The decomposing body of an 84-year-old man was found in a trash-strewn Brooklyn apartment he shared with his wife, who had planned to wait a year before calling authorities, police said Monday.
Brent Shapiro died of arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease at least two months ago, but his wife of 72 years did not call 911, the NYPD reported.
The uniformed woman went to the house on Coney Island Avenue, near Glenwood Road, in Midwood, around 7 pm on Saturday after receiving the alert from the couple’s two children, 45 and 41 years old. Both had called 911 to ask police to check on the condition of their parents, who were diagnosed with mental illness.
The apartment was so full of clutter and trash that officers had to use the fire escape to enter the third-floor bedroom, where they found Shapiro’s body about two hours after arriving at the apartment.
Elizabeth Shapiro was taken to a hospital for psychiatric observation.
The woman told police that she had planned to wait a year before notifying authorities that her husband had died, according to a source cited by the Daily News.
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