Illinois wife took EIGHT MONTHS to find mummified corpse of missing husband in closet

An Illinois wife found her husband’s mummified body buried in a closet at their home, eight months after she reported him missing.

Richard Maedge, 53, was first reported missing on April 27, 2022 and police searched the home he shared with his wife, Jennifer, in Troy at least twice to try to find him.

Both times, officers reported smelling a “sewer” odor inside the home, which they described as a “hoarder’s house.”

It wasn’t until December 11, eight months after Richard’s disappearance, that Jennifer stumbled across his body while looking for Christmas decorations, hung in a rarely visited hidden storage area inside a bedroom closet.

Coroners released a report on Thursday indicating that Richard had committed suicide and that his body had passed the stage of decomposition and had become mummified when discovered.

The police coroner said KTVI Mummified bodies do not emit odors, which may have helped Richard remain unnoticed for so long.

The house where Richard Maedge was found in December after going missing in April

Jennifer told Troy police that Richard disappeared on April 27, 2022, after he called her to say he was leaving work early.

When she got home, she found Richard’s car parked out front, and his keys and wallet in the house, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Police began searching for the father of three, initially making a pass through the crowded house.

They reported the bad smell inside, but decided that Richard was not there.

Some time later, Jennifer called the police to report that the odor persisted, and the police searched the house a second time, but found nothing.

Eventually, Jennifer contacted a plumber about the smell, who visited the home and said it smelled like sewer gas, according to KTVI.

The plumber plugged one of the sewer pipes in the house, and Jennifer reported that the odor had subsided.

A lost Richard Maedge poster. He was reported missing in April 2022.

Richard was a father of three. Police said he killed himself in a closet at his his in Troy, Illinois

Jennifer Maedge thanked the police for their efforts in trying to locate her husband, who was in her closet

Jennifer finally discovered Richard on December 11, telling police she found his body while searching for a bag full of Christmas decorations.

Police said the closet Richard was eventually found in was in a hidden location in the house.

“I decided to put up the Christmas tree, and I was looking for a bag of Christmas decorations, and that’s when I discovered it,” Jennifer told the outlet. Belleville-Democrat News.

Richard’s sister, Marilyn Toliver, spoke out against the police department, saying they could have done more to find him.

In response, Troy police released an exhaustive list of the steps they took to find Richard, which included extensive searches of the surrounding property.

Jennifer, however, thanked the police for their work.

“Even though we didn’t want the result that we had, it’s still a result that we can put to rest,” he told Fox 2.

She added that she felt as if her husband’s ‘presence’ was close to her while he was missing.

Police said they suspect foul play was involved in Richard’s death.

“No other injuries were found during the autopsy examination or evidence to indicate anything grim in regards to Mr. Maedge’s death,” the coroner said.