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Police: Okla. Woman Drove To Fla. With Dead Mom In Car -Wanders In Wal-Mart For 13 Hours
local6.com ^

Posted on 04/29/2004 5:45:08 AM PDT by chance33_98

Police: Okla. Woman Drove To Fla. With Dead Mom In Car

Woman Wanders In Wal-Mart For 13 Hours

POSTED: 11:25 pm EDT April 28, 2004 UPDATED: 7:26 am EDT April 29, 2004

PALM COAST, Fla. -- A woman apparently drove from Oklahoma to Florida -- by way of North Carolina and Texas -- with her mother's decaying body as her passenger, then went shopping at Wal-Mart, authorities said.

Flagler County sheriff's deputies found Melba Doshier's body Tuesday in the car parked at a Wal-Mart in Palm Coast after shoppers reported a bad smell coming from the vehicle.

The St. Johns County medical examiner on Wednesday said she died of natural causes at least five days before she was found.

Doshier's daughter Alicia, who officials said is in her mid-30s, has been questioned and hospitalized for psychiatric observation. She was found in the store Tuesday, 13 hours after security cameras spotted her parking the car and entering the store (pictured, left).

Sheriff James Manfre said he wasn't planning to file charges.

"This is as strange and as bizarre a case as I've seen," Manfre told The Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Capt. David O'Brien said it isn't clear if the woman meant to come to Florida. Manfre said the woman's state of mind is such that detectives can't take her words for the truth.

Detectives say the mother and daughter lived in Covington, Okla., about 75 miles north of Oklahoma City. They were evicted from their home and left Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago in a car registered in the name of Alicia and Melba Doshier, the sheriff's office said.

Receipts in the car indicated the daughter drove through Texas and North Carolina before reaching Florida, O'Brien said. The woman said she talked to the body during the trip, he said.

While the medical examiner reported the body had been decaying for at least five days, O'Brien said it was probably 10 days.

Detectives found the daughter after the body was found in the parking lot.

"She was in the store shopping," O'Brien said.

Her cart was filled with groceries, children's clothes and other merchandise, he said. The sedan was filled with newspapers, a suitcase and trash, partially covering the body.

The daughter can be held up to 72 hours under state law to make sure she's not a danger to herself or others, and longer if doctors think it necessary.

Manfre said the woman would be free whenever she's released because no crime has been committed.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: arewethereyet; dontfearthereaper; illsleepwhenimdead; melbatoast; parkinglotfind
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To: pepperdog
Why, oh why, were the facilities that used to care for these people closed and the people turned out on the streets???

One answer: Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, agitated in the 60's that mental hospitals were set up to house people driven "crazy" by society and they were actually political prisoners.

21 posted on 04/29/2004 6:20:54 AM PDT by TenthAmendmentChampion (Freepmail me if you'd like to read one of my Christian historical romance novels!)
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To: PBRSTREETGANG
They have caskets?

With smiling faces on them and music boxes inside that play "rolling, rolling, rolling, keep those prices rolling..." which can last up to 10 years on special batteries to keep you rolling in your grave.

22 posted on 04/29/2004 6:21:16 AM PDT by chance33_98 (Shall a living man complain? Oh how much fewer are my sufferings than my sins;)
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To: zipper
If she had only asked a store clerk, the would've told her the Wal-Mart Superstore doesn't have embalming fluid or do-it-yourself funeral kits.

At Walmart the clerks aren't that helpful. She was probably doing just that for 18 hours.

23 posted on 04/29/2004 6:26:07 AM PDT by FITZ
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To: chance33_98

24 posted on 04/29/2004 6:26:15 AM PDT by AAABEST
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To: familyofman
Thank you so much. I'll try not to let your words deter me from shopping there.
25 posted on 04/29/2004 6:26:24 AM PDT by mtbopfuyn
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To: Guillermo
"I guess you're simply just better than others."

Yes I am - at least in my own mind. I havenot shopped at WalMart for at least 5 years, and have no intention of shopping there any time in the future. They are one of the worst employers and as far as I know a huge employer of illegals. I avoid, as best I can, any company that hires illegals.
26 posted on 04/29/2004 6:29:49 AM PDT by familyofman
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To: chance33_98

27 posted on 04/29/2004 6:30:48 AM PDT by SkyPilot
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To: familyofman
I just hope that everyone else on this forum recognizes that you are superior to others.

Consider me to be bowing down before your presence.
28 posted on 04/29/2004 6:32:21 AM PDT by Guillermo ("Oh yeah? Well if you do it again, I'm gonna have only one word for you: 'Outta here.'" - Paul Sr.)
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To: 2Jedismom
I wondered about the kid clothes too.

