Woman’s mummified corpse not found for 40 years after she died watching TV

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Hedviga Golik was last seen in 1966 and her mummified body was found 42 years later in her Zagreb, Croatia flat in 2008, with a cup of tea still on the table beside her armchair

Officers stumbled upon a scene “frozen in time”, featuring a dusty teacup, a television, and the mummified remains of a dead woman wrapped in blankets.

Their investigation centred on discovering how the woman had been left to decompose, forgotten by all, for more than four decades.

Hedviga Golik, born in 1924, had evidently prepared herself a cup of tea before settling into her beloved armchair in front of her black and white television.

Croatian authorities said neighbours last saw her in 1966, when she would have been 42. Locals had presumed she had simply moved from her flat in Zagreb, the capital.

Yet she was found by officers and bailiffs in 2008 who had forced their way into the property to assist authorities in establishing ownership of the apartment.

A police spokesperson 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 shocked by the macabre discovery. Jadranka Markic was just nine when Hedviga “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 decomposing corpse would have filled the building with an unmistakable odour, alerting locals to the tragedy. Yet if Hedviga had passed away during the colder months, the stench might have been considerably weaker, particularly given her windows remained slightly open.

Nobody would have entered her flat due to a notice displayed on her door saying: “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, and was presumably not an official document, but rather stemmed from a broader conflict amongst residents.

Officials were additionally baffled by the discovery that Hedviga’s utility bills had been settled by a man from Zagreb – the building’s original designer – who had passed away three months earlier.

Though her precise cause of death remains unknown, experts believe Hedviga succumbed to natural causes in 1966.

Croatian news outlets reported she hailed from Rijeka, which would have fallen under Italian territory at her birth in 1924, before later forming part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

She had moved into the single-room loft flat at Medveščak Street 77 in 1961. A separate Croatian news outlet reported that the flat had been bequeathed to Hedviga by a former partner who had acquired the property as compensation for assisting with its construction.

At the time of her death, Hedviga was living alone and had become estranged from her relatives, though many people in the four-storey building were aware she was living there.

Nevertheless, opinions about her were divided amongst neighbours. While some characterised her as a hermit, others described her as unpredictable and claimed to have witnessed her dashing through the streets while screaming.

One, Katica Carić, said Hedviga refused to venture outside, instead choosing to “drop me a bag with money and a piece of paper saying what she needed from the store.”

Katica would then position the items in a bucket, which Hedviga would hoist up to her flat using a rope. During the 1960s, numerous residents at Medveščak Street 77 believed that Hedviga was preparing to relocate.

Certain people had heard rumours that she was a Jehovah’s Witness, while others suspected the woman was intending to join a religious sect.

She was last seen in 1966. In 1973, authorities were alerted to her disappearance.

However, nobody would discover Hedviga’s fate until the moment officers stumbled upon her mummified remains shrouded in blankets.