Body Of Missing Southfield Man Found In Sterling Heights
STERLING HEIGHTS (WWJ) - Sterling Heights police say they have found the body of an elderly Southfield man who has been missing since October.
Seventy-five-year-old Sheldon Leider, who goes by the name "Cook," was last seen on Oct. 27. A day after his disappearance, police in Sterling Heights found Leider's car with the keys in the ignition, abandoned in the area of 18 Mile and Mound roads, but no clues as to where he could be.
On Friday, Dec. 6, police confirmed with WWJ Newsradio 950 that Leider's body was found "a ways away" from where his car was recovered. No further details on what might have led to Leider's death were released.
Marlene Bass, Leider's sister, earlier told WWJ's Charlie Langton the last time she heard from her brother, he seemed busy or irritated.
"I speak to him almost every week because we still have a mother in the nursing home and she's 99. So every week, I would call him and he would talk to my mother on the phone, and that was a routine we had," she said. "On Saturday the 26th, he picked up the phone, he said 'I can't talk' and he put it down, and that was the last I heard of him."
Bass said her brother suffers some psychological issues and was recently placed under on new medications. She said she's not sure if Leider was having a negative reaction to the drugs, or if he was taking them at all.
"He did well on his medication for 40 years or more. Then this last year, his hands started shaking. His psychiatrist changed him, put him in the hospital for a few days and he seemed to do ok on the new meds. But then he was saying he was tired, so they reduced the amount of medicine he was taking. Then he was confused, so they added the medicine back," she said.
Bass said Leider had been talking about wanting to find a new place to live, but she doesn't know if that has to do anything with his disappearance.
"What I know is that he wasn't real happy where he was living, he didn't think it was clean and some of the people that moved in to the apartment made him uncomfortable." she said.
An investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information on Leider's disappearance or death is asked to contact Sterling Heights police at 586-446-2800.
