PERRY, Fla. -- A 77-year-old man was found dead in his living room the day he hired Christine Falling -- accused of killing children she baby-sat -- as his housekeeper, a sheriff's deputy testified.
Wilbur G. Swindle, who died mysteriously last Jan. 4, was the sixth death linked to Miss Falling, 19.
Miss Falling, a seventh-grade dropout from Blountstown, is charged with first-degree murder in the strangulation or suffocation of 8-month-old Jennifer Daniels of Perry in July 1981. She also has been indicted in the deaths of 2-month-old Travis DeWayne Coleman and 2-year-old Cassidy 'Muffin' Johnson.
In addition, Miss Falling was caring for two other infants when they died, although no charges have been filed in those cases.
Disclosure of the latest Falling-related death came Tuesday during a pre-trial deposition hearing for the Daniels' murder trial, scheduled to begin Dec. 14.
Deputy Hugh Poppell of the Taylor County Sheriff's Department said Miss Falling apparently was the only person with Swindle when he died. Swindle was found lying face down in his living room with his pants pockets 'pulled wrong-side out,' Poppell said.
'Mr. Swindle was known to have large amounts of money and he was known to bury his money,' the deputy testified. 'There were places under his house and around his house that were dug up.'
The cause of Swindle's death has not been determined. His body was exhumed last summer after a relative gave police photographs that showed blue marks around his neck. The pictures were admitted as evidence Tuesday.
Blue marks also were found on the body of the Daniels infant.
In other testimony, Larry Williams, an investigator with the state attorney's office, said Miss Falling told her sister, Carol Phillips, that she killed the Daniels child.
'She said she felt she ought, as her sister, to tell her about it before she read it in those newspapers,' Williams said. 'She said she asked Christine why ... that she would sit there and look out the window.'
