[slow jazz music playing]
[Frank] Some of the people in Wyalusing would prefer
not to talk about Jean Stevens.
Those neighbors knew. Nobody ever came forward.
[David] People didn't call the police.
They would handle things on their own.
[Al] But there was always local rumors around.
People would say, "Ah-ha, Jean's wandering the graveyard."
[David] We had rumblings that an old lady was digging up bodies.
My brother Cecil, he's seen her digging again.
What is going on here in Wyalusing?
Everybody has dark secrets.
[theme music playing]
[theme music ends]
[upbeat music playing]
[Mike] Wyalusing, Pennsylvania is part of the Endless Mountains.
It's very rural.
[Kate] Living in this rural community of Wyalusing,
you can accomplish things
that you couldn't do in the big city.
The rural area of Bradford County is beautiful.
It's wide open.
You don't have many neighbors around.
A lot of activities go on up here
that you would never know existed.
We were hearing these things periodically.
Naturally, we just thought,
"Eh, welcome to Bradford County."
But the truth is, it was true.
And the truth is, there were people in Wyalusing that knew.
They knew about this.
And nobody came forward.
[waitress speaking]
I would love a piece of your pumpkin cheesecake.
It looks fabulous.
Good, yeah. I'm full of [bleep].
But, yeah, it's going, yeah, you know,
it's going great.
My name's Tom Carman,
and I was a former Bradford County coroner.
Jean Stevens and the friendship that we developed.
View her how you want, but Jean Stevens,
I'm telling you, was witty, creative,
manipulative, crafty, charming.
It was very-- thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. That looks delicious.
Thank you.
Jean had a twin sister, June.
Jean had this sweet grandma persona.
She was more reserved.
June, she was more classy.
So they're very different people,
but they were very close, as twins are.
Jean had made a promise to her sister
that she would never, ever leave her.
Jean and June, they married brothers.
Jean and Jimmy were very young sweethearts.
Two twins marrying brothers,
none of which could have children.
There was this bond.
"Last of the Mohicans," so to speak.
[Kate] This is the old Stevens family farmhouse
What a happy place this was for the family.
They had many happy memories there.
[Beth] Let me give you the layout of the property
that Jean and June had in Wyalusing.
Jean lived in a more humble home than June's summer home,
which was less than a mile down the street.
And 120 acres of property.
From the outside, these two sisters appear to be
as normal as can be.
But it seems that Jean was a bit peculiar.
[Tom] Jean was weird.
Jean and her husband, Jimmy, were going on vacation.
But before she would go to Florida,
she wanted to see her mother.
Sounds good, right?
Only one problem. Her mother's dead.
In the ground, buried.
Jean told me they actually dug up and saw her mother.
So then, after literally seeing her mother in the grave,
they take off for Florida, and they go on their vacation.
[David] We had rumblings through the grapevine
and the rumor mills that there was an old lady
that was digging up bodies up in the Wyalusing Township area.
My name's David Pelachick.
I was a criminal investigator
with the Pennsylvania State Police in Towanda.
No one came forward to give us any additional information.
People didn't call the police.
They would handle things on their own,
or things went unnoticed.
About a year before the case actually broke open,
we thought it was just someone making up stories at that time.
And sure enough, we get the call.
It says, "There's someone by the name of Jean Stevens.
Check on her."
So I got in the car and came up to her house.
A little old lady came to the door
and asked if she could help us.
I said, "Mrs. Stevens, I'm Trooper Pelachick.
We're just here to check on you, say, make sure things are OK."
And she said, "Well, sure they're OK."
Offered us something to eat and drink, and we're like,
"Well, I think we're gonna pass on that, no offense--"
"Well, I know why."
I'm like, "OK."
I said, "Does anyone live here with you?"
And she goes, "Live here? No."
All right, here comes the follow up.
"Is anyone staying with you?"
She goes, "Oh, yes, my sister
"is, uh, in the living room right now.
She's on the couch."
Um, sure enough, there was a couch, and her sister, June,
was laying on the couch, looked like she had a wig on.
I remember lipstick being on her.
I said, "Can you tell me why she's here?"
And she goes, "Well, listen, I like talking to her.
"She's my twin sister.
I've been with her my entire life."
And I said, "OK, I can kind of understand this."
[Beth] There's a reason he's asking a lot of questions.
