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Zagreb, Croatia
Decomposed Body Found Decades After Woman’s Death
June 18, 2008 08:06 PM
A dead woman was found mummified in her Croatian apartment at least 35 years after her death.
30-Second Summary
A Croatian woman was found dead in her apartment, decades after she died.
News sources reporting on the incident offer various dates for Hedviga Golik’s death, though one thing is certain: her mummified body was found by her neighbors at least three decades after her heart stopped beating.
Tenants in Golik’s apartment building broke into her flat, hoping to divide the space between them. They found her body, completely decomposed and untouched.
Although residents had made attempts at contacting the police throughout the last three or four decades to learn more about the vacant apartment, authorities never responded.
The windows of Golik’s apartment were open, minimizing the smell of her decay.
Dragutin Kis, a tenant of the building, says she last saw Golik more than 50 years ago. “She received the flat from the building’s guard, who received it instead of money, that is the salary for building the flats. Hedviga was his lover,” Kis told reporters.
Because Golik’s body is so decomposed, forensic scientists have no way of pinpointing exactly when or how she died.
News sources reporting on the incident offer various dates for Hedviga Golik’s death, though one thing is certain: her mummified body was found by her neighbors at least three decades after her heart stopped beating.
Tenants in Golik’s apartment building broke into her flat, hoping to divide the space between them. They found her body, completely decomposed and untouched.
Although residents had made attempts at contacting the police throughout the last three or four decades to learn more about the vacant apartment, authorities never responded.
The windows of Golik’s apartment were open, minimizing the smell of her decay.
Dragutin Kis, a tenant of the building, says she last saw Golik more than 50 years ago. “She received the flat from the building’s guard, who received it instead of money, that is the salary for building the flats. Hedviga was his lover,” Kis told reporters.
Because Golik’s body is so decomposed, forensic scientists have no way of pinpointing exactly when or how she died.
Headline Links: Croatian woman died decades ago, but when, exactly?
The body of a Croatian woman, Hedviga Golik, was found at least 35 years after her death. Golik, who was reported missing, never left her apartment. Residents of her apartment building found her body when they entered the apartment in hopes of divvying up the space among them. “Forensics experts said Golik likely died in 1973, about the time a neighbor last saw her,” the Associated Press reports.
Source: CNN [Associated Press]
According to Scotland’s Daily Record, Golik died in 1966, meaning that her body lay rotting for 42 years. One police spokesman stated, “it was like stepping into a place frozen in time. The cup she had been drinking tea from was still on a table next to the chair she had been sitting in and the house was full of things no one had seen for decades. Nothing had been disturbed for decades, even though there were more than a few cobwebs in there.”
Source: Daily Record
A Croatian news source claims that Golik was dead for 41 years. Residents of the apartment building found the body after breaking in through the ceiling, the piece reports. In 1991 Golik’s neighbors attempted to contact the police to investigate the apartment, but authorities never responded.
Source: Javno-Croatia
Related Topic: Decomposing bodies make great headlines
Snopes debunks the myth that circulated in 2001 about a dead man who remained at his desk for nearly a week. Snopes examines the Sunday Mercury’s report of the death, noting, “the process of decomposition of human remains is such that a dead body could not have sat unnoticed for five days unless it were in a sealed, completely unused area of a building.”
Source: Snopes
Reference: The process of decomposition
Salon publishes an excerpt from “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers,” by Mary Roach. In the piece, Roach examines the decomposition of a corpse at the University of Knoxville Medical Center. Details of a decaying body are provided with explanations of the stages of decomposition. This excerpt is not for the squeamish.
Source: Salon.com
The Australian Museum’s Death Online offers an empirical, and occasionally graphic, look at how bodies decay, and explains how scientists determine the time of death of a freshly dead body.
Source: Death Online
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