Two days after officers sought Alan Groom at his home, Sheldon Wilson went to police and disclosed that he had died months earlier.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The disclosure that led police to Alan Groom’s remains did not begin with a forensic breakthrough. It began with relatives asking where the 73-year-old was, a question that prompted a Sept. 17 welfare check and, investigators say, helped bring months of concealment inside a Colorado Springs home to an end.
For months after Groom was last known to be alive in March, relatives allegedly heard explanations suggesting he was somewhere else. Court records say Sheldon “Shelly” Wilson, the woman who lived with Groom and cared for him, told family members or police at different points that he was with relatives outside Colorado or involved in hospice care. Two days after officers came to the Tappan Drive residence looking for Groom, Wilson went to the Police Operations Center with her daughter and said Groom had actually been dead since March.
That Sept. 19 disclosure led officers back to the home, where police said they found Groom’s dismembered remains concealed inside storage containers. Wilson, 62, was arrested and accused of second-degree murder, tampering with a deceased human body and tampering with physical evidence. The El Paso County Coroner’s Office later identified Groom but had not publicly released a final cause and manner of death in the sources reviewed for this article. The criminal allegations against Wilson have not been established by a verdict.
The welfare check is important because Wilson herself allegedly described it as the moment the months-long concealment became unsustainable. According to the arrest affidavit, a relative contacted police after being unable to reach Groom. Officers went to the home Sept. 17. Wilson allegedly gave them an account suggesting he was receiving hospice-related care and was not there. Investigators did not find Groom during that visit. Wilson later said she realized she could no longer keep his death from her daughters, according to the court records.
The next stage unfolded inside the family rather than through an immediate police search. Reports based on the affidavit say Wilson contacted or spoke with her daughters and acknowledged that she had badly “messed up” and could be going to prison. One daughter then accompanied her to the Police Operations Center on Sept. 19. Colorado Springs police said two adult women arrived at about 2:59 p.m. to report a deceased man inside a home in the 4000 block of Tappan Drive. Wilson was one of them.
Wilson allegedly warned officers that the circumstances were worse than a routine death report. Investigators sent officers from the Stetson Hills Division to the address. The arrest affidavit says they encountered an odor associated with decomposition and eventually located storage containers holding human remains. Detectives from the Homicide Unit took over. Wilson, who had arrived at police headquarters as one of the people reporting the death, became the person arrested in connection with it.
The events of September forced investigators to reconstruct what had happened roughly six months earlier. Wilson told detectives that March 16 had been Groom’s birthday. She allegedly said she had intended to get him a cake but bought alcohol and drank instead. Her memory of the later part of the day was incomplete, according to the affidavit. On March 17, she said, she found Groom unresponsive. Because she had previously hurt him while drinking, she allegedly feared she might have done something to him during the period she could not remember.
Wilson’s account did not include a prompt effort to obtain medical help. She allegedly covered Groom with blankets and went to work, hoping he might be alive when she came home. When she returned and found no change, she concluded that he was dead, according to the records. Investigators allege she left the body inside the residence rather than notifying authorities or Groom’s relatives. The body remained there for about a week before later steps were taken to conceal it.
Months passed before the remains were dismembered, according to Wilson’s reported statement. Local reporting based on the arrest affidavit places that act around May or June. Wilson allegedly put the remains into plastic storage totes and kept them at the residence. She also described monitoring the smell of decomposition and trying to keep the situation hidden from her daughters. The reports say she considered ways to remove or dispose of the remains but did not carry out those plans before the September welfare check.
That timeline helps separate two different questions that can otherwise become blurred in a case with disturbing allegations. Police say Wilson admitted concealing and dismembering Groom’s remains, but the charge of second-degree murder concerns the earlier question of how Groom died. Wilson allegedly told detectives she feared she had killed him, yet also said she could not remember what happened during the relevant period. The coroner’s medical findings therefore remain important to determining what evidence supports the homicide allegation.
The affidavit also describes why investigators were suspicious of Wilson’s fear that she had caused the death. She allegedly told detectives that she had a pattern of becoming heavily intoxicated and later finding Groom injured. She believed she had physically hurt him on at least 10 occasions, according to court records. Wilson said Groom’s strokes had left him physically weak and dependent on her for care, including help with his wheelchair. Investigators also documented earlier allegations from relatives who had contacted police about abuse.
Police records showed 18 calls for service to the residence beginning in December 2024. In one incident described in the affidavit, a family member said Wilson placed more than 40 calls in a day and made statements about wanting to kill Groom. Those reports predated his death and may provide context for investigators, but they do not establish that Wilson caused the death. The prosecution would still have to connect evidence about the March events to the elements of the murder charge.
For Groom’s relatives, the months between March and September were also a period in which his absence had to be explained. Court records say family members were told he was elsewhere, including with relatives outside the state. The welfare check indicates that those explanations eventually stopped satisfying people close to him. The case therefore emerged not because Wilson had immediately reported what she said happened in March, but because Groom’s prolonged absence drew renewed attention from family and law enforcement.
After Wilson’s Sept. 19 report, investigators documented what they found inside and outside the house. The affidavit described bagged human remains in two storage totes. A small mattress with dark staining that investigators believed might be blood or other biological material was located behind a privacy fence. Those observations became part of the evidence cited in court records. The reporting reviewed for this article does not establish what later laboratory testing, if any, concluded about the mattress or other material collected at the scene.
Wilson also allegedly made statements after her arrest about Groom’s Social Security payments, telling investigators she expected she might face additional charges because she had continued receiving his money after his death. That assertion introduced a possible financial issue but did not itself establish that prosecutors filed a separate case. The homicide investigation and alleged body concealment remain the clearly documented core of the criminal proceedings in the available reporting.
The El Paso County Coroner’s Office performed an autopsy Sept. 21. Three days later, officials identified the deceased man as Alan Groom, 73, of Colorado Springs. Police publicly announced the identification and said they were treating the death as a homicide while the coroner determined the official cause and manner. Groom’s family provided a photograph that police released with the identification, moving the public account of the case beyond earlier reports that had referred only to an unidentified man.
Police said Groom’s death represented Colorado Springs’ 11th homicide of the year at the time it was announced. Yet the designation of the investigation as a homicide and Wilson’s arrest are not the same as a final determination of criminal guilt. The arrest affidavit lays out investigators’ evidence and Wilson’s alleged statements to support probable cause; a criminal case requires a higher standard of proof before a conviction can be entered.
What began with relatives asking police to locate Groom ended, two days later, with Wilson directing authorities to a death she allegedly had concealed for months. That sequence explains how the case came to light, but it does not settle how Groom died. Wilson remains charged in connection with his death and the handling of his remains, while the publicly available sources reviewed through Nov. 7 leave the case’s final medical and judicial conclusions unresolved.
Author note: Last updated Nov. 7, 2026.