Cottage #4: Mummified Body in Bathtub

There are people that enter in our lives and for some reason become like family who are there for every big event and holiday. In my family it was Audrey. Audrey was like a Grandmother that I never knew and was around every Thanksgiving and Christmas for the family’s party. She made sure that all the grandchildren got a dollar or two, wrapped around a candy cane. For April, it was Ronald.

After April and her sister moved out of the house on the corner, their Mother decided to downsize into a smaller place. She found a two bedroom cottage on a one acre lot a few blocks away from the house they were renting. This lot also had three other cottages that were rented out to others. One of the renters was Ronald. After a few months of living in the cottage, April’s mother heard a quiet knock at the door. She opened the door a saw this tall, thin, unassuming man, with scruffy beard standing there. He told her that his name was Ronald and he lived in cottage 4. After that initial meeting, Ronald came over many mornings having coffee, muffins or some other breakfast meal. Their conversations were of general subjects, never anything personal. Ronald never like talking about his personal life, especially any male companions that have been in his life or any he may be seeing at the time. He always came to her mother’s cottage and never invited her over to visit his. She never questioned why nor had any reason to suspect anything wrong. Even with that, they still had a special friendship. April and her sister got used to seeing Ronald at their mother’s place every time they came to visit. He was like an uncle to them. On Christmas morning, the girls would sleep in the spare room while Ronald slept on the couch. This friendship was strong for over two years.

One day, out of the blue, Ronald asked April, her mother and sister to start calling him Harry. He explained that it was his middle name and most people know him by that name. They thought it was an odd request for him to make since they have known him as Ronald for over two years. They told him that they would continue calling him Ronald because changing things now would be just plain weird. Shortly afterwards, Ronald started displaying very odd behavior and finally just disappeared without a trace.

April’s mother moved months later without ever knowing what happened. One evening she got a visit from the local police asking questions about Harry. She was worried and wanted to know if he was alright or if he did something wrong. They needed to know any information Harry may have told her because he was a person of interest in an investigation. She mentioned that she referred to him as Ronald and that he never talked about his personal life. She also told them that she never was in his cottage. She gave them as much information as she could remember with some questions of her own. Why the police was interested in Ronald or rather Harry?

In February of 2008, the Phoenix police responded to a call to the address of Ronald’s cottage. The owners were in cottage #4 to clean it out and found a mummified body in the bathtub. They rented this cottage out to an adult male in 1995. They received regular rent payments from 1995 to the summer of 2007, when the payment suddenly stopped. After briefly visiting the cottage and finding it abandoned, they did nothing at that time thinking that the owner would return for his things. They never entered the premises at that time either. But after not receiving any payments after that, they went in the cottage to inspect its conditions. They found it to be stacked from floor to ceiling with trash, personal items and was in extremely deplorable conditions. With the assistance of others, the owners started removing the trash. When they reached the bathtub, they found it covered with plywood and plastic. When they removed the wood and plastic, they found it filled with dirt and sand. As soon as they started removing the dirt, a human leg was exposed and the police were called.

The entire bathtub was removed along with the mummified body and dirt. Upon examination they found that the person buried in the tub had been dead for a number of years and they labeled the death as “unknown”. They are not positive that the body is of the original renter, Ronald, or if it could be someone else. Harry apparently took over Ronald's identity, cashed his checks and lived with his dead body for years. There are so many questions such as, how did they know each other and how did Ronald, or whoever that body belonged to, die? Was he murdered or just died of natural causes? Harry is only a person of interest at this time, with his whereabouts still unknown to this day.

This story was all over the local news in Phoenix and around the world. Because the case is still unsolved, the names of Ronald and Harry have been changed for that reason.

Above is an artist drawing of what Harry looked like.

~~Julie~~