Body Found in Home a Year After Death

[dogday]

HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. -- The partially mummified body of a man dead for more than a year has been found in a chair in front of his television, which was still on, authorities said.

Vincenzo Ricardo, 70, apparently died of natural causes, said Dr. Stuart Dawson, Suffolk County's deputy chief medical examiner.

Police found Ricardo's body this week when they investigated a report of burst pipes.

The home's dry air had preserved his features, morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus said.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-brf-long-dead-man,0,7161064.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines


:wtf:The TV was still on after a year!!--WOW

[hlthe2b]

1. Sadly... I suspect reports like this will become more common...

With an ever increasing population (of all ages) living alone, sadly, it can only be so...

[City Lights]

2. Dead for a year and no one missed him?

:wtf:

[dogday]

4. And the power is still going

who paid the bill?

[Warpy]

6. Direct deposit of social security payments

and automatic withdrawal for bills.

You'd think the postman would have noticed the junk mail piling up, though.

Some people are most comfortable living alone. Most of them know the risk and accept it. Forcing them to accept roommates is cruel.

[NV Whino]

10. I can hardly wait for the mess

when Social Security tries to reclaim the payments it made over the year the gentleman was dead.

[TahitiNut]

13. "Some people are most comfortable living alone."

I can't even begin to imagine a life so filled with disappointment and alienation that someone would develop such a preference. Or maybe I can, and it fills me with compassion for anyone whose experience in life is so devoid of the love and respect which is everyone's birthright that they would eagerly or even willingly adopt such a solitary existence that others would not notice the hole they left in our human family when they died.

:cry:

[uppityperson]

16. Many people like to live alone and aren't disappointed/alienated, etc

(ed to fix typo) Some people are very active outside their home and like a quiet place to go back to that is theirs alone. Some haven't found they need someone living with them.

However, that is just living alone. Being so alone no one notices you have died for a yr, that is really sad.

[ellenfl]

18. i will most likely be living alone in my old age

but i am an admitted hermit. i can amuse myself and do not need others around for comfort. if i outlive my mother and siblings, (the youngest of whom recently died) the same could conceivably happen to me, altho' i am sure the condo association will be knocking down my door for the quarterly maintenance payments. :D

ellen fl

[hippiechick]

23. Same here.

:hi: We are a misunderstood breed, aren't we?

[idgiehkt]

27. me too

and when I die my cats will eat my corpse. Yum.

[SKKY]

30. Why do you presume that if someone wants to be alone, they're devoid of love...

...disappointment, or alienated? Is it so strange that someone is more comfortable by themselves than around others?

[Warpy]

33. Spoken like a true extrovert

but 25% of us are introverts. No, you can't understand it. You just have to accept it.

[Spider Jerusalem]

36. There's a big difference between introversion and alienation.

Some people genuinely prefer solitude, and find the constant company of other people mentally and physically exhausting to the point that it's quite literally unbearable. Personally, I can't understand people who feel the need for constant social interaction.

[brer cat]

7. We have ours automatically paid by bank.

I can't understand the mail carrier not noticing. Horrid that there was no one to miss him personally.

[ellenfl]

19. maybe he was one of those mailmen who neglect to deliver the mail. eom

[Connonym]

31. I think there's a time limit on how long they will deliver

mail if it remains not taken out of the box. They'll eventually start returning it to sender. Or could be that the guy had a mail slot in his door so the mailman never noticed. At any rate, it's pretty damned sad.

[City Lights]

8. Really strange...

...and sad.

Maybe he was set up for auto withdrawals. :shrug: I wonder what other utilities were still working.

[Midlodemocrat]

32. I know. That is really, really sad.

There is a big difference between being alone and being lonely. Someone whose death went unnoticed, essentially by anyone, was probably a bit of both.

Sad.

[redwitch]

3. that is so sad. no one cared or noticed.

plus, the electric company didn't shut him down? didn't the mailman notice? wierd.

[tammywammy]

5. That was my first thought

The electricity was still on after a year of not paying?

That's very sad that no one noticed that he wasn't around. :(

[Nabia2004]

9. neighbor : "We never thought to check on him"

Sad indeed, not just living alone, but apparently no family or friends.

[Kali]

11. you all are much better people than me

I am :rofl:


What a commentary on modern life!

