Woman died watching TV and her mummified corpse wasn’t found for 40 years

WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT Hedviga Golik was last seen by neighbours in 1966, when she would have been 42 years old, before her remains were discovered decades later in her Zagreb flat.

Police stumbled into a scene “frozen in time”, which included a cup of tea collecting dust, a TV set, and the mummified body of a dead woman wrapped in blankets.

Their case became focused on finding out just how a the woman had been left to rot, without anyone caring, for over four decades.

Hedviga Golik, born in 1924, had apparently made herself a cup of tea before settling into her favourite armchair in front of her black and white television set.

Croatian police said she was last spotted by neighbours in 1966, when she would have been 42. Those living nearby had assumed she had simply moved out of her flat in the capital, Zagreb.

However, she was discovered by police and bailiffs in 2008 who had forced entry into the property to help authorities determine ownership of the flat.

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 stunned by the grim 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.”

Typically, a dead body would fill the building with a smell, letting neighbours know what had happened. However, if Hedviga had died in the winter, the smell may have been less intense, especially as her windows were open.

No one would have gone into her home as she had a sign 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.”

However, the sign had only been posted in 1998, and it was likely not an official notice, but a result of a larger dispute among the tenants.

Authorities were further confused by the fact Hedviga’s bills had been paid by a man in Zagreb, the original architect of the building, who had died three months earlier.

Although her exact cause of death was never determined, it is thought Hedviga died of natural causes in 1966.

Croatian media reported she she was from the city of Rijeka, which would have been part of Italy when she was born in 1924, later becoming part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

She moved into the one-room attic apartment at Medveščak Street 77 in 1961.

A separate Croatian news site reported the apartment had been left to Hedviga by a former boyfriend who had received the flat it as payment for helping to build the property.

Hedviga lived alone at the time of her death and was estranged from her family but many of those living in the four-story building knew of her.

However, the perception of her was split. Some described her as a recluse while others said she was volatile and reported seeing her running down the street and shouting.

One neighbour, Katica Carić said Hedviga wouldn’t leave her home and instead would “drop me a bag with money and a piece of paper saying what she needed from the store.”

Katica would then place them in a bucket, which Heviga could pull up to her unit with a rope. By the 1960s, many people at Medveščak Street 77 had the impression that Hedviga was planning to move.

Some had heard she was a Jehovah’s Witness, and others thought the woman was planning on joining a sect.

She was last seen in 1966. In 1973, someone notified the police of her disappearance. But no one would know what had become of Hedviga until the day police walked in on her mummified body wrapped in blankets.