Three days after 69-year old Elsie Nieuenkirk was last seen alive, her badly decomposed body was discovered at her 52 Winkle Road, New Amsterdam home after 10 am yesterday. However, it remained there until yesterday evening as funeral homes in the Ancient County refused to remove it.
Neighbours told Stabroek News that they smelt a strong stench emanating from the house and immediately contacted the police who checked and confirmed that she had died.
Police in Berbice ruled out foul play, saying that the woman’s home was tightly secured when they arrived; they had to break the door to get in.
Everything in the house also seemed to be intact, a source said. The woman’s remains were discovered on her bed and it is suspected that she may have passed away in her sleep.
Neighbours said that Nieuenkirk, who re-migrated from the United States a few months ago and lived alone, would usually be seen busy around the yard.
However, they did not suspect she had died because she would normally leave home and return a few days later.
When this newspaper arrived around 2.30 pm, police were at the scene but the body had not been removed as funeral homes in New Amsterdam had refused to take it because of the advanced state of decomposition. The Lyken Funeral Home from Georgetown then had to be summoned to undertake the job. According to reports the city morticians arrived in Berbice some seven hours later and removed the body.
The woman leaves to mourn her husband and her son, Stanton Gaskin who reside in the US.
Meanwhile, the badly decomposed body of fisherman, Teshwar Madramootoo, 39, of Kilcoy Squatting Area, Corentyne was placed in a box with ice at the old NA Hospital mortuary last week after the funeral homes refused to keep the body.
Residents immediately contacted this newspaper and complained bitterly that they had been forced to endure the strong stench emanating from the body that had also attracted a lot of flies.
According to them, the mortuary along with the old hospital building, which vandals had stripped of its roof and sections of the walls, was not in working condition.
An official from the hospital had told this newspaper that he was not aware of the body being taken to the old mortuary.
However, he said he learnt that the police would normally use that mortuary when they have decomposed bodies. The police meanwhile, said they did not take the body there.
