A Texas man has been charged after his mother’s corpse was found inside a trash can in a storage unit purchased at an auction, according to local police.
Rogelio Bernal Jr., 53, of San Antonio, Texas, was arrested for an unrelated warrant on December 22, and has since been charged with altering, destroying or concealing a human corpse, according to the affidavit obtained by local station KSAT. Court records show Bernal is being held in the Bexar County Jail on $75,000 bond.
On December 21, officers with the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) were called to a storage facility in the 4700 block of Vance Jackson Road on the city’s North Side, according to local media reports.
The person who called 911 told police that they found human remains inside of a storage unit they purchased through an auction, and the storage facility’s property manager provided the information of the previous renter, identified as Bernal, according to the court documents.
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Newsweek reached out on Tuesday via email and the SAPD’s website for comment and update on the case. It was unclear at the time of publication whether Bernal had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
After police questioned Bernal, he identified the remains found in the unit as his mother’s and told investigators that he was her caregiver at the apartment they shared when she died more than two years ago, the affidavit states.
Around October 31, 2021, Bernal told police that he was cooking while his mother was taking a shower. He said that he heard her fall and found her still breathing on the bathroom floor but decided not to call 911 for medical assistance because of his criminal record, the court documents allege.
Bernal allegedly told authorities that after the fall, his mother died, and he placed her body inside a hall closet at their apartment. For more than a year, Bernal covered his mother’s remains in lye and cleaning products, according to the affidavit.
Eventually, a gnat problem developed inside the apartment, Bernal told police according to the court documents, which state that he was evicted in October 2022.
After Bernal was evicted from the apartment, he obtained a storage unit where he moved several items, eventually putting his mother’s remains inside a trash can in the unit, the affidavit alleges.
Information about Bernal’s mother, such as her age, was not available at the time of publication. Details about the separate charges Bernal was arrested on were unclear as of Tuesday night.
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