At first glance, it may not seem odd that Jean is
entertaining her sister, until you realize
that her sister has been dead for several months.
When we went back to the car, we called back the station,
said that we were gonna need the coroner,
and the crime supervisor, Corporal Ogden, to come up,
that we had a situation that needs to be addressed.
[tense violin music playing]
[Al] I had always heard, truth is stranger than fiction.
And here was the case
that truth is stranger than fiction.
I don't think we ever had an incident like this.
My name is Al Ogden.
I'm a retired Pennsylvania State Police Criminal Investigator.
Working in this area,
there's some crazy stories
and conspiracy theories,
you know, running around locally.
Ah-ha, Jean, somebody saw her with a shovel.
It had been years that we'd been hearing rumors like that.
Yeah, this was-- this was the bizarre one.
Tom Carman, who was the coroner at the time,
and I went down to Jean's house.
The interior of the house was immaculate.
It was spotless.
It was like it got to the '50s and stopped.
You know, the ceramic top tables and the counters
and the old appliances, and then, like I said,
the way she was dressed and everything.
She says, "Hi, guys, how you doing? Come on in."
Just as friendly as anything.
And there's a plate of fresh-baked
chocolate chip cookies on the counter.
"Help yourself to some cookies, come over, have a seat."
When I went out there, I'm thinking,
"This poor lady, she is crazy."
Within two minutes, I knew this lady was just sharp,
if not sharper than me.
Jean, there wasn't anything else she was exhibiting
that showed she was slipping mentally.
Al, he poses the question,
"And Jean, is it true that your sister is-- is here?"
And Jean says,
"Well, yes. Would you like to meet her?"
Al says-- I'll never forget it.
Classic Al. I'll never forget it, he says,
"As a matter of fact, I would."
She jumped up from the table,
led us back through the house,
and there was her sister laying on the couch.
"Here she is."
Just, matter of fact.
[ominous tones playing]
[Tom] And the reality is...
she got a dead body in the house.
[tense music builds]
I mean, who the hell keeps a dead body in their house?
Holy [bleep]!
We ain't in Kansas no more, buddy.
June's a hot mess. June passed away in 2009.
You're talking a body that would recently been embalmed.
She's leaking embalming fluid.
The aroma alone, you know, I don't give a crap
how much perfume you put on that thing.
I mean, I'm around bodies all the time,
but, you know, I'm almost gagged.
I gotta tell you, I know we're talking about death,
but this pie is delicious.
Primo, Primo.
We've got June there,
and we're back at the table talking.
I said, "Jean..." I said,
"I've been hearing for years that Jimmy's here."
"Oh, yeah, he's here, too."
You know, knock you over with a feather.
"Oh, is he here in the house?"
"Oh, no, he's across the road in the garage."
I said, "Well, can we go see him too?"
She's like, "Yeah, come on!"
And she grabbed a remote for the garage door opener,
and out we went across the street.
Jean's garage is just on the opposite side
of the dirt township road that kind of splits
her property there.
We go out of the garage. Jean lifts the garage door.
Here's this rolled-up carpet on the left.
[Al] Tom and I are like, "Can you believe this?"
"You ever seen this before?" "No, have you?"
"No." This is a first for both of us.
And there was quite a bit of stuff stacked on top of him.
And we dug down until we got to his body.
[Tom] Jimmy died in 1999.
I posed the question to Jean.
June's in the house. She's on the sofa, all comfy.
Jimmy's all rolled-up on a piece of carpet
for crying out loud, out in the garage,
what's up with that?
She said...
"Well, I love June more."
Man! Wow!
I mean, and he's been dead a long time,
so he's mummified, so to speak.
I mean, yeah.
But much better than June.
Now, I don't know whether to laugh, cry,
[bleep] myself, or what to do, you know what I mean?
I mean, now we got two bodies, and I'm immediately thinking,
"How many bodies has this lady got here?"
[tense music playing]
[Bob] My brother Cecil, he lives right next to me.
He was coming home from work when he seen her digging again.
She dug him up one time, put a new sweater on him, and...
always something going on, so easy just to ignore 'em.
[Mike] People are hiding deep, dark secrets up there,
I think it's just the way of life.
[ominous violin tones playing]
There was a man that was dead, and he sat in this chair.
