Woman found mummified in front of TV after dying 40 years earlier

Officers stumbled upon a horrifying scene “frozen in time”, discovering a dust-covered cup of tea, a television set, and the mummified remains of a dead woman swathed in blankets.

Their investigation became centred on establishing precisely how the woman had been left undisturbed for over four decades, with nobody apparently giving her a second thought.

Hedviga Golik, born in 1924, had seemingly been in the process of making herself a cup of tea before settling into her favourite armchair in front of her black and white television set.

Croatian police confirmed she was last seen by neighbours in 1966, when she would have been 42 years old. Those living nearby had simply presumed she had moved out of her flat in the capital, Zagreb.

She was eventually discovered by police and bailiffs in 2008, who had forced entry into the property to assist authorities in establishing ownership of the flat, reports the Irish Mirror. A police spokesman said at the time: “So far, we have no idea how it is possible that someone officially reported missing so long ago was not found before in the same apartment she used to live in.

“When officers went there, they said it was like stepping into a place frozen in time.

“The cup she had been drinking tea from was still on a table next to the chair she had been sitting in and the house was full of things no one had seen for decades. Nothing had been disturbed for decades, even though there were more than a few cobwebs in there.”

Neighbours were left utterly shocked by the harrowing find. Jadranka Markic was just nine years old when Hedviga mysteriously “vanished”. She said: “I still remember her. She was a quiet woman who kept herself to herself but was polite. We all thought that she had just moved out and gone to live with relatives.”

Ordinarily, a deceased body would produce an odour throughout the building, alerting neighbours to what had occurred. Yet if Hedviga had passed away during winter months, the smell might have been considerably less noticeable, particularly given her windows remained open.

Nobody would have entered her property as a notice on her door stated: “Based on the Law on Inheritance of Tenants, H. Golik was left without ownership – inheritance. Until the resolution of ownership rights, the tenants cannot dispose of the apartment and any attempt to dispose of it is a criminal offense.”

The sign had only appeared in 1998, however, and was probably not an official document, but rather stemmed from a broader disagreement amongst the residents.

Officials were also baffled by the discovery that Hedviga’s bills had been settled by a man in Zagreb, the building’s original architect, who had passed away three months previously.

While her precise cause of death was never established, it is believed Hedviga died of natural causes in 1966.

Croatian media reported she originated from the city of Rijeka, which would have been Italian territory at the time of her birth in 1924, subsequently becoming part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

She took up residence in the one-room attic flat at Medveščak Street 77 in 1961. A separate Croatian news outlet reported that the apartment had been left to Hedviga by a former boyfriend, who had received the flat as payment for his involvement in the construction of the property.

Hedviga lived alone at the time of her death and had become estranged from her family, yet many residents within the four-storey building were familiar with her.

Opinion of her amongst neighbours, however, was divided. Some described her as a recluse, while others recalled her as volatile, with reports of her running through the streets shouting.

One neighbour, Katica Carić, recalled that Hedviga refused to leave her home, and would instead “drop me a bag with money and a piece of paper saying what she needed from the store.”

Katica would then place the items in a bucket, which Hedviga could haul up to her flat using a rope. By the 1960s, many residents of Medveščak Street 77 had gained the impression that Hedviga was preparing to move on.

Some had heard she was a Jehovah’s Witness, while others believed she was contemplating joining a sect.

She was last spotted in 1966. In 1973, somebody alerted the authorities to her disappearance. Yet nobody would discover what had truly become of Hedviga until the day police made the chilling discovery of her mummified body, wrapped in blankets.