Texas Grandmother's Home Ransacked by Thieves after She Froze to Death

An 84-year-old grandmother who froze to death inside her Houston home was robbed by thieves who broke in and took off with the elderly woman's belongings.

Mary Gee reportedly lost power in her northeast Houston apartment over the night of February 15. Her body was discovered by her family and police the following morning.

A medical examiner ruled the elderly woman died of hypothermia after unprecedented winter storm conditions and record low temperatures wrecked havoc across the state.

Gee's granddaughter, Nicale Spencer, said she is struggling with the knowledge that her beloved grandmother may have suffered before her death.

"I had just spoken to her," Spencer told Fox26. "To just talk to somebody and you're joking on the phone with her, and then suddenly your next phone call is somebody screaming telling you they're gone is surreal."

"For somebody to freeze to death is... I'm always cold. So, just for that coldness to sit in my body that long for me to pass from it, that's just a hard way to go," Spencer later told ABC13. "It's almost like suffering, and it's just sad."

"I mean, you don't know what happened to her within those hours," Gee's stepdaughter, Rachel Cook added. "It bothers me deeply."

However, the news of Gee's death is not the only anguish the family say they are grappling with.

Less than one day after Gee's body was found, robbers reportedly broke into the Northshore Meadows apartment complex and took off with the elderly woman's belongings.

Her family say the thieves grabbed Gee's television, stereo, phone and her son's army badges.

"The stuff was just ransacked and thrown," Cook said. "I really don't care about that stuff, I cared about her."

"God has a plan for those people who came in here knowing she's deceased and did this," Gee's grandson Ronnie Spencer told Fox.

The winter storm has ravaged through the southern state, causing temperatures to plunge well below freezing and resulting in severe electricity, food and water shortages.

In the Houston area alone, 22 people are thought to have died from weather related causes such as hypothermia and carbon monoxide poisoning.

Meanwhile, just west of Dallas in Abilene, one man reportedly froze to death in his recliner as his wife fought for survival next to him.

Josh Casey, president of Abilene Fresh, a charity that donates food to local non-profits reported on the man's death.

"A man FROZE TO DEATH under our collective noses. In Abilene! I don't even know what to do with this information. Except to check on my immediate neighbors," he said in a Facebook post.

Casey added that the wife was found "nearly dead" and is still in the hospital "in peril."

Last week, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a Hard Freeze Warning and a Wind Chill Advisory across the state of Texas including in the Houston/Galveston, Austin/San Antonio, Fort Worth/Dallas and Corpus Christi areas.

On February 14, President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency as hundreds of thousands of people found themselves without electricity.

Millions more across the state have been impacted by weather-related operational disruptions, power outages, and food supply chain shortages.