He had his own chair, just sat there watching TV.
[laughs]
Everyone knew. This wasn't a rumor.
They knew it. It was a fact.
And no one was doing anything. Why not?
I don't know what is going on here
in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania.
And why on earth did she want those bodies in the first place?
And what did she do with them while they were there?
I've never seen anything like this case.
Jean told me, leaving that garage, that she created
her own private supper club.
[happy violin music playing]
There was a sofa, which is where June laid.
Jean, she would go in, hourly,
and speak with June.
Caring for her. She had placed a wig on June.
She would spray June with high-end cologne.
She's drinking tea. She's drinking coffee.
You know, "Here's some donuts."
"Did you see today's paper, June?"
You cannot live with a corpse in your house.
I'm sorry.
You've got relatives who sat there and had dinner
with two corpses, right?
This is a fact.
My name is Kate Prager,
and I was a life partner
with Doron Antrim, and Jean is Doron's aunt.
This is a photograph of the farmhouse
that Doron loved so much.
A short distance from where Jean's little cottage was.
Jean must have invited us for a visit.
She said, "Do you want to see June?"
We looked at each other and... "Sure."
She fixed us tea, and we went through the house,
and there was Jimmy and June looking beautiful,
as best she could.
Her skin was still intact, and she had makeup on
and was still wearing her dress
that she had been laid out in the viewing.
Jean was quite forthcoming about Jimmy,
that his ears were starting to come off.
But, [chuckles], you know, that part of the memory
is still pretty vivid about sitting around
her little table drinking tea that afternoon.
This was our dear Aunt Jean,
and, um, she's a little unusual.
Why would somebody tolerate this?
"Oh, it's my old Aunt Jean. She's a little eccentric."
Eccentric? Are you kidding me?
If there was a corpse or two inside a house
anywhere near me, I am not gonna sit back
and have a cup of tea.
I mean, this is not healthy.
You have decomposing bodies in close proximity to you.
I don't think you could get away with this in my town.
[upbeat classical music playing]
So ultimately, June and Jimmy,
they're taken from Jean's property.
I transport them to my office
and put them in refrigeration at the morgue.
She had asked, "Well, can they stay home?"
And Tom's like, "No, Jean, they're with me at least
for a while till we figure out what's going on."
And she kind of got a little quiver in her lip
and maybe started to tear up just a bit.
You could tell Jean "No,"
but she was not gonna accept no as an answer.
And she just had a manipulative side to her,
you could almost say.
Tom Carman, as he is holding onto the bodies,
and the prosecutors are deciding,
what do we do with this?
What do we charge a 91-year-old woman with?
I'm Daniel Barrett.
I was district attorney of Bradford County in 2010.
In terms of a health code violation, it was there.
It just didn't seem to be something where taking money
from Mrs. Stevens was gonna solve anything
or make anything better.
So we decided no prosecution would be done.
[Al] They decided it's just--
the juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze.
[Beth] But here's the thing.
People not only knew about the bodies in the house
with Jean and didn't report it, some also participated.
And she'd been trying to get at bodies for more than a decade.
[Tom] In 1999, Jean's husband Jimmy died,
and he's buried in the Lime Hill Cemetery.
Jean decided that that was not a good place for Jimmy,
that he should be home. Jean, she is claustrophobic.
When it comes to being buried, closed spaces, no, no, no,
Jean didn't like that.
So Jean, she starts talking to people.
So she actually went through the legal process,
got an exhumation order.
[Beth] Generally in Pennsylvania, a family member can petition
the court for an order to exhume a relative.
[Tom] But here's where it gets more interesting.
Now Jean wants to open the casket.
Jean puts a beanie on Jimmy's head
and puts slippers on his feet
to keep him warm.
[Mike] That tells me that she had this level of shrewdness
about her, that she was able to come up with this bizarre,
crazy plan and execute on the plan,
especially at her age.
It was just amazing to me.
You know, they finally got her away from the casket
and then reinterred him.
Put nothing but dirt over top of him.
[Tom] At that very moment, in Jean's head,
she knew exactly what she was gonna do, right?
All the heavy rocks are gone.
Now it's an easy dig, an easy removal.
[Beth] Look, she's a 91-year-old woman.
People say, "Oh, she's just a sweet, old lady
who was lonely."
