Decomposed Body Of A Missing Oklahoma Teen Found Inside Of A Basement; Homeowner Claims He Had No Idea

The body of a teen missing since 2018 was found decomposed inside of a homeowner’s basement located near the University of Oklahoma campus.

The teen named Margarita “Maggie” Sandoval was 19 years old when she went missing. “We knew something was wrong when she stopped calling my mom,” Sandoval’s sister, Taylor Hearon told a local news station.

This past May, police received a tip about a body located inside of a home in Norman, Oklahoma. Police received the search warrant they needed to search the home. They found a body inside of the basement of the home inside of a large black box. The remains were “wrapped in numerous layers of a thick plastic, possibly 20-30 layers,” according to a police report obtained by a local news station.

Norman Police Detective Sean Judy stated in the search warrant that police saw “a liquid leaking from the box,” with “insects escaping.” Police called in crime scene investigators when they smelled “an odor of decomposition.”

It was found that the body was Sandoval after an investigation ensued. The Oklahoma Medical Examiner is reportedly reviewing the death and hasn’t determined a cause of death as of yet. 

The homeowner is fully cooperating with the police investigation and has insisted that he knew nothing about the body in his basement. According to the search warrant, the homeowner stated that he moved into the house back in 2019, and he gave a friend permission to place the black large box along with other belongings in his basement. The friend is a relative of Sandoval and has been living at the address where the victim received social security benefits.

Sandoval was a recipient of monthly social security payments because of a mental disability. Her sister revealed to a local news station that some of her family members wanted to be Sandoval’s legal caretaker to receive her monthly payments.

On May 14th, police served a search warrant at the family member’s residence and charged him with an unrelated weapons charge.

So far, investigators have not named a suspect in the murder of Sandoval.