Man Dies in Front of TV and No One Finds His Mummified Body for a Year

Dead and Unfound for Over a Year

When they stopped by the home of Vincenzo Ricardo who was 70 years old, police found his mummified body still sitting in front of his television set, which was surprisingly still turned on. It was surprising because Ricardo had been dead for over a year and no one seemed to notice. The police had only come to his home because someone reported a burst pipe which was leaking water down the side of the house.

The deputy chief medical examiner, Dr. Stuart Dawson in Suffolk County says that he seemed to have died from natural causes. Dawson also revealed that Vincenzo Ricardo lived alone because his wife had died a few years earlier. "He hasn't been heard from in over a year. That's the part that baffles me. Nobody sounded the alarm. He was in his house, sitting in his chair, as if watching television and the television was, in fact, still on," Dawson said. It is not mentioned if he has any children or extended family.

Jeff Bacchus, a morgue assistant says that the lack of humidity in the house is the reason for that Ricardo's body was mummified. "You could see his face. He still had hair on his head," Bacchus said.

Vincenzo Ricardo had gone blind in his 50's and also had diabetes, but he was still very independent. There was a roped that led from his front door to his mailbox, which allowed him to get his mail on his own everyday. One neighbor said that she used to help him out by reading his mail to him and paying his bills but they had a falling out when he wanted her to stay and she had to leave to go to work. She had not been back since then, which was the summer of '05.

There were a few reasons why Ricardo's death may have gone unnoticed for so long. First, his house was in back with lots of trees and brush to block the view of anyone who might have passed by and included a long dirt trail. Another reason is that when asked why they never checked on him, his neighbors all seemed to think that he was in the hospital or a retirement home. No one knew that he had died alone.

A month before the gruesome discovery, neighbors at a get together questioned why they had not seen him in a while. "We never thought to check on him," said neighbor Diane Devon.