But you could also be manipulative,
because she didn't get those bodies
into her house by herself.
[Tom] So, days later, Jean and a group of individuals,
they dig him up.
[Al] They got him up out of the grave site,
loaded him in the back of Jean's station wagon.
You know, "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation,"
that's what she had.
Drove home, got him out of the station wagon,
and there he was.
And when I asked, "Jean, who were these people?"
"Ah, don't worry about it,
they're all dead now," she says.
I mean, it is illegal conduct.
The laws on the book say you have to deal with a corpse
in a certain way.
Why are these people helping her?
And then ten years later, she buried her sister
on her own property, which is allowed in Pennsylvania.
[Kate] I'm pretty sure she wanted her not in a public cemetery,
but a private place so she could get at the coffin
underground and retrieve June and keep her in her house.
Doron helped with the local regulations to get her property
designated as a cemetery
so that she could be placed on her property.
I'm pretty sure that Doron was cognizant of Jean's intentions.
So, October 2009, Jean started to dig June up.
A neighbor saw what she was doing.
He naturally pitches in to help.
They took June into the house on a sled,
where then she was placed on the sofa.
[Beth] She convinced her neighbor, Jim Flanagan,
to carry her inside.
You can't make this stuff up.
I mean, he could have told the police, right?
He said, "Oh"-- he didn't want her to get hurt.
"I'm gonna help her."
You're gonna help her disinter her sister's body
and bring her body in the house?
Like, what makes you think that is OK to do
and not get this woman some help, maybe?
[Al] We talked to Jim.
He was like, "I know it's wrong.
"I didn't want to do it.
"I put Jean off, and she kept asking and kept asking
"and kept asking and kept asking and kept after me...
till I finally just gave up. OK, Jean, I'll help you."
[David] Regarding Mr. Flanagan's involvement in it,
it was quite clear it was out of not just sympathy,
but out of protection for Mrs. Stevens.
It didn't seem appropriate or useful to prosecute
Mr. Flanagan in this situation.
[Mary Ann] Jim, the man who did the grave digging,
he was my neighbor.
- I am Mary Ann Raffin. - And I am Jeff Smith.
So I was really shocked to hear that Jim would do that,
but he was such a nice guy, I could understand
why he would do it for her. - It didn't hurt anyone.
I actually wish they just could have left her alone.
I knew her husband was dead.
I don't see anything wrong with having somebody in your house.
Everybody has dark secrets.
In Bradford County,
a lot of us feel as if we can do what we want.
[Beth] We know a lot of people in town knew
there were two corpses.
They also participated.
So nothing really makes sense to me
unless there is some ulterior motive.
[tense tones playing]
[Mike] It's very possible that other than Jean
and the person who dug up the bodies, nobody knew.
But it's also possible that the neighbors
who cared for her did know.
[Beth] How was Jean able to pull this off for so long?
There are people who helped her
with the bodies in the community.
They knew she had corpses in her house.
So she had her supporters, but why?
My name's Bob Johnson.
You can't make this [bleep] up, you know.
It's-- it's there.
What's real weird is thinking you could find
somebody to help you.
Jean's across-the-street neighbors,
they had been longtime friends with Jean.
[Bob] He runs the township,
and his wife was secretary.
They've done one hell of a good job.
They put a lot of their time into it, you know.
Her neighbors across the street, they were
taking care of her, helping her with her lawn work,
maybe doing errands for her.
I mean, what does that tell you?
Possibly? They knew it.
Who wouldn't report that a little old lady
has corpses in her house?
Maybe did they say, "I'm gonna call the police.
This is not right."
And she's like, "Hang on. Hang on, I'll make you a deal."
June and Jimmy are now at the morgue, OK?
And she kept wanting to come
to the coroner's office to see them.
And I kept on explaining to her, I can't do that, Jean.
Then it became, "I'm going to bring you some clothes.
Can you please make sure Jimmy and June are dressed in them?"
So, sure enough, here's two duffel bags.
So in keeping my word to Jean, I had dressed Jimmy
in the pajamas that Jean had provided.
A horrific job. Huh!
The aroma was horrible.
With June, it was the same thing.
I put a fresh nightgown.
She says, "Will you talk to them?"
I said, "Jean, I promise you I will talk to them."
[Beth] Tom Carman is putting his job at risk, right?
