Barbara Watters, 67, informed police arriving on a wellness check that her husband Paul Barton had Lou Gehrig’s disease, a progressive and fatal neuromuscular disease. She feared that doctors would try to harvest his brain for research, and thus kept police and social workers from entering her home while he was alive, then froze his body in a freezer in their bedroom after his death. The police and social workers, meanwhile, received reports that she was denying him care.
“She kept making mention of Paul’s body being used for research,” a report from one such wellness check said. “She said they did not want his body to be taken apart. Barbara said due to them refusing to consent to research, they were having a hard time finding a doctor to help them.”
Joplin Police Captain Nick Jimenez said there was no evidence that Watters’ fears were accurate, and in a police report accessed by The Associated Press has said that Watters has unspecified “mental disorders” and was known to carry firearms.
In 2018 during a wellness check, Watters said that she fired one of Barton’s previous doctors, alleging the doctor had committed medical malpractice and was in danger of violating federal criminal law.
Among other incidents,Watters came into conflict with a homeless woman whom she told police had been hired to care for Barton in October 2018.
The woman alleged that Watters would leave Barton on the toilet for 12 hours at a time, called him a child molester, and removed the only means of communication he had as a form of punishment.
Watters, who is being held on house arrest, is being charged with abandonment of a corpse, which is punishable in Missouri by up to four years in prison.
An anonymous witness informed police that Barton’s body was in the freezer on November 5, while they were in the neighborhood investigating an unrelated fire. They also told police that Barton died on December 30, 2018, and that Watters threatened to kill them if they told the police. A later autopsy showed that no foul play was involved in his death.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is barred from confirming or discussing investigations, said Jessica Bax, the agency’s director of the division of senior and disability services, to the Associated Press.
