Old Guy Arrested for Driving Cross Country with His Dead Wife Next to Him
Source – Police say that 70-year-old Rodney Puckett was stopped for a traffic violation when an officer discovered Puckett’s dead 74-year-old wife, Linda, in the passenger seat in Elroy, Arizona on May 13.
Rodney told police that Linda died at a hotel in Texas during the couple’s road trip so moved her corpse into the car and continued towards their destination, notes KNXV.
Ironically, the Sand Springs, Oklahoma couple were issued protective orders against each other on Feb. 6 and Linda filed for divorce on Feb. 8, reports Tulsa World.
Rodney was reported missing in April, but he was in a Kansas jail.
The Pinal County Medical Examiner has Linda’s body and will determine her cause of death, police said.
Rodney was booked into Pinal County Jail for abandonment or concealment of a body, even though the body was neither concealed or abandoned.
“Abandonment?” “Concealment of a body?” If ever there was a case of the cops not having an actual crime to go on, but just deciding they need to charge a guy with … something, this is it.
I mean, what’s a nice guy like Rodney Puckett supposed to do? In his situation, you don’t have time to stop every time you end up with a dead spouse on your trip. There’s a schedule to keep. Theme parks to see. The world’s second largest ball of twine which is only four short hours away. And if you report your wife’s death, you get caught up in a funeral and inquests and all that crap. I’d guess 99 out of 100 husbands would just leave her by the side of the road and the first phone they pass call a relative and he could come get her. All he’d have to do is look for the buzzards. Or at the most, they’d put her on the roof. I bet Linda couldn’t have been more than a hundred pounds. What’s the difference? It’s not like it’s going to rain or anything.
So I’d say Rodney went above and beyond the call of duty. He’s not an ordained minister. He did his best.