And why would he do that? He's a civil servant.
He's got to obey the law.
I'd bring somebody in off the streets, right?
Car crash, home, whatever.
Bring them in off the streets and put them into the morgue.
It got to the point where I would say,
"Hey, June, Jimmy, this is so and so.
So and so, June and Jimmy." I thought I was going crazy.
Maybe I am, I don't know.
I felt an obligation to Jean to honor all her wishes.
I cared about her as a now-friend, and...
I didn't want her haunting me.
Imagine being the spouse of this crash victim who died
and whose body's in the coroner's office.
And he calls up the spouse of the crash victim and says,
"Well, I'm gonna have a party
"with a couple other corpses here.
"Can I use your husband's corpse too?
Can he come to the party?"
I don't care what kind of influence
this woman has on you.
You do not do that. Unless it's a big "influence."
[Mike] Starting in around 2007, the natural gas industry
had discovered this part of Pennsylvania has an enormous
reserve of natural gas.
It's like the Saudi Arabia of natural gases.
And so the gas industry, they were approaching
landowners and having them sign leases,
giving the gas industry permission to drill
underneath their land and get the gas out.
The house that Jean Stevens lived in
was on a larger piece of ground, and...
You know, if you had ten acres and they wanted to put
a well pad on it,
your ten acres is worth a gold mine.
We came to learn that Jean's property was undergirded.
With mineral rights, there was this oil deposit there,
so that's quite valuable property
that this farmhouse sits on.
It is a gold mine. It was.
[David] She had made a comment when we were there
that she was getting some phone calls
from people that she didn't know,
and they wanted to buy land off of her.
Very elderly woman, lives by herself,
has no one else, is sitting on a gold mine,
and it seems like people know that,
and they're trying to get their claws into it somehow.
[Beth] It doesn't take a rocket scientist to make the leap
that, you know, maybe somebody has thought,
"Well, you know, I'd like those mineral rights,
I'd like those houses."
And work their way into her life.
It happens all the time.
[Al] There was no relatives. She was the last one.
Then what happened with that property if she didn't have it
willed or deeded somehow to somebody?
It could be very much like vultures circling.
The predators are circling the prey.
[Beth] Oh, my God. I get it now.
And let me explain.
Jean and June didn't have children.
Jean is gonna die soon, and she doesn't have
a direct descendant who would inherit her estate,
which is probably worth at least $2 million.
We're talking about her personal property,
mineral rights on the property.
I mean, that's what is probably motivating these people
to tolerate her eccentric, illegal behavior
because they can get something out of that.
OK, so let's break it down-- one...
Kate and her partner, Jean's nephew,
knew about the bodies and even had tea
while June was in the room.
[Kate] Jean was the last of the Stevens,
and Doron would have loved to keep the farm in the family.
He wanted to claim that house.
I remember him talking with this one attorney
that would allow us to keep Jean's house, but he said,
"I'm kind of concerned that she's just gonna
give it away to a neighbor."
[Beth] So the nephew wanted to inherit her estate.
So maybe that's why there's this tolerance
for auntie's eccentric conduct.
[Kate] And in this discussion with this attorney, he said,
"She is kind of quirky.
"She has her husband in the garage,
rolled up in a blanket."
That's how we suspect that the authorities got wind of it.
[Mike] Jean was very upset at how all of this went down.
She says it was a relative of her husband
who called the authorities.
She told me it was dirty and rotten.
[Beth] If the nephew was in the will before, he's not in it now,
because he's the one who ended up getting Jean reported
to the police, right, by talking to a lawyer?
Jean's like, "Sayonara, nephew."
That makes a lot more sense.
Maybe that's why her neighbors are bringing her groceries
and not saying anything, 'cause maybe
they've got their sights on her estates as well.
Nothing I can prove.
I really don't wanna say too much.
I believe those neighbors knew at least Jimmy
was on that property.
Nobody ever came forward.
[Kate] When June died, the neighbors hosted a luncheon
for us after the funeral.
They were so cordial and gracious, and we thought,
in our naivete, they will surely work with us
and let us keep the farm in the family.
But I think in retrospect, they had another idea.
[Beth] Were Jean's neighbors trying to get in Jean's good graces
because they wanted something out of her, her property?
Then we have Tom Carman, who is going along
with whatever Jean asked of him.
