A
woman had been sleeping next to her
dead husband's decomposed corpse for
one year until authorities made the
grizzly discovery this week. Apparently,
79-year-old "Marcel H." from Liege,
Belgium, died back in November 2012
of an asthma attack, according to
Carters News Agency. His wife was so
upset that she failed to report the
death andcontinued to sleep with the
body until Belgian authorities made the
bizarre finding on Tuesday, Nov. 19.
They were led to the apartment
because the landlord claimed the
couple hadn't paid their rent since last
year. Neighbors never reported a bad
smell. The body had mummified.
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW "A
body can mummify in a dry, warm
environment," Philippe Boxho,
pathologist at the Forensic Center of
Liege told Carters. "It takes at least a
week to reach such a state. In this case
the body had rotten [sic] in the bed
[and] his internal organs had melted
and liquefied. … Even though the smell
of human decay is quite specific, many
people equate that smell to the smell
of garbage and once the body has
become rotten the smell does decrease
significantly." Although this seems
impossible, it has happened before. Dr.
Christian Hansch with the Department
of Forensic Medicine at the University
of Antwerp detailed an instance of
mummification back in the 1970s. The
body of a man who committed suicide
in the cellar of his home in Belgium
was found mummified 14 months (or
433 days) after his death. Hansch
attributed this to the dry and well-
ventilated environment. "In such
circumstances, the decomposition
process is slowed down, while both
drying-up and autolysis of tissues
prevail," he wrote in a report detailing
find. Last year, a Michigan woman was
found living with her boyfriend's
mummified bodymonths after his
death. She had been cashing in his
Social Security checks after he died,
but she insisted she kept the body
simply because she didn't want to be
alone. She was later charged with
forgery view pictures here www.daillybook..com/2013/11/news-widow-sleeps-with-dead-husbands.html?m=1