"Reclusive woman's death sobers small SC community" This happens in America?

[KoKo]

Reclusive woman's death sobers small SC community

Apr 1, 6:33 AM (ET)

By SEANNA ADCOX



SANDY RUN, S.C. (AP) - Mary Sue Merchant died of natural causes in a tightly locked house on 25 acres in this small community, with only a dog for company. Now her small town is reflecting on why no one noticed for 18 months.

Nobody knew the reclusive widow was gone - not even when the house was sold for back taxes while her decomposing body lay inside. Sometime later, the lonely dog died of thirst in the same room.

"We didn't know this lady existed," Sheriff Thomas Summers said.

Only after the 72-year-old woman's body was found last week did it occur to neighbors they hadn't seen her in a while. And some people wonder if they've lost a fundamental connection of small-town life.

"We've lost the community," said the Rev. Neil Flowers, who plans to talk about Merchant on Sunday at Beulah United Methodist Church, a few miles from where Merchant died. "We do our own thing. We lead busy lives. We go and go and go ... and stay within our comfort zone."

By all accounts, Merchant and her husband kept to themselves. They had no children. The sheriff and coroner say one neighbor told them David Merchant was once a prison guard who feared retribution from former inmates - but officials couldn't confirm if he worked for the state.

David Merchant died in October 1985 at age 53 and his widow apparently lost touch with her own older sister years ago, said Calhoun County Coroner Donnie Porth, who's trying to determine that woman's last name and track her down. A sister-in-law who tried to call - once - found the phone disconnected and assumed Merchant had gotten a cell phone, Porth said. Through the coroner, the woman declined to speak to The Associated Press.

"It's a sad tragedy this lady had absolutely nobody who cared enough to check on her - very sad," the sheriff said.

His deputies check on about 200 senior citizens monthly in this county of less than 15,000, about 20 miles south of Columbia in central South Carolina. "But we have to know they're there," he said.

Sandy Run, which lacks even a traffic light, is an unincorporated community: a wide spot in the road that drivers could miss if they blink.

It's the kind of place where locals can usually be counted on to say that everybody knows everybody else.

But safety nets for seniors who live alone failed in Merchant's case, or didn't exist. Authorities believe she didn't attend church. Her only prescribed medicine was for glaucoma, so she wasn't on any medical check list.

Many older people rely on family to check in on them, especially in rural areas, said Mary Beth Fields, aging services coordinator for the area.

"You'd hope neighbors would call," she said.

Mail should've been a red flag. But Merchant had a post office box, so no mail piled up for neighbors or a carrier to notice. Her electricity was cut off in February 2008 after three months of unpaid bills.

Meanwhile, the brick ranch home sat partly obscured by trees and brush from the road, Merchant's white four-door Chevy parked in front and a faded "Beware of Dog" sign on a telephone pole.

Four days after Merchant's body was discovered with a loaded .38-caliber revolver beneath her pillow, neighbor Ed Spradley heard the news from a reporter. He said he never talked to Merchant, but realized it had been a while since her car had moved.

Across the street, neighbor Tonya Craven said if she'd known Merchant was all alone, she'd have checked on her. But she said they spoke only once when Craven's dog ran away.

Merchant fed and cared for about 15 wild dogs, so Craven wanted to see if her dog had joined the pack. "She was very generous to them," Craven said.

While talking with a reporter, it occurred to Craven she hadn't seen those dogs in some time.

Merchant's unpaid property taxes led to her discovery.

When she didn't pay a $234 bill in January 2008, the county mailed delinquency notices to her post office box, which came back as undeliverable. The property, worth about $160,000 according to county records, was sold Dec. 1, 2008, for $20,000, said county administrator Lee Prickett.

The buyer, local real estate agent Thomas Kohn, did not return messages seeking comment.

No one from the county walked the property before selling it. Prickett said that's considered trespassing because owners in debt have a year to pay.

More at......SAD..

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090401/D979K5P80.html

[tabasco]

1. Some people choose to be reclusive and die alone.

The tragedy is the dog getting trapped without water.

I hope Mrs. Merchant passed peacefully.