From what I know of Tom Carman,
I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.
If he saw an opportunity to make money
to better himself, he'd do anything.
So Western Alliance, which is a nonprofit EMT agency,
Tom Carman was one of the top people there.
There were allegations that Tom had been taking money
from Western Alliance.
[Beth] The Attorney General's office
concluded Tom Carman had made about $356,000
worth of unauthorized purchases
through his Western Alliance company,
the ambulance company that he was CEO of.
So, you know, you got to wonder if he wasn't willing to bend
the rules a little bit when it came to Jean.
[David] Money talks, [laughs].
It's the root of all evil. People do anything.
She made me promise her I'd write a book about her.
What do I know about writing.
I never took a literacy class in my life, right?
I just barely got through high school.
[Beth] So this is Tom Carman's book.
It's called "My Illusion of Normal: The Peculiar Case
of Jean Stevens."
He says, "This book is dedicated to the memory
"of Jean Lucille Stevens, a loving sister, a good wife,
and a dear friend."
OK, so we possibly know what everybody wanted, right?
The nephew wanted the house.
Jean's neighbors wanted everything.
Maybe Tom Carman wanted money. But what did Jean want?
[Tom] So Jean was convinced
that June and Jimmy could hear her,
that they were present.
There was a time when Jean says to me,
"I'll give you $5,000 if you bring me those bodies back."
I'm standing there, and I'm trying not to laugh.
This lady just tried to bribe me for $5,000.
I said, "Jean, that can't happen."
I mean, she's trying to bribe Tom Carman.
I mean, she was a manipulative woman.
[Al] You got a 91-year-old lady.
Without knowing her, she's as pure as a driven snow.
But Tom and I, we go back and she said,
"Oh man, he's something. He's sweet, I like that guy."
She says, "I gotta brush my teeth.
I gotta have fresh breath before, right?"
Away she goes.
She's brushing her teeth and she's coming back out
and actually smacked her lips.
"Oh, I'm nice and fresh now, boy.
I'm ready to plant one on this guy."
So, I said, "Tom, Jean's got something for you.
She thinks you're all that and a cup of coffee."
Jean says...
"You know...
I always wanted to marry a funeral director."
[Beth] Her flirtation is part of her manipulation,
because she wants those bodies back.
[Al] Jean starts putting the moves on him.
[romantic French music plays]
Jean's on the other end of the table.
Now, here's everybody's grandma, right?
She takes her right leg
and she hikes it up over her left leg
and she grabs that skirt and she pulls it up
to about mid-thigh.
And the tears start running down my face.
I am busting inside.
She left me speechless.
[Beth] She wanted to manipulate someone who knew
how to handle dead bodies, like a funeral director.
So that's why she was flirting with Tom Carman.
[Tom] After making my comment to Jean,
"No, this $5,000 can't happen."
She said, "I want you to know I'll come up
"with something that's gonna work.
"I'm just gonna have a garage built.
And in that garage, I'll put June, I'll put Jimmy."
And I said, "Jean, it's not gonna work.
We have to have something that's sealed."
Long story short,
this garage is built.
Jean wants to show me this garage.
It's got a heater in the corner.
And then there's these eight tables laid out.
Boom, boom, boom.
I said, "Jean, good God, what do you--
what do you do with these tables?"
"Well, this is where June's gonna be.
"This is where Jimmy's gonna be.
"Mom's gonna be here.
"June's husband's gonna be here.
"My grandfather, he's gonna be here.
And, you know, when I die, I'm gonna be here."
She had a master plan that she wanted to reunite
the family all above ground as corpses.
That's what Jean wanted.
[Tom] I'm just standing there. I'm speechless.
Now she's gonna bring the whole gang home, you know?
And I'm like, "Oh, my Lord."
[Tom] This is the most bizarre thing I've ever seen.
We got-- I got eight tables there,
knowing darn well they're intended for dead bodies.
And I said, "Jean, what are you thinking?"
It could be that Jean was just projecting
her own claustrophobia.
She don't wanna be underground.
She doesn't want them underground.
We might as well dig up the rest of the family.
She apparently had this plan dating back
to her young adult years
when she had, like, dug up her mother and visited
with her mother's open casket.
That's what Jean wanted.
Jean had this laid out, the whole plan.
