Woman left friend's dead body in chair for 18 months and spoke to him every day before giving chilling reason why she did it

A woman admitted she was ashamed of her actions when it was discovered she had kept her friend’s body in their home over a year after his death.

In a rather macabre story, a Michigan woman admitted she had kept her friend's dead body for months in her home.

The bizarre incident occurred back in July 2012, with reports identifying the woman as 72-year-old Linda Chase.

The flatmate and friend she had kept in the home after his natural death was identified as 67-year-old Charles Williams Zigler.

Charles Williams Zigler's body was found 18 months on from his death following a welfare check (Family handout)

Chase admitted to keeping his body and cashing social security checks, but said she was doing this for him when he was alive anyway.

She also said that she would speak to him everyday and would watch NASCAR on TV with him in the living room, also taking efforts to wash his body.

Chase said: “It's not that I'm heartless. It's just that after so many bad things happen to you, I don't know. If you had to know Charlie, he had the best sense of humor in this whole world."

The pair were had been living together for ten years and Chase attempted to explain why she did it.

She said: "I know this is horrible, but after awhile, you get... I don't know what you call it, I don't know. I didn't want to be alone. He was the only guy who was ever nice to me."

The discovery was only made after Zigler’s family asked for a welfare check as they hadn’t heard from him in a long time.

The home in Jackson, Michigan, where Zigler's rotting body had been for 18 months (MLive)

Explaining to the dispatch why a check was necessary, his neice, Barb Zigler, said: "We’ve been trying to get a hold of him. My aunt is being put in hospice – that’s his sister – and my cousin’s been trying to get a hold of him for quite a while.

"My brother even stopped in about a month ago and his girlfriend’s always saying that he’s gone. But he’s on oxygen, he can barely get around by himself. Nobody’s heard from him in quite a while. We’re concerned about him."

When the police arrived at the Jackson, Michigan, house, they found Zigler’s mummified body covered in blankets and lying in a cloth recliner chair in the living room.

Police believe he had died around Christmas 2010 and his body had been left decaying in the house since that time. An autopsy also concluded that he had died of natural causes.