Recently, I stumbled on a story about a woman who was discovered dead in her apartment. Now here's the interesting part, she had been dead for about two years. Joyce Vincent was discovered in her London apartment on 25 January 2006. She's believed to have died sometime in December 2003 and the cause of death is thought to be from an asthma attack or complications from peptic ulcer.
Her remains had decomposed so bad that a dental analysis had to be done to identify her. She was found lying on the floor surrounded by wrapped Christmas presents she probably intended sending out but they never got delivered. The TV in her flat was also turned on and the refrigerator contained food with 2003 expiry dates.
First, you'd probably wonder if she didn't have neighbours who'd notice her absence for that long or even notice a foul smell. She lived in a flat owned by Metropolitan Housing Trust of which benefit agencies covered half of her rent upfront (reason why officials might have believed she was still alive).
The neighbours assumed the foul smell was from the overloaded waste bins by the house and ignored the television sounds because it was generally a noisy building. They infact believed the flat was unoccupied all that time.
Your next question might be, "what about her family and friends?" Well, Joyce Vincent was known to be one who 'easily moved on'. She had no close ties with people and quickly cut off at the slightest clash. She was known to move on from jobs and apartments too. She barely had any friends and would rather indulge new people. She was the type to know a lot of people but didn't have friends.
When her friends were interviewed after her discovery, they claimed to have assumed she was out living her best life when they never heard from her. Her sisters claimed they hired a private investigator to search for her to no avail. They assumed she cut ties with them when she left their letters unanswered. She was also so detached that her boyfriend at the time didn't know where she lived.
Officials forcefully broke into her flat when the amount of unpaid bills had piled up and that's how her body was found.
I find this story very intriguing because sometimes you wonder if people are going to notice or miss you when you're gone. I personally wonder if I'm impressionable enough for my absence to be noticed. A number of times I've gone off the radar and had a couple friends calling me to check on me. It really is touching when people do that, knowing that you crossed their mind.
Like Joyce Vincent, I cut people off too but in my case, with much consideration. I also don't have a tight circle of friends but there are people you could associate me with if you checked. I subscribe to cutting people off but I also know that everybody needs somebody.
I feel there's more to the life of this woman than the tabloids say. Probably a mental health struggle or something in that line. Well, whatever it was I don't want my death to go unnoticed.
Would anyone notice if you disappeared today?
Her story was made into a movie titled, 'Dreams of a Life'. Here's a trailer;
