what could happen when you don't bother to contact your kin folk...

Woman, Son Found Mummified in Home
Fri Nov 22, 9:49 AM ET Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo!



LEHIGH ACRES, Fla. (Reuters) - The mummified bodies of a German woman and her son who apparently died three years ago were found in their Florida home, along with the remains of their dead dog, police say.



A calendar and paperwork found in the home in tiny Lehigh Acres, along with food in the refrigerator with 1999 expiration dates, led investigators to believe the two may have died as long ago as March 1999.


The U.S. acquaintances of the pair may have thought they moved back to Germany while their German relatives may have thought they were staying in the United States, police said in attempting to explain the strange case.


Investigators said they could not release the names of the victims, saying only that they were a 63-year-old woman and a 34-year-old man. But the man who found the bodies, family friend Heinz Rubin, told a newspaper they were Liz Fuchs and her son Josef, frequent visitors to Florida from Aachen, Germany.


"The female was on the dining room floor. The male was on his bed with the dog next to him," said Maj. Richard Chard, commander of the major crimes unit of the Lee County Sheriff's Office. "We found paperwork as late as March 10, 1999, that would indicate that was the last time they were alive."


Rubin discovered the bodies on Wednesday when he went to check on them after learning the local government was about to sell their house for nonpayment of taxes. Lehigh Acres is about 110 miles northwest of Miami, near the western Florida city of Fort Myers.


Detectives described the bodies as "mummified and skeletonized," a condition that would have occurred naturally in the cool, dry air-conditioned home.

 

I followed up on a related article,...it didn't say too much, but foul play is considered to be a strong possibility...and yes, the dog was mummified also.

Please call your Uncle Ernest and cousin Raymond that you hardly talk to and wish them a happy Thanksgiving or something...