80-year-old woman found dead in Jurong East flat after her husband was hospitalised

Elderly woman who lived in Jurong East found dead after neighbours detected foul smell

An 80-year-old woman was found dead in her flat in Jurong East earlier this week.

Unlike other similar cases, however, she didn’t live alone but with her husband.

The grim discovery was made after her husband had been hospitalised, according to a resident.

Neighbour detected putrid odour since 23 June

The elderly woman had lived in a flat on the ninth floor of Block 245 Jurong East Street 24, reported Shin Min Daily News.

A resident in the unit above, a 34-year-old manager named only as Mr Chen (transliterated from Mandarin), told the paper that they had smelt a putrid odour since the week before on 23 June.

The stench had come from around their bedroom window, and got worse and worse, he said.

This led them to notify the town council for two consecutive days on Monday (24 June) and Tuesday.

Town council personnel visited the block and Mr Chen’s bedroom on both those days but failed to find the source of the smell.

They initially wondered whether something had happened to a neighbour who lived on the same floor, but he was safe and sound.

They then thought the smell was coming from the rotting carcass of a dead animal nearby.

Foul smell lingers in corridor outside flat

However, on Wednesday night (26 June), he saw police officers in the unit below theirs and learnt that their neighbour below had died.

Although they had lived in the block for two years, they didn’t know the couple living below them.

When Shin Min reporters visited the block on Thursday (27 June), they found that a foul smell still lingered in the corridor outside the unit.

There were also traces of what they suspected to be blood on the door.

The flat had already been sealed by the police, who also left a message on its door.

A next-door neighbour had lit incense and placed it outside the unit.

No foul play suspected in case of woman found dead at Jurong East

In response to queries from MS News, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said it was alerted to a case of unnatural death at 5.30pm on 26 June.

An 80-year-old woman was found lying motionless in a flat in Block 245 Jurong East Street 24.

She was pronounced dead at the scene, SPF added.

No foul play is suspected based on preliminary investigations. Further investigations are ongoing.

Husband had been hospitalised so nobody knew of wife’s death: Neighbour

Another neighbour, a 62-year-old security guard named only as Abraham, told Shin Min that the deceased lived in the unit with her husband.

The couple, who were in their 80s or 90s, had already been living there when he moved into the block three years ago.

While the elderly man was understood to be working as a cleaner and would go out, his wife seldom left home.

The man would greet him when he saw him, but his wife usually kept their windows and door closed and hardly interacted with neighbours.

He heard that the husband had been hospitalised, so nobody knew that his wife had passed away.

Nobody visited Jurong East flat after woman was found dead

Abraham didn’t know whether the couple had any relatives.

A few years ago, he saw a woman and a child visiting them, but nobody else came after that.

Nobody was seen visiting the flat after the elderly woman’s death was discovered, he said.

Also read: 65-year-old man found dead inside Bedok bicycle shop, he ran business for 20 years

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Featured image adapted from Google Maps and Shin Min Daily News.