Dead for 8 years and no one knew.

[*crikey*mate*]

But now the vultures circle for this poor old lady's estate.

Inquest into forgotten Sydney woman to turn 'ugly'

[poddster]

A sad story.

What I have observed is that there are quite a few people who have been dead from the neck up for many years and are still walking around under the pretext of being alive 😞

[buzzlightyearsgirlfriend]

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@am*3 wrote:

Crikey or anyone else here, if you heard some reclusive relative of yours died (that you hadn't even reallly heard of) and  thye had $800 000 worth of property, plus $80 000 cash.. would you put in a claim if you were advised you were one of her closest living relatives?

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I would. Better off in my pocket that the government's.

[i-need-a-martini]

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@purple_haize wrote:

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It just amazes me that the ultiliy companies didnt come around or the council wanting to know why she didnt pay her rates..........of her neighbours............makes you wonder what the world is coming to, when no one bothers to find out if she was alright or not.

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I work around the corner to this ladies house and pas by every day. So I can understand why the neighbours wouldn't have realised anything - her house looks completely derelict, there is no letter box (just a slot in the door) and no garden. The house on one side of hers is empty and derelict, the 2 houses on the other side were looking empty until about 2 years ago and then they were sold and done up, and there is a disused car park across the road. There isn't much of a neighbourhood to speak of.

But I fail to understand how it can be possible that Centrelink etc didn't investigate.

[*crikey*mate*]

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@poddster wrote:

A sad story.

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I told ya so, and you always thought I was silly worrying about people who lived alone getting to the morgue before they got smelly.

[not_an_eloi]

relative thing

[cherry*135]

Today

Natalie Wood died aggrieved and alone after falling out with her closest relatives. Yet her sister-in-law, who refused to take her in when she was sick, is now likely to inherit the estate of ‘‘the woman Sydney forgot’’. 

State Coroner Michael Barnes ruled on Thursday that Mrs Wood died in about February 2004 after she fell in her bedroom at 139 Kippax Street, Surry Hills, and was unable to get up or seek help. She lay there dead and alone for eight years, before police found her body in July 2011, a month before her 87th birthday. ‘‘Human sensibilities are naturally offended by the thought of an old woman decomposing in her house without anyone inquiring to ascertain what had become of her,’’ the coroner said at the inquest into her death. 

Police say the cause of her death "will be forever undetermined" because of the time it took to find her body.

‘‘That the death of a life-long resident of a high density housing area should remain undiscovered until after all the flesh had rotted from her frail bones caused public disquiet,’’ he noted.  He rejected the evidence of Mrs Wood’s sister-in-law Enid Davis that the family were on good terms before her death.

He found Mrs Wood was likely ‘‘aggrieved’’ and ‘‘disappointed’’ that her brother Vane, who died in 2009, and sister-in-law did not share Christmas with her in 2002, as was their custom.  Mrs Wood was further aggrieved in November 2003, after being admitted to hospital complaining of ‘‘funny turns’’, when her closest relatives refused to let her live at their Chifley home, the coroner said.

Doctors discovered Mrs Wood had a brain tumour, which was later found to be benign. ‘‘On two occasions a social worker called her brother’s house to see if she could be discharged there but this was declined,’’ Mr Barnes said. ‘‘When she ceased all further contact they were not surprised and did not assume anything untoward had become of her.’’

Despite this, Mrs Davis is now likely to inherit the spoils of Mrs Wood’s estate: $79,270 in a Commonwealth Bank account and her now derelict two-bedroom home, worth $800,000 or more.

The coroner’s declaration that Mrs Wood died in 2004, when her brother was alive, means the Supreme Court is likely to award her money and assets to her brother’s estate, of which Mrs Davis is the sole beneficiary.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-woman-sydney-forgot-estranged-sisterinlaw-likely-beneficiary-of-natali...

[gort_au2014]

How sad. I hope that lady is at peace now in heaven, or wherever good spirits go.