Mummified Body Found In Front of Blaring TV

Post by **eefanincan** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:05 am

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Police called to a Long Island man's house discovered the mummified remains of the resident, dead for more than a year, sitting in front of a blaring television set.

The 70-year-old Hampton Bays, New York, resident, identified as Vincenzo Ricardo, appeared to have died of natural causes. Police said on Saturday his body was discovered on Thursday when they went to the house to investigate a report of a burst water pipe.

"You could see his face. He still had hair on his head," Newsday quoted morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus as saying. The home's low humidity had preserved the body. (Watch for views inside the house and why no one ever bothered to check on him )

Officials could not explain why the electricity had not been turned off, considering Ricardo had not been heard from since December 2005.

Neighbors said when they had not seen Ricardo, who was diabetic and had been blind for years, they assumed he was in the hospital or a long-term care facility.
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What a sad thought that someone could go an entire year without somebody checking in on them.

IRiSHMaFIA · Post by **IRiSHMaFIA** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 3:33 am

That's the first thing that came to my mind as well eefan when reading the story. It's such a shame nobody thought to check on him and he wasn't missed by anyone.

6ULDV8 · Post by **6ULDV8** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 11:31 am

There was a guy in Washington DC who died in his bath...

8 Years... (yes eight) before his body was found.

He was a well known old guy in a semi decent neighbourhood, all the people just concluded he'd either been taken into assisted living (a home) or was just OK...

His house had a few lights on timers, his electricity was paid for by a 'standing order' from his bank account.

The only thing that made anybody go around was 8 years of back dated property taxes, they saw he owed 8 years, visited twice, asked neighbors & eventualy put 2 & 2 together.

cori · Post by **cori** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 7:32 pm

You know when I read this I thought how could no one have checked in on this gent? I know I call my mum and aunt regularly as they are elderly and none of us live near them. I think it's sad, doesn't mean you have to be a nosey neighbor, but maybe someone who's aware of what's going on around them?

girldorksrule · Post by **girldorksrule** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 7:38 pm

One of my biggest fears is dying alone like that and no one noticing. It is really sad and it says a lot about society as well.

janbo1960 · Post by **janbo1960** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 7:50 pm

Talk about Couch potato!!!

6ULDV8 · Post by **6ULDV8** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:07 pm

cori wrote:You know when I read this I thought how could no one have checked in on this gent? I know I call my mum and aunt regularly as they are elderly and none of us live near them. I think it's sad, doesn't mean you have to be a nosey neighbor, but maybe someone who's aware of what's going on around them?

I felt this way about the old guy in DC too...

He had inherited the house from his mother, lived in it for a few years but kept himself to himself...

We live in a small community here & to be honest we could all die in the house & no bugger from the community would know...
This is due to having friends outside the area (community) & not realy talking to our neighbors who are fairly well spread out...
Our friends are used to us not being around for a month or 10 also as we do travel.

It's not hard for a person to go overlooked, even for a year.

My biggest bind with this story (original post) is that as he was both diabetic & blind that he didn't have a care worker looking in on him or at least some form of social worker.

Post by **eefanincan** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 11:56 pm

6ULDV8 wrote: My biggest bind with this story (original post) is that as he was both diabetic & blind that he didn't have a care worker looking in on him or at least some form of social worker.

You're right.... and that was part of what I meant by not having anyone look in on him, that and some sort of family or friend. It's sad really.

I don't recall where I heard of it, but, there's a city somewhere in the US where the postal workers have taken it upon themselves to keep an eye out for some of the elderly/infirm people on their route. If they see that mail is piling up and it doesn't look as if anyone has been around in a few days, they alert the police and the situation is checked out. I have to wonder, why aren't more people doing this without a formal program in place?

6ULDV8 · Post by **6ULDV8** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 12:23 am

eefanincan wrote:
6ULDV8 wrote: My biggest bind with this story (original post) is that as he was both diabetic & blind that he didn't have a care worker looking in on him or at least some form of social worker.
You're right.... and that was part of what I meant by not having anyone look in on him, that and some sort of family or friend. It's sad really.

I don't recall where I heard of it, but, there's a city somewhere in the US where the postal workers have taken it upon themselves to keep an eye out for some of the elderly/infirm people on their route. If they see that mail is piling up and it doesn't look as if anyone has been around in a few days, they alert the police and the situation is checked out. I have to wonder, why aren't more people doing this without a formal program in place?

I know hun, wish there were more people that would do this...

Ourselves, we have a neighbor in her early to mid 80's, on her own, her kids see her about 6 times a year...
She has a visit once a month from a 'worker' of some sort...
We keep a 'box of bits' on hand & pop over to her whenever there is a power outage (box contains Candles, basic tinned foods that can be eaten cold etc)...
I have our post person keep an eye on her mail for us...
She's happy that one of us shows up when there is an outage etc... but other than that she hates people, her phone was off for some reason the other month, her kids called us to see if she was OK...
We got a very frosty reception from her when we took a cell phone over for her to use until her phone was fixed.

It's very easy for this type of person to 'expire' & nobody know for weeks if not months on end...

Other neighbors don't seem to care about her as she has been the same 'frosty' person with them too...

I tried to get a group of people together here that would keep an eye on the elderly & infirm, but nobody seemed to have the time nor the inclination.

It doesn't help that our community all keep themselves to themselves to the larger extent, but throw an extra 50 cents on everybodies yearly fees for the upkeep of the boat dock & your sure to see every fuckers face...

Marcella-FL · Post by **Marcella-FL** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:43 pm

I think you hit it on the head with the "frosty" description. I have had quite a few elderly neighbors who fit that description. You get afraid to approach them!

My mother is 76 and lives in an apartment complex with all 55+. Many of her neighbors are so paranoid that someone is going to break in and steal their stuff and kill them they growl at anyone who tries to befriend them! Sadly, they aren't too far off the mark. How many stories of elderly people murdered end up with someone who befriended them?

I would think the postal worker would have noticed something was up when the mail was piling up in the box (unless they had a mail slot)