A Pennsylvania man faces serious charges after the death of his mother. Derrick Bouffard was found living in his mother’s home with her dead body for some time after her death. While an exact number of days hasn’t been given, she was dead for at least a week, but likely longer. The woman was possibly living with dementia and was unable to care for herself, so her son cared for her. An exact cause of death has not been released. Police haven’t given any details about the cause and manner of death, or what was happening with her son that he decided to keep her corpse for so long.
Police showed up at the family’s home unexpectedly.
Around 3 p.m. on October 26, 2025, police showed up to the Bensalem home of 70-year-old Cynthia Bouffard, NBC Philadelphia reported, citing court documents. They were there to perform a welfare check on the woman after receiving reports of something suspicious made by workers with the Bensalem’s Public Works Department. The public works employees had been at the home to cut an overgrown lawn.
When police arrived, 37-year-old Derrick Bouffard came out of the home and approached. “I was just about to call you guys,” he allegedly told police. “My mom stopped breathing this morning.”
However, when police got inside the home, what they saw told a different story.
It was clear the woman had been dead for a lot longer than her son said.
Police said her body was on a mattress in a family room, and appeared to be “severely decomposed, estimated to have been dead more than a week.” They also said the home was in “complete disarray,” and there was a strong smell of decomposition. Fans were blowing, likely to dissipate the smell.
The woman’s body appeared “skeletal,” and likely only weighed between 50 and 60 pounds. “There was almost no flesh on her bones, and her eyes were barely visible,” officers wrote in the report.
“There were flying insects all over her body that emerged as soon as he lifted the blanket that was covering her, which had been covering her when officers first discovered the body.”
According to the court documents, Cynthia Bouffard was living with advanced dementia before her death and couldn’t walk or talk. She was last seen alive by her brother on September 23, 2025.
Documents said that Derrick Bouffard had searched for how to report a loved one’s death. He was arrested and charged with abuse of a corpse in March 2026. He is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on April 8, 2026.
Derrick Bouffard was ordering takeout multiple times a day, repeatedly walking past his mother’s corpse.
Based on the medical examiner’s report, it didn’t appear that Cynthia Bouffard was being denied food before her death, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said, as reported by WPVI. She died of medical causes. The coroner estimates that she could have been dead for nearly two weeks when police showed up.
“It’s awful. You grow up, you expect your kids to take care of you a little bit,” a neighbor told WPVI.
Carrie Acevedo, who is Cynthia Bouffard’s daughter and Derrick Bouffard’s sister, spoke with the outlet about her mother’s death. Acevedo doesn’t live in Pennsylvania, and is trying to make sense of everything that happened.
“I feel super conflicted. I know my mom loves my brother very much,” she said, adding that she doesn’t “want to feel hate for my brother.”
She said that she had begged her mother to come live with her, but Cynthia Bouffard wouldn’t leave Derrick Bouffard behind. Acevedo also added that her mother had never been formally diagnosed with dementia. She and her uncle assumed her brother was caring for their mother since he lived with her for years.
“It feels like a movie. It doesn’t feel like it’s real life. I feel regret for not being there, for not doing more,” she said.
