Widow: I Planned on Feeding Husband to Birds

Ila Solomon wanted to grant dead husband's wish
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Nov 8, 2015 3:58 PM CST
Widow: I Planned on Feeding Husband to Birds
Ravens, landing and in flight.   (AP Photo/David Vincent)

The widow of a an 88-year-old Indiana man whose body remained in his home for as long as nine months after death has pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges, and admitted that she wanted his body to be eaten by birds. Fifty-six-year-old Ila Solomon of Lafayette pleaded guilty to failure to report a dead body and unlawful disposition of a dead body Friday in Tippecanoe County. She's due to be sentenced Dec. 21. She faces up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

The Tippecanoe County coroner has said Gerald Gavan Jr. had been dead for at least nine months when his body was discovered in May 2014. Solomon says he had been dead only a few days, and she planned on feeding him to birds: "That’s right," she tells WLFI. "Because Scooter was a WWII veteran, and when he got to the beaches in Normandy his friends were already being eaten by the birds." She says Gavan wanted his corpse eaten by birds like those of soldiers with whom he served. (More World War II stories.)

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