STORM2K

SOMERVILLE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A mother's deathbed confession has led police to a dead body in a storage locker freezer, and officials say the corpse may be that of the woman's husband whom she murdered more than a decade ago.

The woman apparently told her children as she was dying that their father had not died in a car crash as they thought but that she had in fact killed him and that his body was in a rental storage facility in Somerville, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston.

Family members then contacted police, who searched the facility and found a large freezer wrapped in duct tape and giving off a strong odour. Inside, they found the remains of what they think was a man.

Local prosecutors said the man may have died as a result of a domestic homicide that took place more than a decade ago in California. The body was thought to have been shipped from California to Massachusetts, where it has been in storage since at least 1998.

Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley's office did not identify the woman, who has since died.

Coakley's office said on Thursday it would contact law enforcement authorities in California as part of its investigation.