Madrid Pensioner Found Dead After A Year Unnoticed

Cops have found the mummified body of a 70-year-old pensioner at an apartment complex a year after the tragic OAP passed away without his neighbours noticing.

The gruesome discovery was made in the Vallecas neighbourhood of the Spanish capital Madrid after worried residents called the police as they were scared squatters were trying to move into the flat of Santiago C.L., 70.

Local media report 10 days a group of people had knocked on residents’ doors in the block of flats where Santiago C.L. lives asking if the person who lived in his flat had died.

They reportedly asked residents if they would call the police if the group decided to break into the house to be squatters.

The neighbours had believed Santiago C.L. had moved out and into a mountain house he owned around one year earlier but they called Santiago’s cousin, who was the only person who had shown concern for him in the 30 years he had lived in the building.

The female cousin said that Santiago was not living in the mountain house and she called the national police who went with her along with a group of firefighters to enter Santiago’s flat.

The flat was reportedly full of rubbish as Santiago suffered from Diogenes syndrome, a disorder characterised by extreme self-neglect, domestic squalor, social withdrawal, apathy, and compulsive hoarding.

After entering the flat the emergency workers and Santiago’s cousin found his mummified body sat in a chair.

He is reportedly believed to have died over one year ago but the conditions in the house prevented his body from going into a state of purification, according to reports.

Murder investigators and forensic scientists were called to the scene and they confirmed the 70-year-old had died of natural causes.

The smell of the body had not spread throughout the block of flats until Santiago’s door had been opened.

One resident told reporters that the OAP had been strange, saying: “He had five locks on his door because thought he was being followed and once he used an axe to threaten one of the neighbours.”

He was not married and leaves behind no children. His cousin claimed that he had been suffering from schizophrenia and insisted that she was not helped when she had requested for help to have him placed in a mental health centre.

The discovery comes after police found the mummified body of an 80-year-old woman in a house in the Salamanca neighbourhood of Madrid on 18th April.