Man caught living with dead roommate for years and stealing his identity

A 57-year-old American man, David Pirtle, has been accused of living with his dead roommate for four years before the police discovered the body at their house in Chico, California.

His roommate, Kevin Olson, 64, reportedly died in 2018, but Pritle did not inform his family of his death. Olson's relatives approached the police after they stopped getting any communication from him.

His relatives told police they had been trying to contact him since 2018, but Pirtle "gave various excuses as to Olson's absences." First, a police officer contacted Pirtle, but he told police that Olson was "out of town."

The police finally went to his house with a search warrant on September 21 this year. The officers were horrified to find a decomposing body in the back bedroom of the house. Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said it is believed that he died in late 2018.

"Based upon the financial records and the condition of the body, Ramsey said it is believed that Olson died in late 2018." An autopsy to determine the cause of death has not been conducted yet, according to a report in The Mirror.

Meanwhile, Pirtle has been charged with identity theft and multiple counts of forgery for writing checks from the bank account of his deceased roommate.

The detectives found that Olson's mortgage was still being paid and approximately 50 checks were written to Pirtle from Olson's name and bank account. A comparison of checks later revealed that the checks were not written nor signed by Olson. Pirtle is scheduled to appear at Butte County Superior Court on Thursday.

In a similar incident reported from Arkansas last year, a woman was found dead in a mummified state at her daughter's home in Lincoln.

Gloria Pike, a 72-year-old woman who was battling stage 4 breast cancer, had not been heard from in over a year. Her brother, George Maness, reported her missing on July 21 this year.

However, when police questioned the deceased's daughter, Geanee Pike, she told them her mother wasn't missing, but with a friend. When pressed to reveal more information, she could not name the friend or say where the two were.

The 54-year-old also refused a request from police to search her home and said she did not have access to her mother's bank accounts or credit cards.

Authorities finally found a clue when they subpoenaed Gloria's bank account records and spotted a transaction at the Dollar General in Lincoln on July 27, 2021. Detectives recovered the surveillance footage of the store and saw Geanee using her mother's check card to make a purchase.

Detectives were granted a search warrant and entered Geanee's home to find Gloria's remains on a bed in the living room. The body was mummified, wrapped in newspapers from 2020 and bedding.

She was later charged with financial identity fraud for using the social security and disability money that was being deposited into her mother's account every month, and with the abuse of a corpse.