Date Published: 28/10/2019
ARCHIVED - Mummified corpse of Madrid woman found in her home 15 years after her death
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
Neighbours assumed that Isabel Rivera Molina had been committed to a mental health institution in 2004
There has been a growing number of cases reported in Spain in recent years concerning people, most of them elderly, who have died without the death having been noticed by anyone for years, and one of the lengthiest of these delays was reported last week in the Madrid district of Ciudad Lineal.
Isabel Rivera Molina was last seen alive by her neighbours in Calle José del Hierro in September 2004, but her mummified body was not discovered by the Policía Nacional in the bathroom of her home until last week. Forensic scientists believe she had been dead for approximately 15 years without anyone having raised the alarm regarding her disappearance.
It is believed that Sra Rivera Molina died of natural causes, but her corpse was found only after a relative reported being unable to establish her whereabouts. Bizarrely, the last some neighbours remember of her is when she threw a TV set off her balcony, and they report that she had become depressed after her long-term partner died: some assumed her family had had her committed to a mental health institution.
But when police officers arrived at her home on the second floor they were unable to enter due to the door having been locked on the inside, and in the end the fire brigade were called in to break in via a terrace where a window had been left half-open.
As for how the body failed to decompose, the circumstance in which Isabel Rivera Molina died provide the explanation due to the moisture in the bathroom being counteracted by the current of ventilation.
Other cases of this nature include the death of a Ukrainian woman in Vitoria, where her body was found last autumn after she is believed to have passed away in 2010, and this kind of unfortunate discovery has been interpreted by some as a warning that the social phenomenon of individuals living in complete isolation from the communities around them is becoming more and more common. Social observers warn instances like this are due to the increasingly individualistic attitudes of residents in large cities these days, which lead to elderly people becoming ignored and eventually isolated, and some forensic scientists believe that gradually the investigation of more deaths like that of Isabel Rivera Molina will gradually become an important part of their work.
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