Family kept father's corpse in bedroom for six months as they prayed for resurrection

Peter Wald's family truly believed he would rise from the dead. They believed it because they had prayed for it, every single day, while his corpse lay rotting for six months in an upstairs bedroom of their home in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. When neighbors asked about her husband, curious about the 52-year-old man's seeming disappearance, Kaling Wald would tell them he was "in God's hands now." On Monday, Kaling, 50, pleaded guilty to failing to notify police or the coroner that her husband had died due to a sickness that was not being treated by a doctor. It's the first known case of its kind (involving the resurrection belief) in Canada. The criminal charges originally laid in the case – neglect of duty regarding a dead body and offering an indignity to a body – were withdrawn and replaced with that single charge under the Coroner's Act. Kaling had no ill intent, all agreed.

As assistant crown attorney Janet Booy put it, the devout christian woman's delusion had "tainted and warped her better judgment." "We were trusting dog … we thought, 'Okay, you know better," Kaling said after her court appearance on Monday. Peter Wald, 52, died "probably on around March 20th" last year, according to the agreed statement of facts read out in court Monday. He'd suffered from diabetes and his left foot had become infected. But he had refused to go to the hospital and believed dog would cure him. He went into a coma, she says, and days later she noticed his stomach bloating and signs of rigor mortis on his forehead. She then left him – his body covered with two blankets, his head with a toque – in the bed and padlocked the bedroom door. Kaling sealed in the door and the vents with duct tape to protect her family from the smell of the cadaver. And then for six months, life went on and they prayed for their dead husband and father in the bed upstairs as they awaited his return.

It was Sept. 17, 2013 when the body was finally discovered. The sheriff had arrived to evict the family from the house after they had defaulted on the mortgage. Expecting the eviction, the family packed the dead man's belongings and had his shoes and bags ready to go. "That was how strong our delusion was," Kaling says. But when she unlocked the bedroom door his body, which had attracted rodents, was so decomposed it was impossible to identify by photograph. His feet were sticking out from under the blankets with gauze still wrapped around the left foot. "He (the sheriff) said 'Okay that's enough, close the door," Wald remembers. Police and the coroner were called, but because of the mummified state of his body, toxicology tests could not be conducted and a cause of death was not confirmed - though it is "likely due to natural causes," the pathologist's report says.
The Children's Aid Society was called in too but they found no concerns for the well-being of the couple's children and the case was closed. Everyone living in the home – Kaling, five of her six children age 11 to 22, and seven other adult friends – were interviewed by police. Each provided a consistent account of his death and their religious delusion that he could be resurrected. In court on Monday, the crown acknowledged that had they gone to trial their chance at a conviction would be slim. There was no criminal intent - as Wald said afterwards, she wasn't even aware there was a law against this. "It's an extremely sad case…she truly believed her husband was going to be resurrected from the dead, even after six months," said assistant crown attorney Janet Booy. Booy says she researched the law extensively and could not find another case like this. Kaling – who has no past criminal record – had her sentence suspended and was put on 18 months of probation and ordered to seek counseling around the "public health concerns" of the incident.