WI Family Accused of Leaving Protector to Die

The quote next to Mary Coleman's 1957 Reedsburg High School yearbook photo reads "speech is silver, silence is golden."

Indeed, Coleman lived in quiet solitude, spending decades helping her needy sister and troubled nephew in a modest two-story Madison home. When not working, she tended to them, foregoing all else to see to their needs.

Then, as quietly as she lived, the 70-year-old woman disappeared.

It would take months to discover Coleman was at her family's house all along: In August 2009, investigators found her mummified remains in the home's garage.

Investigators said Coleman fell and her sister and nephew, Veronica and Steven King, left her dying on the floor for two days while they watched television and ate fast food.

Over the next three months, Veronica King withdrew thousands of dollars from a shared bank account to which Coleman's pension and social security payments flowed.

Prosecutors, however, didn't file charges. The case languished for more than two years and a judge eventually approved tens of thousands of dollars more in life insurance payments to the Kings, whom Coleman had named as her beneficiaries.

Not until last month, after review by a new prosecutor, were the Kings charged with any wrongdoing. They're due in court Monday on counts of first-degree reckless homicide, financial fraud, subjecting an at-risk person to abuse and hiding a corpse.

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Family Accused of Leaving Protector to Die