Janet Veal of Hampshire in the United Kingdom was found dead in her home, partially eaten by her own cats.
Veal’s neighbors alerted law enforcement that they hadn’t seen her for a long time and that her mailbox was overflowing. When officers arrived they entered the house through an upstairs window and found a number of dead animals, including cats and dogs, as well as some animals that were still alive.
They also found the body of Veal.
“This too was a distressing experience because it was clear that certain parts of Mrs Veal’s body were missing and had, the officer formed the view, effectively been gnawed and eaten away by the animals,” said coroner Keith Wiseman. ““One can only imagine the difficulty with the scene the officer was having to deal with.”
The police officers estimate that the animals were confined in two rooms downstairs for a period of many weeks, or even several months.
There was no indication that Veal’s animals had attacked her when she was alive.
Wiseman said: “Given the background history and findings I am prepared to find on the balance of probabilities this was sadly a natural death that led to really very untoward consequences because of the inability of Mrs Veal to get any assistance for herself and to be confined in the way that she was in this property with a number of animals that had not been fed for quite a long period of time.”
Veal’s death is possibly from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, reported the Southern Daily Echo.
