Elderly Woman's Mummified Remains Found In Her Home Two Years After Death

The mummified body of a 70-year-old Italian woman was reportedly found in her home two years after her death in northern Italy on Friday, Feb. 4.

The decomposing remains of Marinella Beretta, 70, who reportedly had no living relatives, was found sitting in a chair in the living room of her home in Prestino, near Lake Como in northern Italy on Friday, Feb. 4, New York Post reported.

Officers made the gruesome discovery after they went to Beretta’s home while they were carrying out a house call to warn Beretta regarding a tree that had fallen into her "overgrown" garden during high winds in Lombardy.

When nobody answered the door, they entered the residence and found Beretta's corpse sitting in a chair in the living room. The circumstances that led to her death currently remain unclear. However, a medical examiner revealed that she possibly passed away toward the end of 2019, based on the level of decay in her body.

When the officers questioned her neighbors, they said that they haven't seen Baretta for at least two and a half years. They recalled that they last saw the elderly woman in September 2019 and assumed that she had moved away at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Daily Mail reported.

Police said they found nothing at the scene to indicate foul play and revealed that she has no surviving relatives.

“What happened to Marinella Beretta in Como, the forgotten loneliness, hurts our consciences,” Italy’s minister for families, Elena Bonetti, said. “We have a duty, as a community that wants to remain united, to remember her life… no one must be left alone.”

Meanwhile, the local council where Beretta lived is planning to cover her funeral and burial costs.

On Tuesday, Feb. 8, the Mayor of Como, Mario Landriscina, invited the city to attend Beretta's funeral and said, "I will try to be there and I invite the city to be present. This is the moment to be together, and even if this woman had no relatives, we could become her relatives."

Beretta's body currently remains at the morgue, and a funeral date has not yet been set.

According to a report conducted by the national statistics institute (ISTAT) in 2018, it was found that nearly 40 percent of over 75-year-olds in Italy live alone with no relatives or friends to turn to in case of need.