Korean Man's Death Goes Unnoticed for Days

A 20-year-old man in Seoul was found dead at his home several days after his death after his family members, who were living with him at the time, were unaware he had died.

Police in Jungnang-gu (a district of Seoul, South Korea) said the man was found at his home on August 6 after his younger brother reported the [now deceased man] was not moving. 

Accord to the report about the death in The Korea Herald, "Police found that the body had already begun to decompose and believe he had died two to three days earlier."

The deceased lived with his mother and younger brother. All three family members (the deceased included) had severe intellectual disabilities, and police believe the mother and brother were unable to recognize the 20-year-old had died. 

An autopsy  determined the man's cause of death to be "sudden cardiac death." There was no evidence of foul play.

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Source: "Man's death goes unnoticed for days in family with severe intellectual disabilities," The Korea Herald, September 14, 2026.

Unnoticed Death of Nepali Student Sparks Debate on Australia’s Failing Safety Net

The Online Khabar reported that the death of 32-year-old Nepali student in a busy park in Sydney, Australia, went unnoticed for months. 

According to the news outlet, Bikram Lama, a young man from Makwanpur, traveled to Australia to study computer science. Later, he ended up living on the streets, sleeping in Sydney’s St James Tunnel, which runs beneath Hyde Park and is is used to cross Sydney’s central business district. The tunnel “is considered one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city for both locals and tourists,” the news outlet said. 

Authorities estimate that more than 1,00,000 Australians must have traveled past Lama’s body before it was discovered by city workers on December 7, 2025.

Lama was reportedly known as “The Birdman” for feeding pigeons in the tunnel where he stayed. The website also reported that, when his body was discovered, it had decomposed so severely that police were initially unable to identify him. They eventually did when Nepal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs contacted Mr.Lama’s mother for a DNA test.

May Mr. Lama rest in peace.

 

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Source: 

“Unnoticed death of Nepali student sparks debate on Australia’s failing safety net,” April 21, 2026

Solitary Deaths in Japan top 22,000 in 2025

According to Japan’s National Police Agency (NPA), at least 76,941 people died alone at home across Japan in 2025, and 22,222 of them were not found until at least eight days after their deaths. 

Eight days (or more) is the length of time Japan’s government uses to define an “isolated” or “solitary” death.

The NPA released these annual statistics on solitary deaths for the first time in 2025. 

 

According to the latest NPA report, released on April 14, the number of all solitary deaths was up 921 from 2024 and accounted for nearly 40 percent of all 204,562 deaths handled by police in 2025.

According to members of a Cabinet Office working group assigned to address the issue of solitary deaths in Japan, that length of time — eight days — with no one checking up on or trying to contact the deceased indicates the person had likely been socially isolated.

Among the statistics from the report were:

• Deceased individuals within the working-age population (between 15 and 64) accounted for 17,860, or more than 20 percent, of the solitary deaths.
  
  
• Those aged 65 or older accounted for more than 70 percent of the 22,222 isolated deaths that went unnoticed for eight days or longer.
  
  
• In 7,148 cases, bodies were not found for one month or longer, and in 208 cases, one year or longer.

 

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Source: 

“22,000 solitary deaths at home go unnoticed for at least 8 days,” The Asahi Shimbun, May 12, 2026

Thomas Choy, Toronto, Canada

Name: Thomas Choy 

Location: Toronto, Canada

“How could a parked car with a dead man inside it go unnoticed for days just steps from the entrance to a Toronto hospital’s emergency room?”

This is the question the Toronto City News has asked on behalf of the family of Thomas Choy (41), whose body was found in the back seat of a vehicle parked outside of the Humber River Hospital ER last December.

According to reports, the vehicle containing Choy’s body arrived near the hospital on Sunday, December 7, but the deceased wasn’t found until three days later.

For their part, the Toronto police would only confirm that, on December 10, its officers “responded to an unknown trouble call in the area at around 6:36 p.m.” A police spokesperson added that, “A deceased person was located inside a vehicle,” and “the circumstances of the death are still under investigation.”

The Coroner’s office also confirmed that it was investigating the death, but declined to provide any additional information citing the ongoing police investigation.

A member of Choy’s family expressed dismay that no one noticed the parked vehicle with the body inside it for three days, despite its location near the hospital. 

The vehicle wasn’t even ticketed, noted the family member.

