Feds: Widow Disposed of Husband in Trash, Took His Benefits

Aging Las Vegas woman allegedly hid the fact that her husband had died
By Liz MacGahan,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 26, 2021 3:34 PM CDT
Widow Allegedly Dismembered Husband, Took His Benefits
File photo of a Social Security card.   (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

"There was no ambulance, no hospitalization, no funeral, no burial, and no cremation," states a federal criminal complaint filed in connection with the death of a Pennsylvania man identified only as JPS. The person the complaint does name is the man's wife, Nancy Shedleski. She's accused of dismembering JPS' body after he died of natural causes in 2015 in the basement of their Pittsburgh-area home and then continuing to collect his Social Security checks over the following years, to the tune of $121,000, the AP reports. Shedleski moved to Las Vegas in 2017 and allegedly changed her and her husband’s address with the Social Security Administration after the move. Investigators say Shedleski did tell her family that her husband, who was in his 70s, had died, but there was no funeral.

The SSA got an anonymous tip in 2019 that Shedleski was collecting her late husband’s benefits. The agency reached out to her and she allegedly told them they were living together in an apartment and he was traveling, the AP reports. Investigators grew more suspicious when they saw JPS had not seen a doctor since 2015. Police say Shedleski confessed to having disposed of JPS' remains in the trash and using the Social Security payments for living expenses, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. She was arrested in Las Vegas on Friday on a charge of theft of government money and released until her hearing on Nov. 5. (More Social Security stories.)

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