The lost dead

 

There was a story on social media recently about a lady who had died forty years before she was discovered, and when social services broke her door down, they found her in her front room, sitting in her armchair, watching the TV. She was totally mummified.

And the TV was still on.

It was all rather vague. And probably rather untrue. But I'm sure a good crime writer could devise a way that it could have happened.

There was a real life case in Glasgow where an old lady died, probably of epilepsy, and was found a year later behind her front door. The postman was getting more concerned, her neighbours in the tenement thought she was elsewhere, gone to live with relatives or something.

I believe, in the end it was the smell that alerted  the neighbours to the situation.

The vertical villages of Glasgow are not what they once were. Back in the day families stayed for years, everybody knew the kids, the brothers, the sisters. There was an unofficial social security system up the close. A struggling family would find a loaf of bread on the step for them, a few eggs, something to help feed the family.

Those days are long gone. Tenements are now starter flats; the turnover of residents is quick and constant.

The case of Joyce Vincent is interesting. Her death went unnoticed for over two years; she was discovered in January 2006 when the local authority entered her flat to engage with her over unpaid rent.

In Joyce’s case, the TV was still on; the electricity and TV licence were paid by direct debit. Her bank account was topped up by social security patients. Like the Glasgow case, lack of sightings of her were explained by everybody thinking she was elsewhere.

It was only the residents immediately around her flat who knew Joyce. And then only in passing, as Joyce, more or less had gone into hiding.

A young woman, with a promising career in finance with companies like Ernst & Young.

Then domestic abuse started at home, and she became more and more withdrawn, removing herself from her support network of friends and family.

By the year 2000 she was moving from hostel to hostel, then into a shelter for victims of domestic abuse and then into the anonymous world of bedsit land.

It’s thought that Joyce passed away from an asthma attack.

It was December and her Christmas presents were found, still under the tree, unwrapped.

There’s a docudrama about her Dreams of a Life (2011). It explores her life and her death, the spiralling into loneliness.

There's only one picture of her, easily found if you google her name. She's a very attractive young lady, either black of of mixed race. She was obviously bright, intelligent with a good career path in front of her. 

Was there early indications of mental health issues that were missed? I'd like to think not. I'd like to think that some health care professional somewhere had her under their care. But mistakes do happen.

It's scary to think that if it could happen to her, it could happen to any of us.