Police: Daughter lived with her mother’s corpse for over a year in California
PETALUMA, Calif. – A daughter in Petaluma, California, allegedly lived with her mother’s corpse for over a year, police say.
The Petaluma Police Department in a news release said on Tuesday morning that they were called to a house to do a welfare check on a resident who lived there who hadn’t been seen for weeks. Neighbors had reported that they noticed there were about 20 to 30 packages stacked on front porch and no one was answering the door. When officers arrived at the house, they tried to contact the person living there but were unsuccessful.
PPD said that based on the information they were provided and what they observed at the house, the officers made entry into the house. When the officers got inside, they found a dead woman in the living area and another woman in one of the bedrooms who claimed to be her daughter,
According to KTVU, police believed that the mother had been dead for over a year and the daughter hadn’t left the house since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Police also told KTVU that the daughter had everything delivered since, including daily meals.
The daughter cooperated with the police investigation and told officers that her mother died in April 2021, according to KTVU. The daughter was also taken to a hospital for an evaluation.
KTVU said that PPD investigators initiated an unattended death investigation due to unknown circumstances surrounding the mother’s death. Investigators obtained a search warrant for the house and processed it.
Sonoma County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Office took custody of the body for identification and additional investigation purposes, according to PPD. The house was also red-tagged by a City of Petaluma Code Enforcement Officer because it was found to be “uninhabitable.”
The investigation is ongoing and there are no outstanding suspects or safety concerns, said PPD. If anyone has any further information, contact PPD Detective Daniel Boyd at dboyd@cityofpetaluma.org or by calling 707-778-4334.
