Joyce Carol Vincent: Interesting article about her death

[algonquin]

Joyce Carol Vincent: How could this woman lie dead and undiscovered for almost three years?

This is well written article. A similar thing happened about two years ago to a lady that I knew. Interestingly, Facebook helped in her case. She played Farmville several times a day and her friends noticed that she stopped. Anyway, long story short, she lived alone and died from complications from H1N1. It was about three weeks before she was found.

[BaileyCatts]

Wow. That's very sad. Especially that she was only 38, how could no one miss her? Did she not have a job? If she received some type of public assistance payment, no one noticed she stopped cashing the checks? How was her rent paid (I don't know what a bedsit is)? How about her 4 sisters and father? When you see stories like this and the person was elderly with no family, its still very sad that they died alone and no one noticed, but you can understand how that happened.

[milanessa]

A bedsit is similar to a studio apartment except you usually share a bathroom with other units. Sometimes a kitchen also but that doesn't appear to be the case here. Very curious all round.

[Cachoo]

Do bedsits have landlords?

[skatesindreams]

Very, very sad.
Whatever the article/film reveals seems only the "tip of the iceberg".
I wonder whether the new publicity will cause other people who knew her to come forward with more information.

No one should die alone, and forgotten,

[sk8pics]

On another message board that I frequent, there was a poster who also died alone and it was not noticed for quite some time. Her dog died, too, of starvation, after she died. It was all quite sad all around.

[barbk]

It would be interesting to know for whom she was preparing Christmas presents. Hard to believe that someone close enough to you to give you a gift could simply disappear completely from your life with nary a notice.

[BaileyCatts]

On another message board that I frequent, there was a poster who also died alone and it was not noticed for quite some time. Her dog died, too, of starvation, after she died. It was all quite sad all around.

That's probably how I am going to end up one day if I am elderly and no longer working so don't have someplace I have to be every day. And if I have a little kitty at the time, the poor thing will starve. That makes it even sadder. The poor little pet doesn't understand why mommy isn't feeding him anymore.

[BaileyCatts]

It would be interesting to know for whom she was preparing Christmas presents. Hard to believe that someone close enough to you to give you a gift could simply disappear completely from your life with nary a notice.

I was wondering that also. Who were those presents for that they didn't miss her, unless maybe she was buying them for a charity or something? She was a young, beautiful girl who, from the stories, was a vivacious, outgoing, bubbly, friendly person. Its so strange that no one would be in contact with her and simply think she was off 'living a better life'. So sad.

[Vagabond]

Wow. That's very sad. Especially that she was only 38, how could no one miss her? Did she not have a job? If she received some type of public assistance payment, no one noticed she stopped cashing the checks? How was her rent paid (I don't know what a bedsit is)? How about her 4 sisters and father? When you see stories like this and the person was elderly with no family, its still very sad that they died alone and no one noticed, but you can understand how that happened.

Do bedsits have landlords?

Joyce Vincent lived in public housing.

Apparently, the local housing authority noticed at some point that something was wrong. I'm not sure if she wasn't paying her portion of the rent or her utilities bills or what, but her remains were found after workers from the authority entered her unit to investigate.

It also appears that she hadn't been in close contact with her family for some time before she died. It seems that she had escaped an abusive relationship with a man not long before she died; perhaps she wanted privacy while she tried to get her life together. Also, she had moved about once a year for several years, so, what with not keeping her friends and family posted about her movements, it was not that hard for her to fall between the cracks.

A few links, including something by the woman who made the recent film about her and the website for the film itself:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/...ry-documentary (linked within the article linked in the first post)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/f...ol-Morley.html
http://dreamsofalife.com/

The movie has not received especially favorable reviews, but the story is so compelling I might go to see it if it plays around here.