A Brevard woman disappeared, but never left home

[mia]

Last year, a week before Thanksgiving, a man in Cape Canaveral bought in a foreclosure auction a two-story stucco run-down townhouse on a short, straight street called Cherie Down Lane. He went to see his purchase he hoped to fix up and sell.

He found in the kitchen dishes stacked so high on the counter they almost touched the bottoms of the cabinets. In the living room on the carpet was a towel with two plates of mold-covered cat food. Empty orange pill bottles were everywhere. In front of the couch, open on a single TV tray, was a Brevard County Hometown News, dated July 24, 2009.

Both bedrooms were the same: stuff strewn all over, clothes and fake flowers and plants and a dusty treadmill pushed into a far corner, a mattress propped against tightly shut drapes, and stacks and stacks of books, about religion, about weight loss, about wiping out debts and making fresh starts.

Next to the door to the garage was a bulletin board with a 13-year-old receipt from Home Depot and an inspirational quote: "I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent."

http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/a-brevard-woman-disappeared-but-never-left-home/1181888

[Odin2005]

1. OMG!

:cry:

[Cirque du So-What]

2. 'Diligent search and inquiry'

The bank foreclosed. People hired by the bank went inside and took pictures of her stuff. They took pictures of her car. That happened twice. "Diligent search and inquiry," they wrote. "Confirmed residence is unoccupied."

[hlthe2b]

3. "She was buried in Ohio. There was a short service. Her brief obituary said she would be missed."

sigh.... Unfortunately that line underscores the irony. I fear we will hear more of this in future months and years... RIP, Kathy.

[pipi_k]

9. I noticed that too...

the sad, pathetic irony.

And probably a lie, try as they could to say something nice.


Nobody hears from her for two years and they don't send the cops to her house to search every single inch of the place?

Nobody missed her while she decomposed in her own car.

[InvisibleTouch]

4. "She disappeared long before she died."

I wonder how much of her mental confusion was brought on by the antidepressants she was taking? The solution wasn't to drug her up, IMO - the solution was to get her involved in life and have a sense that someone cared about her.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. As a bipolar person, she needed all of them. Unfortunately there's no such thing as a

miracle drug for bipolar. I've never found one that doesn't have at least some undesirable side effects, and they only seem to help so much. But a little better is better than nothing, I guess.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. If I didn't have a family, that would be me. RIP, Kathy. I am so sorry that you struggled as you

did, and were so alone in your illness. :cry:

[renate]

7. what a sad story

What a sad life.

I can't blame her neighbors; it doesn't sound as though this woman really enjoyed social interaction anyway--she didn't even answer the door when she called the police for help. This is terribly sad, but it probably reflects more on modern medicine (or, more specifically, on budgets for social services and insurance's restrictions on mental health coverage) than on the coldness of modern life in general. The depths of her suffering are impossible to even imagine... that poor, lonely, frightened woman. :cry:

I hesitate before going on, because what comes next isn't related to the OP, but there's a story that's linked to on that page:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/aging/doctor-says-an-oil-lessened-alzheimers-effects-on-her-husband/879333
about how medium-chain triglycerides might be helpful in people with Alzheimer's disease.

Because a newspaper article doesn't constitute data, I looked for a couple of studies suggesting that there's some validity to using ketone-producing medium-chain triglycerides:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15123336
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18625458

I'm really sorry to distract from the OP and I realize that it might even be a little bit tacky to do so (although I won't be the first person to fail to appropriately address an OP in a response on DU), but I didn't want my reticence to keep this information from anybody here on DU who needs it, and if a link to a story about Kathryn Norris' lonely life leads to an article that helps somebody else, that might be a tiny glimmer of a good thing.

[mia]

8. Thanks for the information.

May this story about Kathryn help us all to reach out in whatever way we can.

[progressoid]

10. damn

[treestar]

11. Poor woman

It seems that she did not kill herself with the car? Sounds like it was not running.

As for people going in and taking photos of the car but not seeing her, my god.

[Blue_Tires]

12. I've read a lot of depressing news the past couple of weeks, but that is the topper...

Very sad way to go out...No one should leave this world alone and unloved...:cry:

Full credit to the writer; that's some of the best human interest long-form journalism I've read in awhile...I was beginning to think it was a lost art...