May Mr. Choy rest in piece

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Source: 

 

“Body found in parked car outside of Toronto hospital went unnoticed for days, family says,” Toronto City News, December 15, 2025

Study: Increasing number of people found deceased and decomposed in England and Wales

A study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (UK), has identified a worrying trend in England and Wales: an increasing number of people are being found deceased and decomposed.

The study, which was led by Dr Lucinda Hiam of the University of Oxford, revealed a steady increase in “undefined deaths” (i.e., deaths of people found decomposed), between 1979 and 2020 for both sexes. The proportion of total male deaths exceeded female deaths, with these deaths increasing significantly among males during the 1990s and 2000s, when overall mortality was rapidly improving. This acceleration in deaths where people are found decomposed, particularly for men, is a concerning trend, the authors said.

“Many people would be shocked that someone can lie dead at home for days, weeks, or even longer, without anyone raising an alarm among the community they live in,” said Dr. Theodore Estrin-Serlui of Imperial College National Health Service Healthcare Trust. “The increase in people found dead and decomposed suggests wider societal breakdowns of both formal and informal social support networks even before the pandemic. They are concerning and warrant urgent further investigation.”

To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed data from the Office for National Statistics, identifying deaths where bodies were found in a state of decomposition. They used a novel proxy: deaths coded as R98 (“unattended death”) and R99 (“other ill-defined and unknown causes of mortality”), according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) and previous versions, referred to as “undefined deaths.”

The authors of the study are calling on national and international authorities to consider measures that would make it possible to identify deaths where people are found decomposed more easily in routine data.

Sources:
 
Decomposed and Forgotten: England’s Disturbing Trend in Unnoticed Deaths (SciTech Daily) 

Reference: “A deathly silence: why has the number of people found decomposed in England and Wales been rising?” by Lucinda Hiam, Theodore Estrin-Serlui, Danny Dorling, Martin McKee and Jon Minton, 20 November 2023, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Denise Prudhomme - Tempe Arizona

Name & Age: Denise Prudhomme, 60

Location: Tempe, Arizona

Circumstances: Ms Prudhomme entered the Wells Fargo corporate office in Tempe, Arizona on the morning of August 16, but according to records, never exited. Her body was discovered by security four days later on August 20. 

The medical examiner's report indicated that Ms. Prudhomme suffered a sudden cardiac death and Tempe police reported no suspicion of foul play.

According to sources familiar with the deceased, Prudhomme worked in a section of the building that was typically less populated due to remote work arrangements.

The death of Ms. Prudhomme also prompted a call for enhanced safety precautions that would alleviate stress for employees. 

In a statement issued following the incident, Wells Fargo Workers United, the union representing Wells Fargo employees, criticized the company. The union noted the company "monitors [their] every move and keystroke using remote, electronic technologies ― purportedly to evaluate [employee] productivity. The contradictory nature of electronic surveillance versus an unnoticed death sheds light on the reality of what it means to be a worker at Wells Fargo." 

Notes: An anonymous worker shared their shock and was reported as saying, "It's really heartbreaking. 'What if I were just sitting there?' No one would check on me?" Another expressed distress over the incident, admitting that several people had noticed a "foul odor" but passed it off as "faulty plumbing."

May Ms. Prudhomme rest in peace.

Sources: 

Times of India, "Wells Fargo employee death: How did Denise Prudhomme's body go unnoticed for 4 days of ignored odors?" September 3, 2024.

Arizona Republic, "Cause of death released for Tempe Wells Fargo employee found dead in her office." October 25, 2024.

About Death Unnoticed

When I first heard the news about the Wells Fargo employee who died at her desk and went unnoticed for days, I had the same question as everyone else: How could this happen? Given its chilling details, the story stayed with me for a few days. During that time, I recalled another such incident from the late 1990s wherein a woman’s body was dumped in a ditch along the Washington, DC Beltway and went unnoticed for weeks, even though thousands of drivers passed by every day. So, I began to wonder: How often does this happen? Quite frequently, as it turns out. 

This blog aims to chronicle these incidents of death gone unnoticed, acknowledge the human lives lost, and remind us to check in on our loved ones — and maybe our casual acquaintances too. Is there a bit of morbid fascination here? Yes, I admit it. Again, how could these deaths go unnoticed?

Clearly, these stories are captivating, and somewhat sad. At the same time, there’s also an undeniable memento mori aspect to them that deserves our attention. In the words of Charles Bukowski, “We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.” 

Perhaps this blog can change that ever so slightly.