Man Dies in Front of TV and No One Finds His Mummified Body for a Year
Dead and Unfound for Over a Year
The deputy chief medical examiner, Dr. Stuart Dawson in Suffolk County says that he seemed to have died from natural causes. Dawson also revealed that Vincenzo Ricardo lived alone because his wife had died a few years earlier. "He hasn't been heard from in over a year. That's the part that baffles me. Nobody sounded the alarm. He was in his house, sitting in his chair, as if watching television and the television was, in fact, still on," Dawson said. It is not mentioned if he has any children or extended family.
Jeff Bacchus, a morgue assistant says that the lack of humidity in the house is the reason for that Ricardo's body was mummified. "You could see his face. He still had hair on his head," Bacchus said.
Vincenzo Ricardo had gone blind in his 50's and also had diabetes, but he was still very independent. There was a roped that led from his front door to his mailbox, which allowed him to get his mail on his own everyday. One neighbor said that she used to help him out by reading his mail to him and paying his bills but they had a falling out when he wanted her to stay and she had to leave to go to work. She had not been back since then, which was the summer of '05.
There were a few reasons why Ricardo's death may have gone unnoticed for so long. First, his house was in back with lots of trees and brush to block the view of anyone who might have passed by and included a long dirt trail. Another reason is that when asked why they never checked on him, his neighbors all seemed to think that he was in the hospital or a retirement home. No one knew that he had died alone.
A month before the gruesome discovery, neighbors at a get together questioned why they had not seen him in a while. "We never thought to check on him," said neighbor Diane Devon.
Police officials believe that he died in December 2005 and they found it strange that his electricity was still on all this time. Even stranger is that his mailbox was overflowing and yet no one seemed to notice at all even though it could clearly be seen by passersby.
This is a very sad story and a reminder that we need to watch out for our elderly neighbors. Everyone seemed to only have thought about him for a moment and all just assumed when a simple check might have alerted them to a problem. No one should die alone and they certainly should not have to wait over 365 day for someone to even notice that they are missing.
Sources:
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Published by Marsha J
Marsha grew up in Bronx, NY before moving to florida at age 17 in 1997. She loves to write, read great novels, stay on the computer all day long, listen to music and play video games like Metroid, Spyro, or... View profile
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- Dead in front of tv a year before he was found.
- Neighbors thought he was somewhere else.
- No one noticed large piles of mail.
25 Comments
Post a CommentWhatever happened to love your neighbor as yourself? People just don't want to get involved anymore. His mailbox was overflowing with mail. He was blind, and must have been getting Soc.Sec once a month. You think the bank would have noticed he was not using his money from his checking account or savings. The ele. was still on, the water,phone? Very strange.
Wow, I can't believe that once the mailbox started overflowing, nobody still noticed something might be wrong. This is tragic... I hate to think of anybody dying alone, let alone remaining that way for a year. Hopefully this was a wake up call to those who might need it.
Oh my! Sometimes the world is so surreal
wow, what a fascinating article.
The neighbors not taking an interest isn't surprising at all. In fact, I consider it par for the course. All these shows today are trying to make people feel guilty about not getting involved in, for instance, domestic disturbances, but even police say they hate having to approach a domestic disturbance more than a just about any other crime. But what can you expect when you've got lawyers willing to sue Good Samaritans for invasion of privacy, or when things go wrong, etc. Even so, I'm definitely disturbed by the fact that the postal carrier didn't seem to be interested in the fact that mail was piling up. Even more shocking is that the TV was on. You mean to tell me that the power company didn't turn this guy's juice off after two months? Something doesn't add up here.
Spunky The Gamer: I was thinking the same thing. I had realized that this person could have had a stroke or some other illness that could have made them slowly die from lack of help. Lets hope that he did indeed die peacefully in his sleep.
That's pretty sad. I think dying in front of the TV with nobody to check up on you is an awful way to go. I just hope he at least went peacefully. Great job on the article.
Very sad,people are to busy to think of others these days.Good article!
Here is RI we have this thing where the mail personnel report on you if you haven't picked up your mail in a few days. I thought it was nationwide, guess not.
This same sort of thing happened near me.. A man had taken his life and nobody noticed. He said he was going on a trip, so nobody thought to check on him. He was found on his couch. He had been there for months.. he wasn't mummified though.