An 80-year-old mother and her 52-year-old son were found deceased in a Downtown Brooklyn apartment, as ABC7NY reports, after neighbors complained of an overpowering foul odor leading to the authorities being summoned yesterday afternoon for a wellness check. Both individuals were pronounced dead at the scene, their bodies discovered in advanced stages of decomposition, while no signs of trauma were evident, and thus far, criminality is not suspected in their deaths, as per ABC7NY.
Residents had reported smelling the odor, which was described by a police officer as so intense "I can smell it as soon as I walk out of the elevator. Almost taste it," according to The New York Post. The son, who was reportedly a frequent visitor to his mother's apartment to take care of her, hadn't been seen for several weeks, the building's doorman revealed in a statement to The Post; residents remarked that the smell of decomposition had been noticeable "for days."
The NYPD disclosed that officers who arrived at the apartment, located at the intersection of Jay Street and Tillary Street, found the mother and son unresponsive, and lying face-up, their bodies appearing mummified due to the condition they were in at the time of discovery. The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) officially declared them deceased at the scene, and The New York Post observed the removal of the bodies from the premises by 7:35 p.m. yesterday.
A neighbor, asking to remain unnamed, told The New York Post, "It would come in waves, and the maintenance would spray like an air freshener," indicating that the scent was so persistent that maintenance attempted to neutralize it without understanding its gruesome origin; the neighbor initially mistook the smell to emanate from trash outside before realizing its severity. The City Medical Examiner is set to conduct further investigation to ascertain the causes of death for the mother and son, with both sources confirming absence of trauma and current dismissal of any notion of criminality linked to the incidences.
