Additional Charges Filed Against Mother, Landlord In Spencer Landfill Body Case

The Oklahoma Attorney General filed additional criminal charges Wednesday afternoon against the mother of a teenager whose body was found in a Spencer landfill earlier this year. Also, charges were filed against her friend, who was also her landlord.

Reshawnda Laney Durham, 29, of Oklahoma City faces charges of failure to report discovered remains and unauthorized removal of a body.

Walter Ray Pelfrey, 76, of Oklahoma City, who owns dozens of rental properties and a storage facility in Del City, faces charges of unlawful removal of a body and accessory after the fact. He also faces an alternative count of desecration of a human corpse.

The charges come just two days after the Medical Examiner's office released its autopsy report and identified the body of Geanna Durham. Durham seemed to disappear without a trace in May of 2014. She was 13 years old at the time.

It took nearly seven months for the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's autopsy report to be completed in the case, but DNA evidence finally was able to help investigators identify Geanna's Durham body. 

The Medical Examiner's report states the remains recovered showed no obvious trauma but was largely skeletonized. For now, the cause and manner of death are undetermined, but the report did state the body tested negative for any drugs.

“And so we do not feel at this time we have enough evidence to proceed with murder charges,” said Deputy Attorney General Megan Tilly, who works in the criminal justice division.

The report goes on to say Geanna Durham's body was discovered confined in a trunk, and was wrapped in a sheet like fabric with a towel partly covering her legs. The report states the trunk had been wrapped in a large fitted bed sheet and comforter.

The body and trunk were recovered from the Spencer landfill near NE 23rd and Midwest Boulevard on February 9th of this year after police got a call from a DHS worker trying to locate the 15-year-old.

Court papers state Durham's mother had told investigators Geanna had moved out of state to be with her father in Florida, but that proved to be untrue. The father said he had not seen Geanna since she was 18-months-old.

"It is our belief that Geanna Durham died at her home in May of 2014 and we believe that the body may have stayed at that residence for approximately a year before it was moved to a storage unit sometime in late April or May of 2015,” said Tilly.

Court papers state in February, Durham made a comment to Pelfrey that her most prized possession was in a storage unit at his business, the Scott Street Mini Storage located on Delmar Road in Del City. 

 An employee told investigators Durham did have a storage unit for the last year and that Pelfrey took care of the bill. And right before investigators came to search, Pelfrey ordered the employee to have Durham's unit cleaned out and her name removed from records. 

 A trunk with a dead body was found in Unit 3313. And when Pelfrey was told about the body, the worker says Pelfrey ordered the body to be put in the dumpster. And that's how it ended up at the Spencer landfill.

Court papers state in March, Durham was in the Oklahoma County Jail and made a phone call to her mother. During the recorded interview, Durham admitted to her mother that she found Geanna dead, but did not do anything because of her being in a mental health program.

Records show she checked Geanna out of Centennial High School on May 22, 2014 with no transfer of records and continues to collect government checks for her daughter.

Geanna's body remains at the Medical Examiner's office.

"Of course it is tragic and of course there is so much that we don't know which only compounds the tragedy. How she died, why the death was concealed. We hope that we will be able to find the answers to these questions but we don't know if we will,” said Tilly. 

Currently, Geanna's mother Reshawnda Durham is in the Oklahoma County Jail facing three felony counts of child neglect and also for contempt of court.

Pelfrey was booked into the Oklahoma County Jail Wednesday afternoon.

" Walter Pelfrey is my client. We are anxious to tell our side to this in court. Mr. Pelfrey is not culpable in anyway for disposal of this child's body. This is a sad situation for everybody and we want the truth to come out," said Lou Keel, Pelfrey's attorney. 

Pelfrey is also part of an anti-discrimination suit filed by Attorney General Scott Pruitt in February of last year.

Court records show he is accused of discrimination and sexual harassment of African American female tenants. The suit asks to prevent any further retaliation against tenants and others who oppose the discrimination and harassment.

The suit alleges three women who rented from Pelfrey claim they were subjected to unwelcome and offensive requests for sexual favors based on their race and gender. And when they rejected his requests for unwanted sexual favors, Pelfrey threatened, intimidated, and retaliated against the women by assessing false and fraudulent fees and fines and threatened to evict them.

The suit claims he trapped them into the sexually hostile and abusive rental relationship and shut off services and utilities to their rental homes. News 9 checked and the lawsuit is still pending.