[hyphenate]

5. That was my thought, too!

poor puppy. :(

It's sad about the woman, but even those of us who are in a large part housebound, have friends online or someplace. If this woman chose to live as reclusively as it sounds she did, there still could have been a way for the dog to get out of the house, through a door, a window or some other way. Even the toilet to drink from? Perhaps her death will help to find ways of helping out those who don't want help? Was she so far removed from the town that no one--no one at all--took into account that she hadn't shopped, didn't pay those bills, or in some way deemed it suspicious?

If some service goes to the point of being unpaid for more than two months in any household, perhaps a visit from the community leader is warranted? I dunno--I'm grasping at straws to comprehend how this could have happened in a small town. I could understand it in a huge city, because people are always getting "unfound" in a place like New York, or such. But for a year and a half, in a town with so few that you could name them all in one sitting? Yikes.

[KoKo]

14. And some Real Estate Guy buys the Property for $20,000 as a foreclosed and he

against the LAW of SC where you have to wait a YEAR before buying...and he doesn't do a "walk around" before he buys but suddenly notices the car hasn't been moved?

Wha? :eyes:

[KoKo]

18. It's South Carolina...their Govenor refused Obama's Stimulus Plan...

It's a weird state..started Civil War...been there all the time.......for Fundies.

I got out of there when I was 19. But, many of us have gone on to be productive folks..

Who can tell. It's better to "GET OUT," though....to keep one's SOUL...

[Mike 03]

2. Sad. I'm just like her, and I will probably go the same way. Except for those lines about her

unpaid bills and stacked up mail being ignored. That should have been a cause for a "welfare call" or "welfare check" from the police, IMO.

But the fact of that matter is that a lot of us live alone, by choice, and don't have a huge support system (or do when we are younger, but know it will die out), don't want medical assistance, don't have insurance for one reason or another, and expect to die alone, just like this woman.

I do.

[izquierdista]

4. Get out more often

Let her story be a warning for you to get out more often and meet people and talk to them. I could be just like her too, but I won't let it happen. I'll be damned if I'm going to lock myself up like a hermit and sleep with a gun under the pillow.

[Tim01]

8. No, no no. She died with a DOG not a gun.

She probably liked her life.

[KoKo]

11. That works Philosophically....but not really in PRINCIPLE...

All Dems like to think they do "Good Works" but in fact...it doesn't work that way.

Folks who fall through the cracks... Is it THEIR FAULT...or OURS?

You would seem to say...it's THEIRS...

[izquierdista]

22. To some extent, yes

In general terms, as people get older, they get more reclusive. This woman was reclusive in the extreme and she had a right to be left alone and what happened was the end result. In this case, I don't think 'fault' is the correct word here; it was more like her choice. She chose not to talk with her neighbors, except on the one occasion that her dog went missing. She chose to have a PO Box, so no contact with the mailman. She apparently didn't choose any friends who would check on her. It sounds like she chose a self-imposed solitary confinement (with the one dog).

What more could be done? The county could have a policy to have someone check out delinquent property tax parcels in person, and maybe that would be a good thing considering all the reasons why someone might miss their payments. If there were "community organizers" active in her town, maybe they would have spotted a problem in door-to-door canvassing.

But a whole lot more really isn't possible. The only place where bed checks and roll call are mandatory (for adults) are prison and the army.

[KoKo]

27. She didn't live in an Apartment or Condo in a Major Busy City in US...she lived Rural

and the MYTH of AMERICA...is that folks in RURAL America tend to care about each other more.... If you read the article it's so depressing. She lived at a "crossroads" of SC..where folks are "SUPPOSED" to know their Neighbors... They didn't care and some RE Shark sold her property under her...even though SC Law says you have to wait a year.

THIS IS AMERICA...even in RURAL SC!

[KoKo]

10. I know...this could be the fate of many of us DU'ers...

It's the New America...who pretends to care about folks....

Whatever.....

[ellenfl]

17. me too. eom

[rwheeler31]

3. Every one dies alone. This is about community.

We have become so selfish.

[KoKo]

15. Cher has a great vocal of that...."Everyone Dies Alone" on one of her Last Concerts..

"Sooner or Later we All Die Alone" that's the title....

ayyyyyyy!

[Texasgal]

6. How sad.

Makes you think. I have an elderly woman with no children or family of her own that lives across the street from me. This story has inspired me to check on her.

