THE SAD STORY OF JOYCE CAROL VINCENT, THE LADY WHO DIED IN HER APARTMENT FOR 3 YEARS BEFORE BEING FOUND

The is the haunting story a beautiful woman who died alone in her subsidized apartment in London at the age of 38 and wasn't found until 3 years later. Authorities found her skeleton on her bed where she died, with the TV still on, surrounded by Christmas gifts she had just wrapped, when they came to evict her for not paying her rents. That was when he remains were found.

By then, and in the absence of any evidence of bone-cracking force, the cause of death was no longer determinable. They were only able to identify the remains by comparing the teeth with teeth in photographs of her. Joyce had lost her parents but her sisters had hired a  Private Investigator to trace her well before she died and he carried on investigating until well after death, but didn't know she had died. 

3 years without anyone noticing she was gone?! Didn't she have friends who would have come looking for her? Nobody filed a missing person's report? How can someone go unnoticed for so long? This shows that we need not assume our family and friends are well when we don't hear from them for so long. A call or visit makes all the difference. Seclusion is never good. Stay connected people! So sad.

Find below some information about the logistics of her death that I found...

• She was a victim of domestic violence living in a flat set up by an organization that deals with victims.

• With subsidized housing, part of her rent continued to be paid.

• The mail was dropped directly into the apt through a slot on the door so that’s why no one noticed the pile up.

• She lived in a seedy area where the trash bins and hallways were normally rank. Once they’d even found a dead junkie’s body in the elevator! So the smell of her decomposing body was assumed to be coming from the bins.

• It was a noisy building frequented by drug addicts, so the sound of the tv wasn’t anything out of the norm.

• No one contacted the domestic violence organization so they didn’t think there was any reason to check in on her. This practice has been updated since her story made the news. Now they visit tenants at least once a year.

• Whenever neighbors knocked at the door, no-one answered, so they assumed it was unoccupied.

• Both her parents are dead, but as stated before, her sisters were looking for her.

• The director respected the wishes of Vincent’s sisters and an ex-fiancé, who chose not to take part in the film. So their side of this story is omitted.

• They discovered her corpse only because – with her rent two years behind – the housing trust finally decided to repossess it.