Brooklyn Woman Kept Son's Dead Body in Her Home for Nearly a Decade

A Brooklyn woman lived with her dead son's remains for almost a decade.

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Complex Original

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An elderly Brooklyn woman had a very strange roommate for about the past eight years—her son's corpse. New York's PIX 11 reports the woman, who lives in Midwood, had fallen and was hospitalized. A family member went to retrieve some of her things Thursday afternoon then discovered someone's remains, and called 911 at around 1:30 p.m.

The police confirmed that the body belonged to the woman's son, a middle-aged livery driver who was last seen alive after a 2008 car accident. In a macabre twist, the man would have celebrated his 51st birthday this week.

As if that wasn't bizarre enough, one of the man's relatives told police that the man's family hadn't seen him in twenty years.

New York Daily News reports that the man is believed to have died of natural causes (he is described as "terminally ill"), although the city medical examiner has not yet given an official cause of death.  The police did not find any signs of trauma.

The woman was described, unsurprisingly, as "reclusive." She reportedly had the same Ford Explorer parked in her driveway, never moving, for years.

"She never said hello," one neighbor told the Daily News. "She always walking down the street with a grocery bag. She would walk looking down. Something about her always seemed a little weird."

The strange story has made waves far outside the New York area. It is getting reported on in outlets as far away as the United Kingdom, with British tabloid The Daily Star writing about the case.

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