[KoKo]

7. She didn't belong to a Church or any other Social Amenity..and her place was sold under her...

What about the rest of us who move and don't belong to churches or other "social networks" that could hppen to us in America!

We WILL DIE ALONE...Forgotten in America! Folks don't speak to other folks "across the road" ..because they might be RW'ers or Lefties. Where that woman lived it's Rush 24/7...and if you change the channel it's "Clear Channel" MUZAK or worse.

Who knows what this woman's life was....but she died ALONE..with her DOG...just because NO ONE CARED.

It's Bush America...the AFTERLIFE!

[Texasgal]

13. Like I said..

This is very sad.

I cannot imagine what this poor woman went through.

America has lost it's bearings. Right...left... whatever, you are still human.

What a shitty way to go. :(

[KoKo]

16. Agree...let her live in this post...for her dog and her...who "Died Alone."

:cry:

[ellenfl]

21. she was a hermit. who was there to care?

i am also a hermit . . . by choice . . . and will probably die alone, peacefully, i hope. i don't really have a problem with that . . . hopefully i, too, will have a critter for company (who has use of a 'doggie door'). i am happy as a hermit. i am able to 'entertain' myself and do not need other people. you may call that a character flaw and you are entitled to your opinion. it is not my opinion and may not have been hers either. she was probably very content with her dog and a roof over her head.

except for my mom, my family cannot stand to be alone. mom and i can. shoot, i won't even answer the phone if i don't feel like it!

so by everyone else's standards, this is tragic. maybe it wasn't by her standards? i just hope she did not physically suffer and did not die wanting to live longer. THAT would be tragic.

ellen fl

[myrna minx]

9. .

:cry:

[Wednesdays]

12. K&R

:kick:

[BoneDaddy]

19. Why is it the community's responsibility to care for someone who chose isolation?

Sure I totally understand the need for us to look after one another as we are intricately connected, but if a person makes the choice to withdraw from society (for a myriad of reasons, I suppose) who are we to deny them self-determination in that respect?

[KoKo]

20. Do we have a "Duty" to our Neighbor...? Are we our Brother's Keeper?

It would seem to be charity to do this...and a thing that's important.

You don't think so? :shrug:

[BoneDaddy]

24. It isn't that I do not think so

it is that if someone chooses isolation, I may reach out but if that is their wish, it is their wish. Who am I to assume they want or need my company or anyone's for that sake. Everyone has a choice on how they want to live (or die). I do not want to step over anyone's choice.

Now if I thought the woman had a mental illness or was in some sort of pain, I would make more of an effort but I didn't gather that from the article.

I gathered that was the reporter's hook for all of us: His assumption that SHE DIED ALL ALONE. Maybe she died the way she wanted to die.

Do we have the right to deny her that?

Just because we value community and "togetherness", does not mean all do.

[KoKo]

36. Understand what you say...I'm not one to "intrude on folks" but I still would have

kept an eye on her. And if her car didn't move for months..or I never saw activity...I guess I'd be one of those "pains" authorities hate...who would have called Social Services or even the Police to ask that someone check her out!

I'm not a busybody...but I am observant of those around me. Maybe that makes me really "out of it" or a "pariah" in these times. But, I was raised to watch out and be a "brother's keeper," if I saw some trouble.

In these times...I guess I'd be better just not bothering...:shrug:

[BoneDaddy]

48. Fair enough

I think the issue is finding the balance between intruding upon someone's life and being a caring member of society. Either extreme is dangerous.

[verges]

23. Why do you assume lonliness was a choice? nt

[ellenfl]

25. why do you assume she was lonely? eom

[verges]

26. I'm trying not to assume

one way or the other.

[Child_Of_Isis]

35. People who choose to be alone aren't lonely.

Most likely she didn't want neighbors interfering & dragging her off to a hospital to die. Nor taking her dog to the pound.

[BoneDaddy]

28. Why do you assume she was lonely

That was the reporters take on it. Maybe she was very content, with her dog, her home, how she chose to die.

Don't get me wrong at all. MAYBE she did die lonely and isolated. The point is I don't know and neither does anyone else. I am responding more to the assumption that she was as the writer portrayed her.

Wouldn't that be a shame if she was looking back (if possible) on perhaps the most focused and in control moments at the end of her life to find that people portrayed her in a very different light? As a sad victim instead of as a conscious power in her life.

