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Joyce Vincent was a 38-year-old woman from London with a family and
friends. So why did it take over two years for people to realize
she had died?
Joyce Vincent With Her Dog
Picture this: you walk into an apartment that is on the messy
side with piles of unopened mail by the door and a sink full of
dishes. There’s a glow from the television playing BBC1 and a pile
of wrapped Christmas presents waiting to be sent out.
This was the state of the apartment that belonged to Joyce Vincent
when officials from a north London housing association entered it.
Vincent was there too. However, she was almost entirely
unidentifiable. Her body was mostly decomposed, as she had been
dead for just over two years.
Vincent lived in London in a bedsit, a type of social housing in
the United Kingdom. The officials who came to her apartment on Jan.
5, 2006 were there to repossess it due to unpaid rent. Though, it’s
estimated that she died sometime in December of 2003.
Neighbors didn’t really know her, thus didn’t really notice her
absence. The only detectable thing was a bad smell, which they
attributed to garbage bins below the apartment.
Vincent was found on the floor, clutching a shopping bag.
Because her remains were mostly skeletal, she was only able to be
identified through dental records. It also had been too long to
determine a cause of death, though police suggested she died of
natural causes after a criminal investigation ruled out any foul
play. Vincent reportedly had asthma and it’s been speculated that
she may have had an attack.
With a cause of death essentially placed, only one question
remained: how could someone be dead for two years and no one take
notice?
Not that anyone deserves to die and go unnoticed for several
years, but it was particularly strange that nobody seemed to know
Joyce Vincent had passed away. She was 38 years old, she worked for
most of her life, she had family and friends, and wasn’t known to
be on drugs or in any legal trouble.
Carol Morley, a filmmaker who read about Vincent in the news,
was so perplexed by the story that she decided to make a
documentary title Dreams of a Life on it. In doing so, she tracked
down people like ex-boyfriends and old colleagues of Vincent who
could possibly shed some light on her mysterious death.
Martin Lister had dated Joyce Vincent for three years and kept
in touch with her sporadically until 2002. He only learned of her
death when he saw Morley’s ad for people connected to Vincent. The
revelation shocked him as he told Morely that she was a hard worker
who had great jobs.
Lister was also surprised that she had been living in public
housing.
“You look back and think, I wish I’d asked more, wish I’d
understood more,” he told Morley.
As more people came forward and more details emerged, it seemed
that Vincent’s life was shrouded in mystery.
From quip
She had worked for the big accounting firm Ernst & Young until she
quit in 2001 without giving a reason. Colleagues recalled
conflicting stories about her departure. Some said she was
traveling with a group of 20 people, others said she had been
headhunted for another job.
An article from the Glasgow Herald reported that friends
categorized her as someone “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, instead relying on the company
of relative strangers who came with the package of a new boyfriend,
a colleague, or flatmate.”
It was also revealed that Vincent spent time between her
departure from the firm and her death in a home for refugees of
domestic violence.
As for family, she was the youngest of five sisters but the only
one living in the U.K. Her father worked as a carpenter and her
mother died when she was just a child.
Vincent had apparently isolated herself from her family in the
years before her death, presumably because of the man she had
chosen to date.
While the amount of time that went by after Joyce Vincent’s
death continues to be baffling, it’s become clear that the life she
seemed to lead didn’t always match up with what was happening
beneath the surface.
It’s an ironic and coincidental tale. In the age of social
media, where everyone is so connected, the idea that a seemingly
average person could remain dead for over two years without anyone
raising a question sounds crazy. But at the same time, just as
people have a tendency to post their best selves on social media,
it’s possible Joyce Vincent did this in real life. Nobody knows
what happens behind closed doors.
Joyce Vincent’s story is as sad as it is strange. People like
Martin Lister who knew her and found out about her death wished
that they’d had stayed in contact and checked in with her more
often. It serves as a reminder that person-to-person communication
still has its place and is important.
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