New York: More than a year after death, LI man found in front of his TV

The Boston Herald ^ | February 17, 2007

[Stoat]

More than a year after death, LI man found in front of his TV
By Associated Press
Saturday, February 17, 2007 - Updated: 12:04 PM EST

HAMPTON BAYS, N.Y. - A man’s body was found in his home more than a year after his death, with the television still on and his features preserved by dry conditions, officials said.     Vincenzo Ricardo, 70, apparently died of natural causes, said Dr. Stuart Dawson, Suffolk County’s deputy chief medical examiner. Southampton Town police found Ricardo’s body this week when they responded to a report of burst pipes.     Ricardo was found in a chair in front of the television set, as though he were watching it, Dawson said.     The home’s dry air had left his features intact, morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus said.     ”You could see his face. He still had hair on his head,” Bacchus said.     Ricardo’s wife died years ago, and he lived alone, Dawson said.     ”He hasn’t been heard from in over a year. That’s the part that baffles me,” he said. ”Nobody sounded the alarm.”     Neighbors said they had thought Ricardo was in a hospital or nursing home. Still, neighbor Diane Devon said residents at a gathering last month remarked that they hadn’t seen him in some time.     ”We never thought to check on him,” she said.

[Stoat]

 

".....neighbor Diane Devon said residents at a gathering last month remarked that they hadn’t seen him in some time.
     ”We never thought to check on him,” she said. "
 

Hopefully he will be Blessed with more friends in Heaven than he had on Earth.

Rest in peace, Mr. Ricardo.

[b4its2late]

He must've had automatic payments for his electric bill....or the TV would've went off a long time ago.

[lilylangtree]

Wonder who paid his bills, especially the electricity? (rhetorical)

[Chi-townChief]

What brand was the TV set??

[GSlob]

"".....neighbor Diane Devon said residents at a gathering last month remarked that they hadn’t seen him in some time.
”We never thought to check on him,” she said. "
Hopefully he will be Blessed with more friends in Heaven than he had on Earth."
It is a stick with two ends. On the other end of it there are Big Brotherly neighbors from cuban Neighborhood Revolutionary Committees and their ilk. On balance, I'd much rather have neighbors like Diane Devon.

[Izzy Dunne]

He saw the "wardrobe malfunction" one too many times...

[Robert A. Cook, PE]

Same comment: No friends, lived automatically.

He was "paid" automatically as well: His bank account (that paid the electric bill) was either big enough that it didn't run out, but was small enough that his kids (if any!) didn't notice that they could have collected the will.

Of course, his postal clerk didn't notice the mailbox hadn't been emptied in a year??

Wonder how many times he voted for democrats.

[johniegrad]

What brand was the TV set??

Eveready/Energizer.

[Jeff F]

[Farmer Dean]

It probably WASN'T an RCA.You couldn't get one of their sets to run for a year if you threatened it with a gun.

[M-cubed]

Reminds me of a true story from one of our local characters...


When he didn't pay his electric bill...one of his friends advised him they would shut his power off....

His reply...."To hell with em!!!....Ill watch TV in the dark..

[b4its2late]

Wonder how many times he voted for democrats.

LOL! Though LI is primarily Republican, but if he was a dem, I'm sure he voted many times on election day..... But it is kind of sad to think no one cared.....I blame that on the dems influence on our society today.

[ozzymandus]

He died doing what he loved.

[BluH2o]

I'm not buying into this story. I can see something like this happening if the time span were a month or so ... no way a year.

[nmh]

WHO was paying the electricity for the T.V. still being on?

This is weird.

[nmh]

Too may unanswered questions ... mail... electric bill?

Bottom line is no one cared to look into these odd things.

Very sad.

[radiohead]

his postal clerk didn't notice the mailbox hadn't been emptied in a year??

If he had a mail slot in the door, the postman would never notice.

I agree that with w/automatic payments, no one would notice anything was wrong for a long time. However, my experience with older people is that they don't tend to use automatic payments. They like to either send out the bills or go directly to the utility. I don't understand it, but there you are. I had a fair number of elderly clients when I practiced law and you couldn't even get them to get direct deposit for the social security check, although now I think the gubmint is trying to strong arm people into doing so.

[b4its2late]

LOL! Sounds like a character for sure....

[Stoat]

I'm not buying into this story. I can see something like this happening if the time span were a month or so ... no way a year.

I recall things like this in the news before....I remember a man in Germany who was found mummified after years of death, also in front of his TV.  His automatic bill payments kept everything working until his bank account ran out of money.

There's also this FR story from last year that I found when I searched the site prior to posting:

Mummified Body Found Sitting In Front Of TV

I know that a story like this may be hard for many people to believe, but society has gotten to the point where you really can isolate yourself completely from other people, even when living in a big city.

 

[Leisler]

TV rays are great preservatives.

[Sherman Logan]

Didn't the neighbors notice the yard being overgrown?

[Mr. Brightside]

I feel his pain.

The last Kevin Costner movie about did the same to me.

[eggman]

Saw this story about a couple of weeks ago and thought something like this couldn't happen in the US.

Mummified man found in his apartment sitting down for 6 years

[appeal2]

I want to know if he was watching Fox News. That would be a record.

[nmh]

Good question!

Guess this guy wasn't worth caring about. They were too busy with themselves.

[Stoat]

He may well have been living in an apartment or a condo, and sometimes there is no manager on-site. Even if there is, as long as the bills are paid many people will not do anything as simple as a knock on the door for fear of being labeled 'nosy'.

[corbie]

it's really easy to make jokes about this, but it's so very sad.
what happened to "the village"--or is that just a shalamayan movie?

[Sherman Logan]

I assumed a house. Generally in multi-family housing the neighbors notice the smell.