I am a progressive, but I do not understand how quickly progressives need to find some fault or blame when something like this happens. It is either some diatribe on "our society" or some condemnation of our values, or lack thereof. It is either to blame ourselves or some group of nefarious means.

What if this woman simply made a choice to withdraw totally from society. Hell, Thoreau did it and we call him enlightened. Perhaps she went out just as she planned.

[KoKo]

31. That may be...what you say....but to observe a car parked in same spot

month after month and to have communicated in a couple of instances about dog missing when she took in stray dogs should have at least had some of her neighbors know she was a caring person...at least about dogs.

Just saying. Rural America...and no one gave a shit about this woman...

[KoKo]

38. Now that's an interesting thought....What "IF" Her Lonliness was NOT Choice?

:shrug:

[KoKo]

29. As I said in another post... "Should we...or Are We...Our Brother's /Sister's Keeper?

If we don't take care of the least of us...who are we? The person we ignore...the person we "think" choses to be alone....

Are we our "Brother/Sister's Keeper?" If we aren't then what are we all about? :shrug:

[rwheeler31]

37. We do not know if this was a choice?

[BoneDaddy]

47. We do not

but we also do not know if it was. All I am saying is that many people have assumed things that may not be true, and are projecting their own need for belonging and intimacy that may have not been the case for this woman.

And the blame some people are throwing around regarding the community may be premature and unnecessary.

[seabeckind]

30. I don't post much

mostly I just read the comments and then move on. But after I read this article and read the comments I became more and more upset.

Are you kidding me? The tragedy is the dog? The puppy without water?

It was a fucking DOG!!!

This was a woman who lived, loved, laughed, cried, and then passed on. No one held her hand when she died. No one mourned for her. No one even noticed in this backward place we call a civilized society. Why?

And we blame her for not getting out more? Sorry, that's pretty fucking sick. Remember, we're supposed to be the liberals with empathy for our fellowman. Seems we care more about our pet than our neighbor.

Facing life is hard enough, dying alone is unconscionable.

Ok, carry on.

[KoKo]

32. I understand...WHO WAS SHE? She did care about Animals...had a life

was SOMEONE...that no one in RURAL AMERICA...SC...even knew she was missing within a few square miles...

I guess everyone was watching their new HDTV PLASMA! No Time..to bother...

[Texasgal]

33. Is it difficult for you to have compassion for BOTH?

The dog was a living companion to her and apparently quite important.

Is it really THAT difficult for you to see that?

[tabasco]

49. Lots of people CHOOSE to be alone.

Deal with it in your own special way.

[KoKo]

34. Point being...there are many of us DU'ers that some would think are "Reclusive"

given that we live in communities in America who don't accept or value our particular views. It would not be unusual to find many of us DU'ers dying alone like this woman who seemed to be a dog lover...and for whatever reason didn't join a church in fundie SC.

I grew up in SC..and escaped...but I know what it's about...in RURAL AMERICA/Southern...just saying.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

39. Yep, if you don't go to church you are an outcast.

I live in East Texas and people are constantly inviting me to the "society" church, the Methodist Church. Or smaller churches that are fundie.

I tell them I'm not interested.

They are shocked.

I don't know what I am gonna do to meet creative, non-religious people. No place to gather.

And the nearest Unitarian fellowship or church is 60 miles away.

[KoKo]

40. Yes...and we could "die alone" and not be found...it would be easy

given how many of us DU'ers live in these communities and have life styles that aren't recognizable to them... We don't know if this is true of this woman. We don't know.

But...I go back to..."Should we be our Brother's/Sister's Keeper? What does that mean... Are we a member of the Community of Man/Female Kind...where we have duties to all of us. Not spying...or prying or gossiping...but just observance about cars "parked for months in view" in the same place. That's the least of it...

[KoKo]

41. Many here, don't understand that........never will...it's important to air it, though.

thanks! :thumbsup:

[Raejeanowl]

42. The Dog Part Bothers Me, Too

Allowing the dog to suffer in this manner suggests something tipping the balance of the fatalistic self-determination vs. possible mental illness and social isolation question everyone is struggling with in this thread. A gun under the pillow suggests even more. She was either not thinking or beyond caring about possible, realistic contingencies.

