Italian police have discovered the mummified remains of a 70-year-old woman sitting at a table more than two years after she died, prompting calls for better elder care in the country. Marinella Beretta, who had no living relatives, was found in her house in Prestino, near Lake Como in northern Italy.
Police stumbled upon her remains when they made a house call during high winds in Lombardy, which risked uprooting neglected trees in her garden.
She had not been seen by neighbors for at least two and a half years, according to Italian media reports.
“What happened to Marinella Beretta in Como, the forgotten loneliness, hurts our consciences,” Family Minister Elena Bonetti said on Facebook. “We have a duty, as a community that wants to remain united, to remember her life… no one must be left alone.”
Nearly 40 percent of over 75-year-olds in Italy live alone, according to a 2018 report by the national statistics institute (ISTAT).
The same number also said they had neither relatives nor friends to turn to in case of need.
Beretta was “loneliness personified”, wrote editorialist Massimo Gramellini on the front page of the Corriere della Sera, Italy’s biggest selling daily.
“Many of us still have memories of the chaotic, branched families of peasant Italy. Instead, the modern family is reduced… People die alone. And we live alone, which is almost worse,” he said.
The neighbors, who had not seen Beretta since September 2019, assumed she had moved away at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which hit northern Italy in 2020, the reports said.
Police found nothing at the scene to suggest foul play and the council was expected to pay for her funeral and burial.
“The mystery of Marinella’s invisible life behind the closed gate of her cottage teaches us a terrible lesson,” the Messaggero daily said. “The real sadness is not that the others did not notice her death. It is that they did not realize Marinella Beretta was alive.”
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Original Article: Mummified body of Italian woman found sitting at a table, 2 years after her death – CBS News
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Time is a thief
YES this what happens when people neighbors stop seeing or looking after each other. The pandamek is causing this issue as of now. We must remember “WE ARE STRINGER AS GROUP THAN AS A INDIVIDUAL”. IF we are not going to take care of each other then why are we here.
That’s a terrible end for that poor woman. I don’t understand why no one came to see her or check to see that see was OK. I’m older myself and my friends see me regularly. I go to mass and see friends there. God bless her.
Jesus is only Lord and savior. We must turn from our sins and ask him for forgiveness and to save us fron our sins. Ask him to take control of your life. It is not by the good things we do but by Jesus’ death and resurrection that we can go to heaven.
People become reclusive because others are not inclusive! There’s just to much narcissism in this world! Just a knock on a door could have, would have been a sign of contact being made! Should have, should have not died officer the years! Our society is encouraged to snuff out the words could, would, should have! Everyone is guilty when they DIDN’T..as Did Not knock on a Closed Door for 2 years! Remember “Assume” the lady may have moved! The word Assume” will always mean it makes “an ASS out of you & Me”! Wake up world! Someone, Somebody, SHOULD HAVE KNOWN SOMETHING Was REMISS! lIKE A LONELY NEZiGHBOR! SHAME! SHAME is On & IN OUR ENTZiRE SOCIETY! WAKE UP HUMANS! STOP BEING “ZOMBZiES”!