A North Carolina woman kept her mother’s body at home for several months to satisfy her curiosity about the “stages of death,” police said.

Donna Sue Hudgins, 69, of Enfield, was arrested shortly after a strange encounter at a local funeral home, where she went to make final arrangements for her mother, Nellie May Hudgins, 93 — but claimed she didn’t know where emergency workers took her mother’s body after she passed away earlier that day, the Enfield Police Department announced Tuesday.

After trying unsuccessfully to track down the body, workers at the funeral home alerted authorities, prompting Police Chief Tyree Davis and two officers to respond to Hudgins’ home, which she shared with her daughter, police said.

The responding officers soon found the elderly woman’s badly decomposed body. The woman had been dead for several months before Hudgins let her relatives know about her passing, police said.

“Detectives interviewed Hudgins and learned that she did not report the death because she was curious and wanted to see the stages of death,” department officials posted on Facebook.

Hudgins was later arrested and charged with felony concealment of a death. Hudgins, whose bond was set at $5,000, is expected to return to court Nov. 7. It was unclear if she had hired an attorney.

Kenny Velasquez, who is separated from Nellie May Hudgins’ granddaughter, said relatives frequently tried to visit or call the elderly woman but were met with a litany of excuses.

“Every time somebody would stop by, she would meet us at the door, say she’s asleep or something like that,” Velasquez told WRAL. “Apparently every time someone would call, same thing.”

But at least one of Hudgins’ neighbors said they had noticed a strong odor near the home.

“I still didn’t pay it no mind,” neighbor Edna Burgess told the station. “I thought maybe it was a sewer or something.”

Police did not indicate how Nellie May Hudgins died and declined further comment, referring additional inquiries to the district attorney’s office.