Disclaimer: not making light of the fact that nobody noticed the poor guy, just the whole picture of a mummified citizen sitting in front of a running television...just how different is he than many breathing watchers?

[Benhurst]

22. This will be really bad news for Katie Couric. Her ratings will have

to be adjusted downward to show yet another lost viewer.

[peekaloo]

41. I blame television "cliffhangers".

:hide:

[Beausoir]

12. "Dr" Laura Schlessinger's dad?

By any chance?

[malaise]

14. Good grief

No family or neighbours checked on him. Damn.

[AnneD]

15. For a long time...

I carried an article clipping in the 70's about a man that had been dead for many years (I think over 20 yrs) before his body was discovered. He seems to have been sitting in his recliner after work, drinking beer, and had a coronary. Someone had broken into his house but discovered the remains and bolted out. It was such a sad bizarre story that it always stayed with me all these years.

[Cleita]

17. Sad but this happens more often than you think, although

I never knew one of these deaths to go a year without being noticed. Some elderly, like myself are the last to go in an immediate family, so there wouldn't be any family to notice they are gone because they all went first. In my case I live with my late husband's daughter and son-in-law in a separate residence so there would be someone around to come looking for me. However, many oldsters don't have this.

I once lived in an apartment building that was full of elderly retirees. Every now and then one would die but often it was days or even a week before the manager would go investigate because another tenant missed seeing a tenant, or because there was a foul smell. She told me that is why she started renting to younger people because she was sick of seeing the coroner.

This is someplace where church volunteers could do a really good deed by checking up on the elderly in their parishes, not just the ones that belong to their church but all of the elderly to see how they are doing and if they need anything and of course to discover if they had died in a chair watching television. This is how my husband went. The only difference is that I was there but I couldn't revive him before the EMTs arrived.

[Marr]

20. Sounds like a great ad for the makers of the television set!

I can see it now...

FADE UP to close-up of the television with a game on the screen.

VOICE OVER: "Just how long does the new Sony Viewtronic last?"

CAMERA PULLS BACK SLOWLY, revealing mummified corpse in a Lazy-Boy

VOICE OVER: "Let's just say it won't be an issue".

FADE TO LOGO

[SoCalDem]

21. Local communities need to set up a phone number that

solitary seniors must call every day..just to check in.. no converstaion necessary.

If a person has not checked in, a return phone call could be triggered ...

It's not "big brother-ish" if these people are being monitored to make sure they are safe..

My own mother in law had a stroke at home, and was unfound for 2 days :(. She lived in kansas, and we live in Calif. We called her landlord to check on her, when we were unable to reach her by phone.. Had she been found soooner, perhaps her disabilities would have been lessened..

[tigereye]

29. it's sad that people are so isolated from each other

what a sad commentary on the lack of community.

Good idea on your part.

[HuffleClaw]

24. what channel ?

heheheeheheheee

[LostInAnomie]

25. That's how I want to go.

O8)

[Katherine Brengle]

26. Why was his electricity still on after a year?

Must have had some sort of direct payment setup...

That's fucked.

[KitchenWitch]

28. I am surprised the electric was not shut off.

[Fla Dem]

34. No cable shut off? No electric shut off? Mail piled up? Rent not

paid? How can that be that all this went on for a year and no one noticed ?

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

35. direct payment, owned his home... maybe had a

PO box...

or a slot in the door, so all the mail was inside.

You can pile up a lot of mail in an entryway.

[Critters2]

37. Makes me glad my grandmother had an attentive paper boy

She died in her sleep, living alone in her own home. The paper boy delivered, and mentioned to his mother that my grandmother's drapes were closed and he'd never noticed that before. So, his mother went by the house, rang the doorbell, and when no one answered, called the police. They broke in and found her in her bed. She'd been dead less than 12 hours, and we were all called right away.

The really nice thing is that she had spent the day before shopping with her sister, my great aunt. They'd been to a mall, dinner together, then home.

I hope I inherited the "shop all day then die in your sleep" gene.

[ellenfl]

39. i'd like that gene too. my dad and brother both died of cancer.

mom and sisters still kicking.

ellen fl

[Generic Brad]

38. It could have been worse

If he had been dead for a whole year in a cubicle where he worked, that would have been way creepier. Retired and at home - that I can understand.

[asthmaticeog]

40. Whoooaaaa, how "Infinite Jest" is that?

Freaky.