A husband and wife have both been sentenced to prison after prosecutors said they kept their lover’s body hidden for more than a year and stole the man’s Social Security benefits before he was found dead under a deflated air mattress.
Suzanne Agnew was sentenced to five years in prison on Monday, November 2, after she pleaded guilty to tampering with a deceased human body and identity theft in relation to the death of James O’Neill, according to the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office of Colorado.
Her husband, James Agnew, previously pleaded guilty to the same charges and received the same sentence in April, the district attorney’s office said in a Monday news release. The Agnews are also required to serve three years of mandatory parole.
O’Neill’s brother, who spoke at Suzanne’s sentencing, said, “Jim was not just a body under an air mattress. He was a man who loved, who laughed and whose presence is deeply missed by those who truly cared for him.”
“She did not just hide his body. She stole our chance to grieve him,” O’Neill’s brother said on his family’s behalf.
According to prosecutors, the Agnews said O’Neill died at their home in Lakewood, a Denver suburb, around December 3, 2023.
They all lived together and had been in what was described as an “intimate” threesome relationship until O’Neill reportedly died in his sleep, per NBC affiliate KUSA-TV.
Following O’Neill’s death, Suzanne and James hid his body in a plastic air mattress that had been taped and never alerted anyone he died, prosecutors said. It was later found beneath the air mattress.
They went on to impersonate O’Neill and accessed his Social Security benefits, stealing the payments from his account using his debit card, according to prosecutors, who said they allegedly spent his money “for their own benefit.”
They lived with O’Neill’s body until July 2025, prosecutors said.
Lakewood police started investigating after O’Neill’s brother requested a welfare check a month earlier, according to the district attorney’s office.
“At the residence, an officer spoke with a man identifying himself as ‘James’ who said he wanted no contact with the O’Neill family,” the district attorney’s office said. “After viewing body-camera footage, O’Neill’s brother confirmed the man was not O’Neill.”
During the investigation, Suzanne and James allegedly said O’Neill had moved out of their home and they didn’t know where he was.
Police ultimately executed a search warrant of the home after a review of O’Neill’s banking transactions and found his body underneath the air mattress, according to prosecutors.
According to an arrest affidavit viewed by Court TV, Suzanne told investigators her eight Chihuahuas had chewed on O’Neill’s body while it was laying out inside their home for around a week before it was concealed.
“I deeply regret the hurt, damage and uncertainty that my actions have caused,” Suzanne said during her sentencing hearing.
District Court Judge Meegan Miloud denounced Suzanne’s actions as “morally reprehensible,” according to the district attorney’s office.