When our oldest was 2, I had a bad fall and passed out momentarily. Of course I was freaked not by the fall but worry about my little one. After a few minutes of collecting my thoughts, I called 911 and they gladly went through a practice scenerio with little one. All parents should teach their kids safety how-to's.
29 posted on 04/29/2004 6:33:46 AM PDT by mtbopfuyn
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To: Guillermo
"Consider me to be bowing down before your presence."

You may rise, my loyal subject. Now go forth and be productive, or reproductive if you are so inclined.
30 posted on 04/29/2004 6:38:54 AM PDT by familyofman
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To: familyofman
K-Mart shoppers are worse. When the "blue light" comes on it is a signal to the mother ship to let all the crazies loose in the store. One day two old men were fighting over a bra which was on sale for fifty cents. What did either of them need with a red satin bra anyway (hmmmmmm)?
31 posted on 04/29/2004 6:46:56 AM PDT by AngieGOP
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To: chance33_98
That is just sad.
32 posted on 04/29/2004 7:12:57 AM PDT by TheSpottedOwl (Torrance Ca....land of the flying monkeys)
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To: chance33_98
That's what happens when the states let all the mentally ill people out of the in-patient hospitals, thinking they would trot off to the "outpatient day centers" and just obediently take their meds. Doesn't work like that...
33 posted on 04/29/2004 7:18:57 AM PDT by valkyrieanne
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To: familyofman
I boycotted Walmart after all their promotions of "made in the USA" proved false. Where I live now, there is no Walmart. When I move back in a couple of months, I will continue to boycott Walmart. I can shop the 99 cent stores, Big Lots, and Target.
34 posted on 04/29/2004 7:21:32 AM PDT by TheSpottedOwl (Torrance Ca....land of the flying monkeys)
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To: AngieGOP
LMAO!!!! The blue light special. Damn, I haven't been in Kmart since December. There really isn't anything to buy there, except the Martha Stewart stuff.
35 posted on 04/29/2004 7:25:08 AM PDT by TheSpottedOwl (Torrance Ca....land of the flying monkeys)
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To: TheSpottedOwl
FYI

Very interesting cover story about Walmart in the April 19 issue of National Review.

36 posted on 04/29/2004 7:29:29 AM PDT by battlegearboat
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To: pepperdog
Why, oh why, were the facilities that used to care for these people closed and the people turned out on the streets???

Two reasons, I think. The first reason was that sometimes people in mental hospitals in the 1930s-1960 *were* badly abused.

There were many exposes. Frank Wiseman in 1967 made a documentary called Titicut Follies about a notorious hospital in Massachusetts. US News says:

Tucked away in this pastoral region the Indians called Titicut, behind rolled razor wire and thick steel doors, Bridgewater State Hospital is well situated to protect its "criminally insane" inmates from prying eyes. Indeed, when Frederick Wiseman made a documentary about the facility in 1967, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court banned all public screenings (except in limited professional settings) to protect the inmates' right of privacy.

It mattered little that Wiseman had permission from state Attorney General Elliot Richardson and releases from inmates or that 10,000 visitors a year toured the institution. For 24 years, until the court reversed its decision in 1991, Wiseman's work, "Titicut Follies" (named after the patients' talent show), was the only film ever censored in America for reasons other than obscenity or national security.

Other reasons: doctors performed psychosurgery (lobotomy, leucotomy) on people against their will; people were committed indefinitely when there was little wrong with them. "Insanity" was grounds for divorce and it did happen that a husband would have a "nervous" wife committed so that he could divorce and remarry. Reporters occasionally got themselves "committed" (with an escape hatch) so that they could expose the conditions inside mental hospitals.

I also think (my personal opinion) that the huge grounds and historic old buildings of the old mental hospitals were simply too attractive to developers. These hospitals were often set up as "sanitariums" in the 19th century, because it was believed that the mentally ill needed a quiet place away from crowds and the cities. Many were sold by cash-strapped states during the recessions of the 1970s and 1980s. Again, people thought that drugs and outpatient clinics were going to take care of everything.

37 posted on 04/29/2004 7:32:51 AM PDT by valkyrieanne
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To: chance33_98
Maybe they liked to watch 'Midnight Cowboy' together?
38 posted on 04/29/2004 7:41:45 AM PDT by TC Rider (The United States Constitution © 1791. All Rights Reserved.)
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To: battlegearboat
Really? I'll have to check it out.
39 posted on 04/29/2004 7:57:05 AM PDT by TheSpottedOwl (Torrance Ca....land of the flying monkeys)
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To: AngieGOP
One day two old men were fighting over a bra which was on sale for fifty cents. What did either of them need with a red satin bra anyway (hmmmmmm)?

One word: Lumberjacks.

40 posted on 04/29/2004 7:58:44 AM PDT by Erasmus
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