[Emilio Largo]

Probably a SONY.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

"the gubmint is trying to strong arm people into doing so."

---

When I got into the process of applying for SS, my bank account was totally depleted, but I had to give a bank account number anyway. I told them I was closing the account. My checks came in the mail, for several months, and stopped coming. It turned out that someone at SS had forged my signature on the form requesting direct deposit, my funds were transferring to the bank, and the bank was kicking them back to SS. I discovered this because my ex sister in law worked at the bank, and discovered the problem by chance. SS claims I signed the form, but won't let me see it.
It all worked out, after 3 months with no income.

[ErnBatavia]

Ill watch TV in the dark..

I grew up so long ago, we had to watch the TV by candlelight...

[Spirochete]

Saw this story about a couple of weeks ago and thought something like this couldn't happen in the US.

Mummified man found in his apartment sitting down for 6 years

Google up "Wolfgang Dircks". There's just too many similarities in stories like these to be a coincidence or social trend. Its just fake manufactured news.

[Sherman Logan]

From another story.

Neighbors said they hadn't seen Ricardo for a while. They said they had tried to keep an eye on Ricardo, who had diabetes and had become blind in his 50s, but since his house was up a long driveway and could not be seen from the street, they did not always know what he was doing.

A couple who lived near Ricardo's house, Helen and Pat Boyle, said they never noticed mail piling up by the mailbox, which is visible from the street. A rope was attached by the front door and led to the mailbox so he could retrieve his mail.

"The word going around was that he was in a home," Pat Boyle said.

The couple said Ricardo built the two-story house -- where a waterfall of ice ran down over one of the garage doors from the burst pipe -- after he emigrated from Italy and worked in construction.

Still leaves a lot of questions.

[Old Professer]

Was it as bad as quitting smoking?

[Sherman Logan]

Forgot to post the link.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-libody0217,0,141600.story

[Larry Lucido]

With my luck, my thumb will hit the remote at the last second and I'll be caught dead watching the Lifetime Channel.

[Old Professer]

Better get your TV checked out before the next Law and Order.

[A knight without armor]

I can see this happening. True many older folks don't like automatic payments and direct deposit but there are still those who do use them. He may not have had a yard or at least a yard he was responsible for. If anyone noticed the odor they disregarded it as a dead animal perhaps. He may have used a post office box. Once I had a P.O. Box, paid for a long time in advance, and then started getting mail at home and neglected it for about a year. When I went to see about it they had a bundle of accumulated junk mail set aside. Not like anybody from the post office checked on me. It is incredulous for us to imagine a person living so isolated and nobody cares. I assure you it does happens all around us. No friends. Family does not care.

[Stoat]

it's really easy to make jokes about this, but it's so very sad.
what happened to "the village"--or is that just a shalamayan movie?

It is indeed sad.  One of the reasons for the isolation that many people experience is the waning of Religion as a force in the community in many areas and the rise of Secularism (which is a religion also but without so many of the benefits of traditional Faiths).

Religion reinforces a sense of community and interpersonal congeniality that secularism does not.

Although solitude may well have been Mr. Ricardo's personal choice, it may also have been a result of an overwhelming sadness that he experienced after the death of his wife.  For many, a religious involvement helps us to overcome these sad parts of life and serves as a 'safety net'.  Without this, some people do just fine but some have troubles when bad things happen.

[VOA]

”You could see his face. He still had hair on his head,”
Bacchus said.

IIRC from one of the "CSI"-type shows, hair and nails contiue to
grow for a bit after death.

As for the neighbors, I sympathize with them.
While I was in Los Angeles, a lady in the apartment next to me
died of a brain tumor and wasn't discovered for maybe a week or so
post-death.

I'd exchanged pleasantries a few times with the ex-schoolteacher.
And was shocked when I heard of her demise.

BUT, in a big city, folks learn to "mind their own bidness".
At the same time, I suspect the neighbors in this articles are
having some pangs of conscience like I did when I realized my
neighbor had lain dead about 30 feet from my abode with nobody checking
on her for about a week.

[theFIRMbss]

>A man’s body was found in his home more than a year after his death, with the television still on and his features preserved by dry conditions, officials said.

Aw, the poor old guy. He never got to see Lex and Lana hook up!

[baubau]

"He died doing what he loved.

Yep!

Watching the dummy box.

Sad story though.

[Sherman Logan]

According to Wikipedia:

"It is commonly claimed that hair and nails will continue growing for several days after death. This is a myth; the appearance of growth is actually caused by the retraction of skin as the surrounding tissue dehydrates, making nails and hair more prominent."

Sounds reasonable.

[4yearlurker]

I think maybe the TV switch was in the "on" position when they found him. Apparently the heat ran for a while (Gas or oil?)Till something ran out or was turned off,resulting in the cracked pipe.

[VOA]

thanks for the amplification on the (possible) growth of hair/nails
post-mortem...
given that death really should derange the energetics and
networking of metabolism for growth...
the Wikipedia explanation sounds like a reasonable explanation of
the appearance of post-mortem hair/nail "growth"

[mort56]

These are the same people who voted for Hillary and Schumer. It's not that they don't care. They have an abundance of caring. It's just that they are deaf, dumb and blind.

[isom35]

no mention of the channel he was watching?

[Sherman Logan]

Oddly enough, he was supposedly blind.

[SampleMan]

It is a stick with two ends. On the other end of it there are Big Brotherly neighbors from cuban Neighborhood Revolutionary Committees and their ilk. On balance, I'd much rather have neighbors like Diane Devon.

I'll take neighbors that give a rats behind whether I'm OK or not.

[Rastus]

I think we've found the one guy who's TV was tuned to Commander-in-Chief.