When Doris Cumming fell late last year, the 82-year-old might have thought she was lucky to have her grandson living with her so he could help her recover.
Instead, authorities allege that the grandson, 28-year-old Robert Keith Tincher III, wrapped her body in plastic while she was still alive and stuffed her in a freezer, the Associated Press reports.
Now, prosecutors have charged Tincher with murder, aggravated battery, and concealing the death.
Police found Cumming’s body on Thursday at the apartment she had shared with Tincher in Armuchee, Georgia, northwest of Atlanta. Family members thought that Cumming had moved away when they stopped hearing from her; others reported her missing.
But investigators believe that after Cumming fell and became injured in December, Tincher opted to kill her instead of seeking help, even though she was still alive.
Tincher allegedly dragged the elderly woman through the home, wrapped her body in plastic bags, and then put her in a freezer.
“From what we determined, at the time, he believed she was still breathing and had some movement at the time she was going into the freezer,” Floyd County Investigator Brittany Werner said, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
Tincher allegedly “heard and saw numerous bones break” in the process, according to court records obtained by the television station. He “acknowledged her back broke going into the freezer.”
There was no altercation or dispute that provoked the killing, and in fact, Tincher told police that he loved his grandmother.
“He said she was the only family member that gave him the courtesy and love and attention he needed,” Werner told the television station.
The freezer with Cumming’s body would remain in the apartment’s kitchen for months until March, when Tincher moved the freezer elsewhere amid fears that the body might be discovered, according to the AP.
Tincher told investigators that he didn’t seek medical help for his grandmother because at the time she fell, he was wanted by authorities for making terroristic threats against his wife.
An autopsy will be conducted to identify precisely how Cumming died and when that occurred.
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[Feature Photo: Robert Keith Tincher III/ Police Handout
