Police said the woman had likely been dead for days before officers entered the home in October.
BENSALEM, Pa. — A 37-year-old Bucks County man has been charged with abuse of a corpse after police said he failed to report his mother’s death for at least a week before officers found her body inside the home they shared in Bensalem.
The charge turns a case that first surfaced as a suspicious death investigation in October into a criminal matter centered on what happened after Cynthia Bouffard, 70, died. Investigators say Derrick Bouffard was his mother’s caretaker and continued living in the house as her body decomposed. The immediate stakes now are the criminal case against him, lingering questions about the final days inside the home and a scheduled court hearing next month.
Police were called to the 5000 block of Hunter Court in late October 2025 after concerns at the property led to a welfare check. One account said a neighbor reported a foul odor. Another said public works employees sought a police standby after trying to cut an overgrown lawn and getting no answer at the door. Officers arrived about 3 p.m. on Oct. 26, according to court reporting, and Derrick Bouffard met them outside. “I was just about to call you guys. My mom stopped breathing this morning,” he told officers, according to police accounts later cited in news reports. Inside, officers found Cynthia Bouffard on a mattress in the family room. Police quickly concluded she had not died that morning. Early reports described her as emaciated and dead for some time, and authorities treated the case as suspicious while the coroner’s office worked to determine how long she had been there.
By March, investigators said the evidence pointed to a prolonged delay in reporting the death rather than a homicide charge. News reports citing court documents said the body was severely decomposed, with insects in the room, a strong odor in the house and fans placed around the property. Officers also described the home as being in disarray. Cynthia Bouffard was said to weigh about 50 to 60 pounds when found. Court records cited by local outlets said an autopsy completed in February found she had likely been dead seven to 10 days before officers arrived. The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said it did not appear she had been denied food and that she died of medical causes. Reports based on the criminal complaint said detectives also found phone searches about how to report a death and when a bank should be notified, along with delivery records showing food orders to the house one to three times a day.
The case also drew attention because of Cynthia Bouffard’s condition before her death and the family’s understanding of who was caring for her. Court records described her as suffering from advanced dementia and said she could not walk or speak. Police said Derrick Bouffard was her primary caretaker. NBC10 reported that Cynthia Bouffard was last seen alive by her brother on Sept. 23, 2025, a detail that widened the timeline investigators had to examine. Her daughter, Carrie Acevedo, told 6abc that the family believed Derrick Bouffard had been caring for their mother because he had lived with her for years. Acevedo said she suspected her mother had severe dementia, though she had not been formally diagnosed. She described her mother as glamorous, loving and fiercely independent, and said Cynthia Bouffard had spent decades working as a nurse. That family portrait sharpened the contrast between the woman relatives remembered and the scene officers encountered inside the house.
The legal case is now moving on a narrow but serious charge. Reports citing court records said Derrick Bouffard was charged on March 6, 2026, with abuse of a corpse. Patch reported he was charged by summons, while NBC10 later reported he had been arrested and was awaiting a preliminary hearing. That hearing is scheduled for April 8, 2026. No public report reviewed here listed additional charges, and authorities have not publicly detailed any final ruling beyond the finding that Cynthia Bouffard died of medical causes. That leaves several unknowns, including the precise medical cause of death, what support systems were or were not in place inside the home and whether prosecutors could add or revise charges as the case moves through court. For now, the procedural path is clearer than the personal one: a complaint has been filed, the defendant is due in court and the evidence will be tested in a preliminary hearing.
Neighbors and relatives have supplied the human frame around the criminal allegations. “It’s awful. You grow up, you expect your kids to take care of you a little bit,” one neighbor told 6abc. Acevedo spoke in similarly raw terms, saying she felt “super conflicted” as she tried to process the accusations against her brother and the death of her mother. She also said she had urged her mother to come live with her out of state but that Cynthia Bouffard would not leave Derrick behind. Those remarks do not resolve the facts at issue in court, but they show the strain around a case that sits at the intersection of criminal law, elder care and family breakdown. The image that has emerged from police accounts is stark: a quiet suburban home, a welfare check prompted by visible neglect outside and smell inside, and a death that authorities say went unreported for days.
As of Thursday, Derrick Bouffard faces one count of abuse of a corpse, and the next public milestone in the case is his April 8 preliminary hearing in Bucks County court.
Author note: Last updated March 19, 2026.