Experts confirm body of Missouri nun has not decomposed

Thousands of people have traveled to Gower, Mo., in the past year to view the remains of a nun whose body has not decayed since she died in 2019. Last week, a team of experts was unable to determine why her body has not decomposed.

“Within the limits of what has been observed during this time, the body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster does not appear to have experienced the decomposition that would have normally been expected under such previous burial conditions,” Bishop James V. Johnston of Kansas City-St. Joseph said, according to Fox News.

Lancaster died on May 29, 2019, at the age of 95. Nearly four years later, on April 28, 2023, her body was exhumed to be reinterred in a new altar the nuns were constructing. After her exhumation, she was found to be in a “remarkably preserved condition” despite not being embalmed and being buried in an unsealed wooden coffin.

Johnston said he had “commissioned a team of local medical experts to conduct an examination and evaluation of Sister Wilhelmina’s body” less than a month after it was discovered that she had largely not decomposed in the four years since her death. That team was led by a doctor of pathology, who was assisted by two other medical doctors and a former Missouri county coroner.

Aside from examining her body, “the team inspected the casket, and interviews were conducted with eyewitnesses to events immediately preceding the burial in 2019 and the exhumation in April 2023,” he said. “In the final report, the investigative team noted that the condition of Sister Wilhelmina’s body during the examination was notable for a lack of any detected features of decomposition.”

Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions believe that some people do not decompose as expected after death. This is called “incorruptibility,” according to the Catholic Answers website.

Lancaster’s remains were placed in a glass case in the abbey’s church, where she is able to be viewed each day, according to the abbey’s website.

–Alan Goforth | Missouri