A 70-year-old man died a year ago, and nobody noticed.
HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. (1010 WINS) — A man’s body was found in his home more than a year after his death, with the television still on and his features preserved by dry conditions, officials said.
Vincenzo Ricardo, 70, apparently died of natural causes, said Dr. Stuart Dawson, Suffolk County’s deputy chief medical examiner. Southampton Town police found Ricardo’s body this week when they responded to a report of burst pipes.
Ricardo was found in a chair in front of the television set, as though he were watching it, Dawson said.
The home’s dry air had left his features intact, morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus said.
“You could see his face. He still had hair on his head,” Bacchus said.
Ricardo’s wife died years ago, and he lived alone, Dawson said.
“He hasn’t been heard from in over a year. That’s the part that baffles me,” he said. “Nobody sounded the alarm.”
Neighbors said they had thought Ricardo was in a hospital or nursing home. Still, neighbor Diane Devon said residents at a gathering last month remarked that they hadn’t seen him in some time.
“We never thought to check on him,” she said.
You would think that somehow, someone would have noticed the the lights that never went off, or the fact that they never saw the old many anymore, and check up on him. I suppose there was a mail slot in the door, so the letter carrier wouldn’t know about the year-long pile of mail gathering dust on the other side of the door. I wonder why his electricity wasn’t turned off at some point. I know they won’t do it in the wintertime, but they will in the summer.
Sad. To have no friends, and no family to notice that you died. To be dead for a year without anyone knowing.
I nearly slipped down the stairs—backwards—last night. I overbalanced momentarily while I was at the top of the stairs and recovered. Then I took a moment to sit down and reflect that I could have broken my neck. I started wondering how long it would take people to figure out there was something wrong, and I came up with Sunday, because I’m supposed to go to a concert that Sorena is taking part in. Monday the latest, because that’s when Sarah gets home from her weekend trip, and will be calling me about arrangements for me to take Jake to his concert (it’s a concert week for me, what can I say). Or, worst-case scenario, Tuesday, because I teach religious school. In the summertime, when school’s out, all bets are off.
Yes, I get these morbid thoughts from time to time. I live alone. You’d get them too, if you lived alone.
I’m getting more and more careful on the stairs as I get older.
I just treat my house as my future mausoleum. It helps that I have a little artistic skill, so I can decorate the walls with pictures of my life experiences, which might even be worth something after I’m gone.
I just hope I get all my debts paid off before I kick the bucket. It would be a shame to have my little museum to me get foreclosed on just a month after I become a part of it.
And not one complaint about the unpaid electricity bill
It probably wasn’t unpaid. Direct deposit social security + auto bank draft bill pay = everyone gets their money. On time, too. I wonder how much the guy’s credit rating improved after he died?
It was a sad story. And an eerie one, indeed.
I’d read Christopher Hitchens’ Slate piece on the neighbors of the sicko pizza-parlor worker in Kirkwood, MO (the town my family lived in when I was born, oddly enough) and how none of them thought to question why some single guy all of a sudden had a kid . . . and then (thankfully briefly) another kid. He was pretty tough on those neighbors, who probably should’ve been a bit more “involved” so to speak.
I guess you could say the same thing about those neighbors of that deceased Long Island man, although a seemingly vacant house doesn’t necessarily invite exploration as to why it’s vacant. It’s easy to assume the resident simply moved someplace else.
Call me crass, call me tacky, but this is the question that came to mind: What brand of TV set was it that stayed on for a full year without breaking down?
what puzzles me is, why was he sitting in front of the TV when he was blind? (according to the Newsday article, a neighbor used to read his mail to him because diabetes has left him blind)
Blind people can still listen to TV. I know I’d want to hear the news, and frankly, listen to my soaps even if I lost my sight. It’s suck trying to figure out what new people look like, though.
Meryl–
Your loyal following at this blog would notice your absence and sound the alarm in short order. The only reason that a Friday night fall would put you at unusual risk is because you don’t blog on the Sabbath.
A good reason to go to shul regularly on Saturday mornings?
–Ben