Man Sleeps With Wife’s Corpse For 6 Days, Says It Gives Him Relief

A bereaved widower has explained why he refused his late wife’s body to be taken to the morgue as he slept with her in their for six days.

Leasing agent Russell Davison’s wife Wendy died at their home in Derby, England, after a 10-year battle with cervical cancer.

He said he was determined to keep her at home with their four children and not hand her over to a funeral director.

The dad now wants to reassure others that staying close to a loved one’s dead body is nothing to be scared of.

Russell said he washed and dressed Wendy’s body and placed it in a coffin – which he called a “cocoon” – in the couple’s bedroom.

And Russell insists it should be “the way we treat our dead,”– there is not, I can assure you.”

Wendy, 50, was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2006 – just after the couple’s joint 40th birthday – and was told three years ago she had six months to live.
But she shunned chemotherapy and radiotherapy and embraced “natural health,” Russell said.

The couple bought a caravan and traveled around Europe, but in September last year returned to Britain as Wendy’s pain became unbearable.

But she was determined to die at home and was nursed by Russell and the boys until her death on April 21.

Russell, also 50, said: “For a long time I have been determined to have Wendy at home when she died.

“I did not want her in the mortuary or handed over to a funeral director, I wanted us to take care of her ourselves at our family home, and have her in our bedroom so I could sleep in the same room.”
He said keeping Wendy at home was like “an emotional decompression chamber,” which helped the family come to terms with her death while she was still there.