Police: Body hidden in Capouse Avenue apartment, tenant criminally charged
Feb. 9—A Scranton man hid a dead body beneath a tarp in his Capouse Avenue apartment for weeks, the city police said.
Paul Rowe, 44, 851 Capouse Ave., is jailed at the Lackawanna County Prison in lieu of $200,000 bail following his arraignment Thursday on counts of abuse of a corpse and possession of drug paraphernalia.
An informant told police earlier this month they overheard a man named "Paul" at the Capouse Avenue building mention he needed to move a body out of his apartment.
Detectives Michael Schultz and Ed McIntyre found Rowe, whom they identified as the "Paul" from the tip, standing outside the building Feb. 3.
Rowe denied harboring a corpse when the two investigators told him what they had heard. He refused to let them check the apartment because he said he had methamphetamine inside.
After Rowe mentioned he had drugs inside, the police secured the apartment and applied for a search warrant, which Magisterial District Judge Paul Ware signed.
The detectives entered and found garbage, syringes and baggies all over the floor of the residence. They also found a man's decomposing body on a deflated gray air mattress under a blue tarp. Several fans blew air in the room.
He seemed to have been dead for two or three weeks, according to the complaint.
The police have identified the corpse but Capt. Dennis Lukasewicz declined to release his name Thursday because it is not clear if his family has been notified of his death. The cause of the man's death is pending the results of toxicological testing.
His connection to Rowe was not clear.
Rowe is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Feb. 24.
The discovery was not the first dead body found at that building in recent months. On Oct. 26, Vanessa Chalus-Glover, 45, was discovered deceased in a neighboring apartment. The cause of her death was not immediately available Thursday.
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