BOISE, Idaho — An Eagle man prosecutors say kept the plastic-wrapped body of his mother in his home for years is now accused of allowing thousands of dollars in benefits intended for her to be auto-deposited in his account, long after he knew she was dead.
Prosecutors filed an amended complaint last week leveling six new felony charges against 65-year-old William Randall Rhoton. He now faces four new counts of grand theft by deception, one count of forgery, and one count of grand theft, as well as the original charges of failure to notify of a death and destruction of evidence.
Rhoton is not accused of killing 93-year-old Barbara Rhoton, whose preserved body was discovered inside an SUV parked about a mile from her home in June. Prosecutors say they have not yet been able to rule out foul play, but investigators are still waiting on a coroner's report to determine exactly how and when the elderly woman died.
The suspect is accused of wrapping his mother in plastic sheeting, then placing her body into a hermetically-sealed body bag he bought on Amazon, a process that significantly slowed down normal decomposition rates. Police originally said that the woman had been dead anywhere from a few months to a few years.
But in the amended complaint, prosecutors allege that Rhoton knew his mother was dead as early as March 2016 - and kept pocketing her benefits anyway - signaling her death happened more than three years before she was found.
Authorities have said Rhoton kept his mother's body concealed in the Eagle home he shared with his wife and four children, before moving it to the SUV.
The complaint did not list an exact dollar amount Rhoton is accused of fraudulently allowing to be deposited in his account, specifying only that each of the four deposits from New York Life was more than $1,000. Rhoton also forged his mother's name on the back of a $110 check made out to Barbara Rhoton in June of this year, and kept the money, prosecutors say.
The suspect, who was arrested in June, was released from jail in August after his defense attorney successfully petitioned a judge to slash his bond from $300,00 to $150,000.
But that freedom may be short-lived: On Wednesday, prosecutors filed a motion to revoke Rhoton's bond and raise the amount back up after he allegedly violated the conditions of his pretrial release. According to an affidavit, Rhoton failed to make his required weekly call-in to pretrial services on Aug. 21, despite receiving both verbal and written instructions to do so when he was released.
A judge is expected to rule on whether or not to revoke the bond and order Rhoton back to jail at his pretrial hearing, scheduled for Oct. 2.
