Family Keeps Dead Dad in House - for FOUR Months

[tropaka]

I don't know if this belongs here or not, but I figured since there's religious symbolism, a dead body and black robes and chanting, this is the best spot to put it

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/09/20 ... 57888.html

Residents of a north-end Hamilton neighbourhood are struggling to understand how a woman and her six children lived with the body of her dead husband and father in their home for months.

The body of Peter Wald, 51, was discovered in his home on St. Matthews Avenue, off of Barton Street East, on Tuesday. An employee from a foreclosure company found the body when trying to evict Wald and his family.

Regional coroner Dr. Jack Stanborough told CBC Hamilton that Wald’s body had been found in an “advanced state of decomposition.â€

“Evidence suggests he’d been dead for weeks, if not months,†Stanborough said.

Next-door neighbour Brenda Dennis is convinced Wald had been dead for at least four months.

“The house has been closed all summer with that body in there,†she said.

The last time Dennis or her husband Brian saw Wald was back in January, when he was getting out of his blue Astro van — his prized possession. Wald, a spiritual man, had painted it all over with religious slogans. He’d even placed tinfoil in the shape of crosses on the headlights so they shone in the shape of a crucifix, Brian said.

“He got out of the van, and he was having trouble walking,†Brian said. “We know he was diabetic — and that was the last we saw of him.â€

At first, when the Dennises asked family members next door how Wald was doing, they were told, “Oh, he’s got the flu, he’s resting.†Then in March, they got a very different answer: “He’s in God’s hands now.â€

“That’s the only answer you ever got,†Brenda said. “They didn’t say he was here, they didn’t say he was in the hospital, they didn’t say he was in a nursing home — and now, god, if the sheriff hadn’t come, how long would he have been up there?â€

The Dennises said odd behaviour around the home ramped up about four months ago. Hordes of flies could be seen around a second-floor window, and birds were pecking at the screen.

Family members also started dancing and chanting while wearing black robes in the back yard, sometimes twice a day, Brian said. One night in May, they saw family members painting over Wald’s van with rollers by flashlight.

“When they went and started painting it in the back yard, we knew damn well something was wrong,†Brian said.

Brenda said the Walds and their children lived in the home for at least 10 years. Despite the recent strange behaviour, they are mourning the loss of a kind neighbour they never really got to say goodbye to.

“He’d fix kids’ bikes. He’d cut people’s grass,†Brenda said. “And now no one can say goodbye.

“It’s so bizarre.â€

[laura oz]

:pink-shock: Good heavens! That must have been horrible for the family and the neighbors. The part about the flies and the birds made me a wee bit queasy. If it did that to me just reading it, what must it have been like in that house? It's almost like something out of a horror movie, and it must have been a major health hazard. The human body decomposing is not pretty or hygienic. I'll never understand some people. Just makes me shake my head.

[ILoveJellybeans]

OMG thats horrifying. How could anyone live in a house with a decomposing body, especially with the flies-there must be a terrible smell. Also there are children in there, it doesnt mention how old, but he was 51 and had 6 kids, and they were still living at home, so I would guess they are still children, and imagine how awful it would be for a child to not only have their father die, but see and smell him decomposing right in front of them.

The whole black robes and chanting seems unlike the kind of thing a fundie would do though-wearing robes, dancing and chanting seems like the kind of thing fundies would see as a witchcraft or satanic thing to do to try and raise the dead.

[GeoBQn]

Nobody show this article to Sparkling Adventures Lauren. I could totally see this as something she would do to "normalize" death and make it "less traumatic."

[Tesseract]

:pink-shock: Speechless.

[Green Glass]

As I read this, I found myself hoping that it was going to be a satire article from The Onion or something. That is absolutely horrifying.

[Conuly]

It happens sometimes. My mother brings up (constantly) this article she read a few years back about a man who lived with his dead, naturally mummified mother for five years. Apparently, when she died he was really distraught so he put off calling anybody about her for a day or so, but then once he had put it off he felt REALLY STUPID calling the city to say "my mom died two days ago but I didn't bother to call until now, she's in the living room" so he just closed off that part of the house. :shock:

I read an article (gotta find it) about a family that passed down a dead baby for nearly a century. Presumably the person whose baby it was couldn't cope, and then after that person passed, well, so did the baby. For generations. Until the government got involved and made them stop taking pictures with the thing and its pet dead goldfish and bury it already.

[tropaka]

Update - before the police notified CAS, the family split

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/ ... -1.1862528

[lilwriter85]

This news story reminds me of a William Faulkner short story.