An unfortunate fact of living in a big city like Singapore is that many elderly folk have been known to pass away in their homes alone.
One of the most recent cases involved an 80-year-old woman who was found dead in her flat along Holland Drive.
Source: Shin Min Daily News on Facebook
The deceased was reportedly a school teacher.
The police were alerted to the case at 1.55pm on Sunday (26 Mar), a police spokesman told The Straits Times (ST).
Officers were dispatched to a unit at Block 11 Holland Drive.
Source: Google Maps
According to Shin Min Daily News, it was a unit on the 22nd floor.
There, the police found an 80-year-old woman motionless.
A resident who declined to be named told Shin Min that they saw several police officers outside the unit when they returned home after lunch.
At 3pm, they engaged a locksmith to open the door.
A Shin Min reporter saw the area cordoned off by the police, and the body being taken away at 5pm.
The resident told the paper that the deceased’s next-door neighbour had alerted the police.
This was after they detected a foul smell coming from the unit.
The woman hadn’t been seen by neighbours for about one week and was thought to be away.
The lights in the unit were also observed to be off.
The deceased was an unmarried retired teacher who used to work at a primary school nearby, the resident said.
Thus, neighbours used to call her “teacher”, and she would chat with them every evening when she went for dinner.
She was known to be friendly and had a good relationship with her neighbours.
That resident remembered being told by the woman that she was born in 1943, making her 80 years old.
Another resident who was named only as Mr Hong, 70, said that the deceased had lived in the area for 40 years.
As for her family members, other residents remembered only that she had an elder sister who used to live with her.
But she had lived alone ever since her sister passed away.
Her sister’s children never visited, they said.
MS News extends our condolences to the deceased’s family and friends. May she rest in peace.
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Featured image adapted from Shin Min Daily News on Facebook and Google Maps.
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