woman lay dead with tv on for two years

Had a break from blogging for the Easter holiday period and visited my parents in Worcester where they told me about a news report which I looked into when I returned home and came up with the following article. followed. It particularly touched me as I used to live in Wood Green.

Neighbours of a forty year old woman who lay dead in her flat surrounded by unopened Christmas presents with the TV on for over two years before being discovered, expressed their disbelief at the gruesome find on their doorstep.

Joyce Vincent's skeleton was finally recovered from her bedsit in Wood Green town centre after the housing association came to repossess the flat. Post was found stacked high behind the door and her decomposed body was found on the sofa surrounded by Christmas presents.

The television and heating were still on, washing-up lay in a bowl in the kitchen and a fridge was packed with items which had a best before date of November 2003.

Kevin Mann, the caretaker of the building, entered the bedsit above shops with the police. He said: "It was unreal, there was an absolutely horrendous smell and there was this body lying on her back on the sofa with a shopping bag right next to her."She looked like she'd just come back from shopping." "I just assumed that someone lived there but wasn't around much. A lot of people keep to themselves in this block."

Her body was discovered in January this year and she was so decomposed she had to be identified by matching her dental records with a passport photograph of her smiling.

Her brother and sisters attended the inquest this week, which recorded an open verdict, and they said she had been placed in a women's refuge because she was a victim of domestic violence. It is thought she moved from there to the flat, at which stage her family lost touch.

Police told the inquest at Hornsey Coroners Court there were no suspicious circumstances but pathologist Dr Simon Poole said he was unable to establish the cause of death given the "largely skeletal" remains.