Police: Woman left corpse in tub for a week

TRENTON, Ohio (AP) — A woman left her boyfriend’s corpse in a bathtub for about a week before calling to report she had killed the man, police said Friday.

Joanna Hull, 42, called police Wednesday and told a dispatcher that she had killed her boyfriend, Keith Peyton, 47, but didn’t remember how or when, authorities said. On a recording of the call, Hull estimated that her boyfriend had been dead for a week and said she had been taking dozens of pills to try to kill herself. She also said she had written a confession.

“I can’t take this anymore,” she told the dispatcher.

Police said they found Peyton’s badly decomposed body in an upstairs bathroom of the couple’s Trenton home, about 25 miles north of Cincinnati. A Butler County coroner’s investigator said Peyton died of blunt force head trauma. Preliminary estimates are Peyton had been dead two to 10 days.

Trenton police Chief Carl Ray said Hull was waiting at the front door when police arrived.

“I think she was just at wits’ end and wanted some relief from all of it,” he said.

Hull pleaded not guilty Thursday in Middletown Municipal Court to charges of aggravated murder, tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse. She remained in the Middletown jail Friday in lieu of $265,000 bond.

Her attorney, Melynda Cook-Reich, said she did not have enough information to comment on the case.