HOUSE OF HORROR: Neighbors terrified after a woman admits she lived with mother’s CORPSE for over a year
PETALUMA, CALIFORNIA: A California woman was found living with her mother's dead body in a home about 40 miles north of San Francisco on Tuesday morning, August 23, the Petaluma Police Department said. The woman's mother was believed to have been dead for a year before the discovery of the corpse, reports The Sun. The Petaluma Police Department said it found the mother’s decomposing body while performing a welfare check, prompted by neighbors who became concerned when they had not seen the daughter for several weeks.
The neighbors told police that they believed the woman’s mother used to live at the residence, but they had not seen her in over a year. There were roughly 20-30 packages stacked on the front porch of the home and no one answered the door when neighbors knocked, according to police. Neighbors called police to check on the woman. Officers then entered the home and found a woman’s body on a sofa in the living room, according to Lt Jeremy Walsh. A short time after discovering the body, officers were shocked to hear a female voice calling out to them from a bedroom. It took some time for them to clear enough debris to get to the woman, who claimed to be the daughter of the dead woman.
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"She had been living inside the house the entire time and was well aware of her mother’s body being located inside the house,” Walsh said to the Bay Area News Group. Petaluma detectives believe that the woman had not left the house since the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020 as she ordered all living essentials online, including daily meals. "The conditions inside the home were unlivable in that it was filled with clutter, trash and boxes from floor to ceiling. Small, almost impassable paths were carved out of the debris and created some challenges for the officers when they went inside the home," Walsh added. The Sonoma County Coroner’s Office will perform an autopsy on the victim to identify her and determine a cause of death. However, authorities speculate that the mother's death was from natural causes. The spokesperson for Sonoma County Sherriff's Office stated it could take several days for the coroner to announce the woman's name due to her body's advanced state of decomposition. The daughter cooperated with the police and said her mother had died in April 2021.
According to SFist, her daughter's name has not been disclosed. Detectives are investigating to figure out why the death was never reported, whether any criminal negligence lies on the daughter as the mother's sole care provider, and whether there were any financial benefits entitled to the mother being inappropriately used. The home has been "red tagged" due to the uninhabitable condition of the interior of the residence, and the doors have been boarded up. Police said that there are no outstanding suspects or safety concerns in the neighborhood. It is still an active investigation, and it is too early to determine if any charges will be filed.
One woman, who did not want to share her name, said she had been too busy taking care of her ailing husband to notice anything unusual next door. Other residents in the neighborhood remained mystified Wednesday morning. Brenda Martin, 52, said she saw an ambulance and a fire truck pull into the driveway around 11 am on Tuesday. An hour later, she saw more police and a crew in an investigative van, who put up crime scene tape. “I knew something horrible had happened,” Martin said, according to PressDemocrat. “I don’t know them. I just know it’s really tragic.” She questioned how neighbors could have waited for all those packages to pile up before calling police. “If one of the neighbors in my quadrant had even three packages, and I knew they weren’t on vacation, I would have called police,” she said. Beth Namei, 50, was out walking her dog when she heard about the news. “I’m horrified,” she said, adding that the idyllic neighborhood is mostly home to retired residents, empty-nesters and couples. Jeff Maddux, 62, who lives one quadrant down, said he didn’t know or see who lived at the house, but he noticed the drapes were always drawn.
“It’s shocking,” Maddux said. “It’s a reminder to make sure you know what’s going on around you.” Another neighbor, Monna Pierattini said "I read the news this morning. Somebody else had sent it to me and I was in shock. The picture shows a lot of boxes and this is what happens you know when you are really disconnected."
