HUNTINGDON, Pa. (WTAJ) — A mother and son have been charged after an investigation stemming from a landscaper finding human remains in a child’s room at a Huntingdon house.
Cassie Bunn, 53, and her son Eric, 37, were charged Wednesday, Oct. 9, with child endangerment and abuse of a corpse stemming from an investigation that began in Oct. 2023.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, a landscape company was hired to clean out the house on the 2400 block of S. Blair Avenue after the Bunns were evicted and on Oct. 17, 2023, an employee called 911 to report a body found in a bedroom, wrapped in blankets.
Huntingdon police responded along with the coroner’s office and state police. Charges show that the body, which was found in a child’s bedroom, was ultimately confirmed as Shaienna Kilmer. It was reported by Mercyhurst that she had been dead for less than six months.
Investigators said there were flies and maggots all over the room Kilmer’s remains were found in.
According to an interview with police, Eric said he had moved out of the home in August 2023 and his two young children stopped coming over two months before. The complaint reads that he told investigators that the kids stayed in his room with him after complaints of a foul odor in the kid’s room. He alleged he tried to find where the smell was coming from but couldn’t. He also told police that they thought it may have been sewage and when he tried to fix it, he made things worse, resulting in sewage backing up into the basement. According to his account, they shut the basement door and never opened it again.
It’s important to note that detectives wrote in the complaint that the children stopped going over shortly after CYS was alerted of the conditions of the Huntingdon home.
Investigators noted that Eric told them Kilmer kept him up one night in May 2023 because she couldn’t find a vein to do heroin. Text messages show that almost two weeks later, Eric attempted to reach out to her asking if she was “OK?”
Cassie, during her interview, allegedly told police she lived in the house for roughly five years. Around Christmas, 2022, she said they shut the door to the kid’s room and she hadn’t gone back in there. Cassie told investigators that they had a problem with flies and had to spray the vents.
According to the complaint, Cassie was fed up with the place and hated being there. She said other people were in the home, there were too many cats, and she was depressed so she moved out and had no idea about a decaying body.
Investigators noted they spoke with CYS, who said they tried to make contact numerous times. During the investigation, they finally spoke to Eric’s two children who both complained about all of the cats and feces in the house. CYS also reported to officers that there was no trash service and the garbage was piled up in the garage. There was also no running water and they were manually emptying the toilets.
Cassie Bunn was arraigned Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 9, and placed in Huntingdon County Prison with bail set at $50,000. Eric, however, has yet to be arraigned on his charges.
It should be noted that Kilmer’s cause of death was not released.
