Mummified bodies of 91-year-old woman facedown on floor and her only daughter, 63, lying on sofa in foetal position with her mouth open were found inside home buzzing with flies and no food on the shelves
- A mother and daughter were found dead at home in Canterbury near Kent
- Joyce Sheen, 91, and her daughter Beryl Sheen, 63, were found dead at home
- The women had warned relatives they had a ‘Dickensian year’ ahead of them
The ‘mummified’ bodies of an elderly woman and her only daughter were found inside their home, which was buzzing with flies and had no food on the shelves, an inquest has heard.
Joyce Sheen, 91, and her daughter Beryl Sheen, 63, were found dead at their home near Canterbury, Kent, in August after a concerned neighbour raised the alarm, having not seen the pair in three months.
Their partially-skeletal remains were so badly decomposed doctors could not determine the precise cause of death, who died first or even which body belonged to which woman.
An inquest into the deaths on Wednesday heard social services had tried to contact the reclusive pair months earlier but they refused help and their case was closed.
The body likely belonging to Joyce was found face-down on the bathroom floor with a clothes horse on her back, while Beryl died in a foetal position with her mouth open on a sofa.
‘A mummified body was on the floor,’ Detective Sergeant Stuart Ward told the inquest at the Archbishop’s Palace in Maidstone.
‘There was no food in the house. No fresh food. No tins. The only evidence was used teabags and some egg shells.’
Local police officers in Sturry made the grim discovery after battling through an overgrown front garden and breaking into the home on August 6.
The scene in Staines Hill, Sturry where a mother and daughter named Joyce and Beryl Sheen were found dead
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Assistant Coroner Katrina Hepburn found there were no suspicious circumstances and no evidence of trauma but she could not conclude a time or cause of death.
‘This is going to be an investigation with a lot of questions left unanswered,’ she said.
‘I simply can’t say how they died or in what order they died.’
A cousin, Richard Phipps, had visited Joyce and Beryl in late 2016, buying them a new fridge and stocking the house with food.
Family members said the mother and daughter, who did not have a phone when they died, preferred to be private and independent.
‘They wouldn’t want to worry any other members of the family,’ another cousin, Rachel Oakley, said after the inquest.
‘They lived together and they died together.’
A Christmas card from Joyce and Beryl addressed to family members in 2015 alluded to the frugal life they were leading.
‘There will be a Dickensian year ahead of us,’ Ms Hepburn read from the card. ‘Anyway, keep your chin up … Keep smiling.’
Support services and police tried to contact the Sheens in the autumn of 2017 following concerns from neighbours.
‘They refused to engage,’ Sgt Ward said. ‘And social services closed the file.’
The coroner recorded an open conclusion and declared them to have died when the bodies were found.
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