALEM TWP. -- A few days after a Salem Township resident died of apparent natural causes on Dec. 31, his wife's body was found in a camper on the farm property -- about six years after she died.
According to Columbiana County Sheriff Brian McLaughlin, Robert Rea, 70, Salem Grange Road, had been living in the trailer with his deceased wife since she passed in 2017, per their son, John, who told McLaughlin and deputies on Jan. 2 that she was there.
"I was surprised how intact she was. I was expecting bones," McLaughlin said Tuesday.
In all his years in law enforcement, he's never had to deal with a case like this before. An investigation is ongoing, but at this point, no charges have been filed and when asked, he was not sure what charges, if any, would be filed.
According to preliminary findings by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office, he said both Robert Rea and his wife Peggy, both born in 1953, died of natural causes.
"We'll get everything together and go to the prosecutor," McLaughlin said.
The series of events began on New Year's Eve when Robert Rea's son, John, called about his dad needing medical attention at their house on Salem Grange Road, Salem. An ambulance responded and he died, with the sheriff's office contacted regarding a natural death.
A couple days later, on Jan. 2, the son, John, showed up at the sheriff's office and said his mom was deceased in the camper on the property and had died in 2017, explaining that his dad had been living in the camper with her.
Sure enough, they went to the property which includes some 41 acres and found the camper near a barn at the back of the property. Inside they found the remains of Peggy, unclothed and wrapped in a blanket.
According to McLaughlin, he was told by the son that his parents were devout Quakers and believed a husband and wife needed to be buried together.
He said both the son and another relative lived in the house on the Salem Grange Road property, which is near Conkle Road, and allegedly knew about Peggy. The address McLaughlin gave was 34718 Salem Grange Road.
When asked how she could have been gone all this time with no one questioning what happened to her or where she was, McLaughlin said the sheriff's office did receive a call for a welfare check on her, but the responding deputy was told she moved to Florida. He couldn't recall the date of the report.
McLaughlin also didn't know of any other reports for that property.
The case remains under investigation.