When Bodies Go Unnoticed

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
By Sewell Chan

The discovery of the body of James Gales — a Vietnam War veteran whose remains were found on Saturday in a housing project in Canarsie, Brooklyn, evidently months after he had died — was reminiscent of past episodes in which the bodily remnants of humans were uncovered long after they had died. It is an occasional event in the life of the city that prompts wonder: how, in a place so crowded, with so many daily human interactions in the hallway, on the sidewalk, on the subway, in the store and elsewhere, can someone die without notice? (This is not counting the remains of victims of mob hits and other crimes.)

Last October, the police discovered the decomposing bodies of Albertina Rambla, 91, and her son, Hector, 61, in their home in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, after a neighbor called 911 three times in nine days. It was not immediately clear which of the two died first or when each died, but neighbors had reported a foul odor coming from the apartment.

In December 2007, the authorities found the skeletal remains of Christina Copeman, a Trinidadian immigrant, in her East Flatbush house, more than a year after she had died of heart disease. Con Edison had canceled Ms. Copeman’s account but left her power on. A pile of unclaimed mail had accumulated. The roof of her house had started leaking, causing a neighbor to call 911. A City Buildings Department inspector came and issued a violation.

In March 2007, the authorities found the bones of a frail, elderly woman in her two-story house on Perry Avenue in the Norwood section of the Bronx. She had lived alone, though her neighbors said they had started calling the police two years earlier when they realized that they had not seen her in a while.

In the spring of 2005, City Housing Authority officials found the body of an 86-year-old retired transit worker in the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City, months after he had died of natural causes. The cleanup of the body was left to Ronald Gospodarski, a paramedic and a bio-recovery technician who specializes in cleaning up after suicides, murders and other crime scenes, along with natural deaths.

Occasionally, human remains are found outdoors. In December 2004, a worker cleaning a remote corner of the Highland Boulevard overpass crossing the Jackie Robinson Parkway in Brooklyn came across the skeletal remains of a person in a seated position, leaning against a wall, in a wooded area where homeless people sometimes slept. There was no evidence of foul play.

Mary Roach, the author of “Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers” (Norton, 2003), noted in a telephone interview that the smell of a body, however unforgettable, eventually does go away.

Exposed to the elements, bodies first pass the “fresh stage,” when the body is still fairly intact. As bacteria consume flesh, the body essentially passes from a solid to a liquid. Eventually all that is left is connective tissues and bones, “and then it stops smelling.”

Dying indoors prolongs the process, Ms. Roach said. “You die on a bed or carpet, it lingers,” she said. “It’s not like the great outdoors where you get broken quickly and return to soil. You become a cleaning issue. In nature, you don’t, because there are creatures — everybody from bacteria to insect life to the wolf – who are happy. It’s a big feast, and there’s not much left. If you die in New York City, you’re left to the guys in the haz-mat suits.”

Ms. Roach, who lives in Oakland, Calif., recalled a recent smell in her own house.

“We had a possum that died in the far reaches of our basement,” she said. “We didn’t realize what was going on. It’s difficult to get back there. For about two weeks there was a hideous smell and then it went away; basically there was nothing left for the bacteria to eat.”