Woman Stuffs Roommate's Body In Trash Can: Sheriff

BRADENTON, FL — A 48-year-old woman was arrested after a body was found stuffed in a trash can at Windmill Manor Mobile Home Park in Bradenton Tuesday, Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said.

In July, Michelle Haney, a resident of the mobile home park at the time, came home to discover her roommate, 39-year-old Jon Christopher Leonard, had died, Sheriff Rick Wells said at a Wednesday press conference. An autopsy showed that Leonard died of natural causes, Wells said.

“Instead of doing the right thing, instead of calling law enforcement or EMS, she decided she would just leave him on the bed for several days,” Wells said.

From there, she moved Leonard’s body into the closet for three weeks before purchasing a trash can to store his body in her yard “like a piece of garbage,” Wells said.

During this time, Haney used the $1,200 that Leonard received monthly through Social Security, the sheriff said. The money was downloaded to his Social Security debit card, to which which she had access. Wells estimates that Haney used Leonard’s card for at least five months.

When she was forced to move out of the mobile home in September, she asked her neighbor to store the trash can under his covered porch, Wells said. She told him that clothes, dishes and other personal items were in the trash can and she would pick it up in a few weeks, but she never returned, Wells said.

On Tuesday, the neighbor decided to empty the trash can and put the items on the side of the road, the sheriff said. That’s when he noticed a foul smell coming from the trash can and discovered Leonard’s body. He contacted the sheriff's office around 12:38 p.m.

Haney was arrested and charged with abuse of a dead human body. Wells said she also will be charged with defrauding Social Security and falsifying the personal identification of a dead person.

Like what you're reading? Invite a friend to subscribe to free Bradenton newsletters and real-time email alerts.

“It’s just unconscionable to me that she could have done this, and it’s a sad day when you treat someone like a piece of trash when he deserved a proper burial, when he deserved to have his family with him and to mourn,” he said.

Though Leonard didn’t live with his family, he was in contact with them regularly, Wells said. When he stopped contacting them, his ex-wife reached out to the Bradenton Police Department in October, the sheriff said.

Anyone with additional information about this case is asked to call the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office at 941-747-3011.