Random Musings

Home, But Not Alone

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060110051909990005&cid=936

{c}Woman Dead Since 2003 Left Sitting at TV

This is another case of "I wasn't going to go there, but I just have to." I find that I simply cannot hold it in any longer.

It seems that one Ms. Johannes Pope told her caretaker that she didn't want to be buried when she died because she planned on coming back. Surely enough, when she died, her wishes were honored, and she remained upstairs in the house, where it is assumed she expired, for the next two years.

Some reports that I have read of the incident stated that her corpse was found seated in an easy chair in front of the television. The link above does mention the TV in its title, however, the article itself does not go into that kind of detail.

It does say, however, that Ms. Pope's daughter and granddaughter also lived in the house during the two years after Ms. Pope died and her decomposing body was sitting in state up on the second floor.

Now, the article says that an air conditioner ran continually, and that caused the body to slowly mummify, which, I guess kept the smell down. It wasn't until said air conditioner stopped working that the presence of the late Ms. Pope became known. The death stench started wafting down the stairs and out of the house, drawing the attention of neighbors and, I would assume, visitors to the home. A relative finally summoned the police to say that she hadn't seen Ms. Pope in years. The police went out the house where they found the remains on the second floor behind a staircase which was hidden behind a basket and a closed door. Ms. Pope apparently hadn't made it back yet.

Which leads me to my point. What were the people who lived in the house thinking? How could they stay in that house knowing that a body was rotting over their heads? Air conditioner or no, I have to think that they smelled a little something untoward. The scent of rotting small roadkill is enough to make you puke. I cannot begin to imagine what the smell of a decomposing human must be like.

And what about the idea of the body being up there, period? That would give me the willies on its own. I'm kind of scary when it comes to things like that. Then Ms. Pope said that she was planning on coming back. She might have had that plan, but if it was me with whom she had been sharing it, she would have been coming back somewhere other than up on the second floor of the house in which I was still residing. I would be having a hard enough time with the idea that she died up there. Let's not even talk about the basket case I would be if I knew that the body was still up there for the next two years. She might have stayed, but I definitely, without a doubt would have moved on.

Is it just me, or does it seem like the world is getting more and more strange?