Joyce Vincent - The lady who died while watching TV and her corpse was discovered 2 years later with the TV still on

Joyce Carol Vincent (15 October 1965 – c. December 2003) was an English woman whose corpse lay undiscovered in her London bedsit for two years. She was found dead in her flat in January 2006, and evidence suggested she died around the December 2003 period.

Vincent died of unknown causes. She was an asthma sufferer, and an asthma attack has been suggested as a possible cause of death, or complications surrounding her recent peptic ulcer. Her remains were described as "mostly skeletal" according to the pathologist, and she was lying on her back, next to a shopping bag, surrounded by Christmas presents she had wrapped but never delivered. It is not known to whom the presents were addressed, and the police report regarded the case has been disposed of.

Neighbours had assumed the flat was unoccupied, and the odour of decomposing body tissue was attributed to nearby waste bins. The flat's windows did not allow direct sight into the accommodation. Drug addicts frequented the area, which may explain why no one questioned the constant noise from the television. Half of her rent was being automatically paid to Metropolitan Housing Trust by benefits agencies, leading officials to believe she was still alive. However, over two years, £2,400 in unpaid rent accrued, and housing officials decided to repossess the property. Her corpse was discovered on 25 January 2006, when the bailiffs broke in. The television and heating were still running due to automatic debit payments and debt forgiveness.

The Metropolitan Housing Trust said that due to housing benefits covering the costs of rent for some period after Vincent's death, arrears had not been realised until much later. The Metropolitan Housing Trust said that no concerns were raised by neighbours or visitors at any time during the three years between death and discovery of the body.
Vincent's body was too badly decomposed to conduct a full post-mortem, and she had to be identified from dental records. Police ruled death by natural causes as there was nothing to suggest foul play: the front door was double locked and there was no sign of a break-in. At the time of her death she had a fiancé, but the police were unable to trace him. Her sisters had hired a private detective to look for her, and contacted the Salvation Army, but these attempts proved unsuccessful. The detective found the house where Vincent was living, and the family wrote letters to her, but as she was already dead by this time, they received no response, and the family assumed that she had deliberately broken ties with them.

The Glasgow Herald reported, "her friends noted her as someone who fled at signs of trouble, who walked out of jobs if she clashed with a colleague and who moved from one flat to the next all over London. She didn't answer the phone to her sister and didn't appear to have her own circle of friends but instead relied on the company of relative strangers who came with the package of a new boyfriend, a colleague or flatmate."

A film about Joyce, Dreams of a Life, written and directed by Carol Morley, with Zawe Ashton playing Joyce, was released in 2011.

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