By The newspaper
01 Nov 2023, 1:30 PM EDT
A couple who moved into a home in Alabama discovered the body of a 19-year-old man in a refrigerator in the yard.
Lane Keith and his wife would have just bought the property in Bradford Drive, Headland, when they stumbled upon the macabre discovery.
Prior to the move, the landlord told the couple that they had to clean the space after the previous tenants left. To that end, they arrived at the home on Sunday to clear the unit. Shortly before noon, they discovered the human remains.
“The refrigerator was going to be the last thing we were going to move from the yard, and when we went to move it, we couldn’t,” Keith told news channel WDHN.
“So my wife took the lids off the freezer, moved the tarp back and the cardboard boxes and there lay a hand,” the man added.
In connection with the crime, agents with the Henry County Sheriff’s Office arrested Michael Shane Halstead, 44, and Karen Tysinger Halstead, 42, in the city of Jack, in the same state.
The couple are the parents of the victim, who suffered from special needs.
At the moment, and according to PEOPLE’s report, both are in custody at the Henry County Jail. They face charges of abuse of a corpse.
The cause and manner of death have not been revealed, pending the results of an autopsy.
According to the information handled by the authorities, the body had been in the container since the end of August. The owner sold the residence to the Keiths in September.
Henry County Sheriff Eric Blankenship indicated that the defendants’ minor children, 13-year-old twins, are in the custody of the Alabama Department of Human Resources.
Blankenship added that depending on the results of the forensic examinations, the parents could face additional murder charges.