But Jean had fallen at her home
and fractured her hip.
Now, anybody in the medical business knows
that a fractured hip to a geriatric patient,
it's a death sentence, essentially.
I went over to the bedside with Jean, and she says,
"I want to tell you something."
She says, "I'm ready."
"I'm ready to go."
[Beth] Jean Stevens, 2012.
She dies. She's 92 years old.
[Tom] Now, understand, everybody's gone, OK?
I'm left with three dead bodies, June, Jimmy, Jean.
And somehow, I have to come up with some sort
of a logical, legal conclusion.
So, hence came the above-ground "vault"...
[monastic chants]
...where June, Jimmy, Jean are at peace.
Brings back a lot of memories being here.
There were four of us here in the cemetery.
There was a funeral director, two of Jean's neighbors,
and myself.
And I'll never forget.
I placed June here,
Jean here,
and Jimmy here, and the three of them laid out
side-by-side. Jean's wishes were met,
and the story ended...
for Jean.
[Beth] So now Jean's dead.
There's no obituary for her in Wyalusing.
According to Tom Carman-- it's Tom, like, somebody
from the funeral home, funeral director,
and Jean's neighbors, and that's it.
Like, that's weird, right?
That is so disrespectful.
She and her twin sister, June, and her husband,
Jimmy, are now supposedly all placed
in this above-ground cement, like, crypt in the cemetery.
Do you really think that Jean, with her severe claustrophobia,
agreed to be in this chamber?
Maybe they didn't put her in this burial chamber,
and they put her somewhere else.
Is this part of the arrangement?
Disposing of Jean the way she wanted to be disposed of
in death to give the beneficiaries her estate?
[David] Knowing what I know now, I would not be shocked or even
mildly surprised if they ever want to open up those vaults
in the cemetery and find that there's no one there.
I assumed she was in that building,
because that was built before she died.
Maybe Jean is someplace else, not in the crypt.
[Al] Is she there? I think so.
Would I be floored, surprised if she wasn't?
No.
Given everything that's going on in this whole scenario,
I don't think anything about Jean would surprise me anymore.
[Beth] There's nothing in Jean's will
about how she wanted to be interred.
So there is, of course, a chance that she is in there,
but I bet you it would be against her wishes.
So what we have here are Jean's neighbors who own the property
where this mausoleum is for all the bodies.
Jean's neighbors become the beneficiaries of the will.
So she gives all her real estate,
we're talking about 121 acres and the houses, right,
to her neighbors across the street.
The neighbors let Doron know that Jean had passed,
but not that she was failing.
By that time, the will would have been established.
The neighbors probably had their eye on that property.
They didn't want any family to get access to Jean
in her last days that would have had any effect
on the will or what would happen to that property.
It's possible that she could have worked out a deal
with the neighbors that, "If you keep me out of the ground
you can have the farm."
And then Tom Carman, who can take care of the bodies
that are being housed.
Well, we know now that he has embezzled money,
so it doesn't seem to be a big stretch to say,
"Hmm, maybe Tom was in it
for a little money from Jean, too."
So, you know, you got to wonder,
did he go even further when it came to Jean
and the disposal of her remains?
Was the funeral director there to be a witness to the final
resting place of the bodies in the crypt?
And according to the funeral director,
there are no records of the burial.
What-- why not?
What does the funeral director stand to benefit?
They don't have any records at all.
OK.
Weird.
[Tom] The neighbors, I cannot explain their actions,
but you know how something
just doesn't settle right with you in your gut.
It all depends on whether I saw that damn lid go on.
[Tom] Now I'm starting to second-guess myself.
I'm not sure I did.
[Tom] I would be highly pissed if those bodies were
inside that garage.
It's the only thing does stand.
[Beth] Why would they raise her house but keep the mausoleum?
Maybe there's something in the mausoleum
that they're protecting.
[Tom] As I'm sitting back here remembering all this,
the day that I went out to look at this structure,
the neighbor's son, he says, "No photographs."
And I just blew off his statement.
But looking back at that now, what an odd comment to make.
[Beth] We went to the town offices to get permission to go
into the cemetery and use a non-invasive technique
to determine if bodies are in that crypt.
But Jean's neighbors at the town offices
are just not returning our calls.
So, if anybody has any ideas how we can get this done,
we are all ears.