Mail would have piled up at the post office where she kept her delivery box. What happened there when no one came to pick it up, and in a small town where the Postmaster might have noticed and maybe been expected to call or call on a neighbor to find out her intentions? If her tax delinquency notices were being returned as "undeliverable," why didn't the county tax collectors attempt to physically serve her with a notice via the sheriff? What was happening with her electricity bills? What was happening with any of her mail? Was all of it being sent back when she also failed to pay her box rental?

It sounds like she died - or if you must, died undiscovered - of benign neighborly neglect with a big dose of incompetent local officials. Maybe the sheriff didn't "know she was there," but the Postmaster, the utilities, and the tax office all certainly knew she had been.

May I introduce a personal recollection revived by the autonomy question? My grandmother lived with my mentally childlike, developmentally disabled uncle, and while you couldn't call her isolated, he was to a large degree her major daily companion and caretaker in her last years.

She developed a treatable cancer but refused to have it treated, to even be seen a doctor, out of her disdain for hospitals. Her final decline was swift and we watched it become ugly and dangerously unhygienic. Allowing her the death she wanted on her own terms was impossible, to my mind, when she would eat nothing but toast, coffee, and bananas, and could no longer be bothered to clean up or tolerate being cleaned up after "accidents" in her bed. I snapped and told her she could die as she pleased, but she had no right to inflict the process on my uncle and give him the additional trauma of discovering her dead in her bed one morning, and my mother the questions to answer when they found her in her own mess.

Grandmother, whom I adored, told me to get out of her house. I informed my mother, who lowered her own boom and called the paramedics to come take her to the hospital.

And although Grandmother lived another three weeks in the hospital, washed, better nourished, and presumably more comfortable, without speaking another word to me out of her anger at my "betrayal", I would do it again the exact same way.

My uncle wasn't a pooch, but there is a similar point here. And a lesson that perhaps this needs to be part of everyone's "Living Will" planning while the independent and reclusive among us still have potential networks and contacts in place. There was no dignity in allowing her to rot in her bed with her crypt sold out from under her.

[KoKo]

43. Thanks for sharing that....

I know what you mean having had relatives like what you are talking about. But, this woman doesn't seem to be in the same circumstance as what you are talking about. She lived alone after her husband's death and didn't seem to be in in bad health enough to have a relative who needed to feel they had to take care of her.

I agree with what you say in your post, though:

"It sounds like she died - or if you must, died undiscovered - of benign neighborly neglect with a big dose of incompetent local officials. Maybe the sheriff didn't "know she was there," but the Postmaster, the utilities, and the tax office all certainly knew she had been."


If one doesn't have relatives or friends...shouldn't just he local postmaster or the neighbor "across the road" be responsible...in a "crossroad town" of little population? :shrug: It's not like she lived in New York City or Philadelphia, Atlanta, etc.

[seabeckind]

44. Sure, I care about the dog...

but in comparison, I think I feel so much more for Mary Sue. She didn't abandon the dog to its fate deliberately. I have no doubt she cared for it -- her kindness for strays tells me that. I'm sure if she had the opportunity she would have asked someone to care for it. Obviously, there was no one she could ask.

She died with a loaded gun under her pillow. I can hope she didn't die in fear but I'm afraid she probably did. Based on how long she decayed before anyone noticed her passing, I have no doubt she had no one to whom to turn. It is so sad that her only companion in life and who witnessed her passing wasn't even another person. Is this what we have come to as a society?

“Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

After my earlier post I walked over to my neighbor who moved in last week and introduced myself and asked him to join me for a glass of wine. His politics won't be important to me.

[tblue37]

45. I can't help fretting over the dog left there alone to die of thirst.nt

[Hoopla Phil]

46. I've heard sever mentions about how no one noted her car never moving. Question:

Was her car visible without being on her property? I know of a couple that live down from my parents that have a seven foot gate and a windy gravel road that goes to the house some 100 feet back from the street. You cannot see anything of their house from the street. If they dropped off the face of the Earth no one would be able to tell from. Of course they are active people and have a social network that apparently this woman did not.

[KoKo]

50. kick...

[stuntcat]

51. I have to pipe in

This just makes me so sad. She was probably kinda happy living with her animal buddies.. I know it's all I'd need to be happy. But someday I won't have anyone to check up on me maybe. It's kinda awful that NO ONE bothered.