Grieving Woman Found Living With Elder Daughter's Corpse For Months

A 65-year-old woman who did not want to let go of her deceased elder daughter’s body has been found living with it in a house on Detroit's west side since November.

The grieving mother went to police Sunday to inform that her daughter had died. The officials found the 47-year-old woman's remains when they reached her house in the 5200 block of Seebaldt Street, Detroit police Officer Dan Donakowski said.

Donakowski said no one has been arrested in the case yet and police are waiting for the medical examiner to determine more information about the death. Detroit Police spokeswoman Holly Lowe said the mother told police that her daughter passed away in November last year and she was not able to part with her. She also said that she had kept the body covered with blankets inside the house.

Neighbors were shocked by the revelation and said the daughter was suffering from health problems.

“There was never a smell. Never,” one of the neighbors told local daily FOX2. “I know how bad she must feel, I can go down there and relate to her,” another neighbor said.

Under Michigan’s public health code, the punishment for not reporting a death to police is one year in jail or a fine of a thousand dollars.

In 2016, a woman was found living with skeletal remains of her son for nearly a decade in her Brooklyn apartment. The body was found when a relative went to retrieve some of her things from the house when she was hospitalized after a fall.

Police confirmed the body belonged to the woman's son who was last seen alive in 2008. They believe he died of natural causes. However, one of the relatives told police that they hadn’t seen him in about 20 years.

"She always walking down the street with a grocery bag. She would walk looking down. Something about her always seemed a little weird,” one of the neighbors said, describing her as "reclusive," New York Daily reported.

In a similar incident in 2005, husband kept his widower's death a secret from friends and neighbors and left the corpse on his bed for five months as he was unable to come to terms with her death. Howard Lewis, a resident of Pontypridd, Wales, was later arrested for not informing the law enforcement about the death but was not prosecuted.

The couple had been married for 34 years and he took care of her during the last five years of her life because she had Alzheimer's disease.​ Neighbors called the cops over concern of not seeing his wife for a while. Officers found her remains when they reached his home.

"He hadn't had any visitors and she wasn't missed at that point until Pc MacNamara (officer) called to the house," Det Con Rachel Walsh said, BBC reported. “My general feeling is that he didn't want to let his wife go."