I don't know why that Christmas story is just reaching the newspaper today, but it's a story about hard-to-comprehend stretches of time.
The woman reported her husband missing last April, and the police came and searched the house, but he was there — we're told — all along, in the closet with the decorations.
Richard’s body had decomposed to the point of mummification. Jennifer, her neighbors, and even cops reported a foul odor coming from the home for months but believed it was sewage. Police described the house as a “hoarder home,” which made it difficult to conduct a complete search for the missing man — and the odor, Jennifer said, was never overwhelming.
Made it difficult... but also made it much more likely that the man was in the house. Terrible lack of persistence by the police.
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A dog probably would have found him quickly.
Women, they say, are more sensitive to odors and smells. They're much more honest about what they think smells good and what smells bad. Men will put up with some bad smelling stuff to varying degrees but women usually won't.
Women know what they like, and this woman clearly liked the smell of her decomposing husband.
I had a case kind of like that.
People lived in a house by a lake and in between the walls were thousands of dead bats. They never smelled the dead bats.
"You'll shoot your eye out."
A suicide...found inside a tote? Possible, I suppose, but the police just might want to be asking Jennifer a few more questions, y'know?
With all the ACAB pushback I'm afraid our cops will become the deballed shirkers you see in UK shows like Billions or Last of the Summer Wine.
Like, if you see something suspicious - hide!
You're likely to be arrested yourself if you dare complain about anything in the UK. Esp if the perp is PoC or trans.
If she'd had anosmia the cops would've looked more thoroughly, trusting their own noses. A mediocre ability to smell can lead to tragedy. (With my sense of smell, I'd have found him in about 10 minutes.)
That declutter lady can adopt a new motto: Clean out your house or you might lose your dead husband.
Seriously, though, I hope he wasn't lying among the boxes for days, waiting to be found. That's heartbreaking.
With all the ACAB pushback I'm afraid our cops will become the deballed shirkers you see in UK shows like Billions or Last of the Summer Wine.
You're more likely to be arrested yourself if you dare complain about anything in the UK. Esp if the perp is a PoC or trans.
“ and the odor, Jennifer said, was never overwhelming”
He ain’t smelly
He’s my husband
Yeah, Meade. You joke, but maybe you should wear a tracker or something. Just in case. Otherwise Ms. Cant Smell A Thing will never find you.
"Time passes slowly when you’re lost in a dream"
Even without actually losing the sense of smell, I think people can get used to odors and in a sense go nose-blind to bad odors. When I read the headline I was a little suspicious of the wife, but the Police did search the home when she reported him missing, and she did later report a foul smell, though it doesn't say to whom she reported it.
“Radiant jewel, a
mystcal wife”
You wouldn't believe, the number of times this happened to me..
Well.. Maybe you would
We keep our Christmas tree and decorations in totes in the attic. It gets harder and harder to bring them down (for some reason) as I get older. I told my wife this past Christmas to listen carefully while I was up there -- if she heard me fall, she was immediately to call 911 and ask the firefighters/ EMTs to send extra crew members to bring all the totes downstairs!
"It's a Festivus miracle!"
What if she’d killed him? She’d have gotten away with it, able to keep him in the house forever…
Like a Rockwell painting.
It brings a tear to my eye...
I wonder sometimes if these hoarders have that Marie Kondo book amongst the loads of clutter. That would be ironic, esp if there were multiple copies contributing to the problem.
hoarder house
There are mental health issues here. Th police need to ask a few more questions.
FWBuff...that is what my wife would say.
“I don't know why that Christmas story is just reaching the newspaper today, but it's a story about hard-to-comprehend stretches of time.“
Interesting that you have promoted the New York Post to be “the newspaper.” This story was reported December 20 in Troy, Illinois’s local newspaper.
The discovery of the body on December 11, 2022, was reported locally on December 28, 2022. www. stltoday. com/news/local/crime-and-courts/troy-ill-man-was-missing-for-7-months-before-being-found-dead-in-his-house/article_ed0d2a48-8957-5f31-b5cd-0b5e00408235.html).
The story is making news now because his death was just ruled a suicide by the coroner.
Self-abortion, maybe. A thing... person forgotten.
@Meade, I read your wife’s comment at 9:56. Considering that she has anosmia, I’d sleep lightly, Bro. Just sayin’
BTW, one of my aunts (now deceased) became a hoarder after my uncle died. Her house had stacks of yellowing (and yellowed) newspapers in the living room that she planned to read “when she got around to it.” The basement was full of old paint cans and toys — many broken — that her grown sons had played with as young children, and just plain “stuff.” And it smelled pretty off even with no corpses in the basement. My cousin inherited the house and had a heck of a lot of clean out work to make it habitable.
Ann Althouse said...
What if she’d killed him? She’d have gotten away with it, able to keep him in the house forever…
3/7/23, 9:56 AM
Looks like she did get away with it...
Persistence.
That's a troublesome local newspaper site loaded with ads but the police did everything right except for not finding the body.
I find that a tiny bit of research before commenting allows me to keep my stupidity to myself.
THAT is coming out of the closet.
Sure, the police will solve your problems for you. One assumes the wife was not particularly curious, either.
I wonder sometimes if these hoarders have that Marie Kondo book amongst the loads of clutter.
FlyLady - I think she's still around - is or was a blogger who promoted housecleaning. She knew from blog comments that a significant portion of her readership was people with serious clutter and cleaning issues who were in despair of ever solving them.
She had, or seemed to have, great compassion for these readers. One of her tenets was to "shine your sink" before you go to bed: if you can bring yourself to do nothing else, clear out your sink - even if you just pile what was in it on the counter - and clean it until it shines as well as it can, so that when you wake up in the morning you have one nice clean thing to start your day.
Another was to undertake "five-minute room rescues" - take a laundry basket and a trash bag into a room and tidy for five minutes, throwing away trash and loading things that don't belong into the basket, straightening as you go.
Another was to attack the task of the day (she had a calendar) for just fifteen minutes, setting a timer. (Weight Watchers used to use a similar approach: you can do anything for fifteen minutes, they'd say. It's not strictly true but it is a helpful aphorism to get you going when all you feel is hopelessness.)
I wasn't ever a hoarder, thank goodness, but when I discovered her I had three young children and really needed some advice on how to catch up to, and ultimately keep ahead of, the destruction they wrought, while also maintaining an actually sanitary house. I was grateful.
"It's always in the last place you look...."
I see it was a horder house. But still.
A missing person and an unidentified smell of rotting...stuff... would be a clue for law enforcement to call for a cadaver dog. The serial incompetence of govt is the real pandemic.
She's a hoarder. Does she have any other missing husbands?
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