No doubt some official went to speak to the old woman to tell her to pack her bags for, now that her flat would be sold, she be out on the streets braving the cold and the rain. The woman would not have answered the door for she lay dead on the floor of her kitchen. The official would have known that the old woman was born in 1915, and that she would have been of an age when it was normal for people to die. He would have correctly surmised that the old woman had probably died. Because her death had not been reported, and because there was no record of her having been buried, it was safe to assume that her body was still in the flat.
The fact that her decaying corpse would still be in the flat did not really concern the wise officials at the Revenue services. They auctioned the house with all its contents (the furniture, the dead woman, the dead woman's dog who had died of starvation, and the budgies or canaries who had also starved to death). The flat was awarded to the highest bidder.
The house was sold for 30 000 euros. It was a handsome profit by any reckoning.
The woman who paid the 30 000 euros never saw the insides of the flat she was bidding for. We shouldn't be surprised with this since she was buying the flat at an auction and not through an estate agent. When she visited the flat for the first time she was very surprised with what she found in her kitchen. The officials at the Revenue services had forgotten to mention that the contents of the flat included a corpse and dead dog.
Sources:
- Nove anos morta em casa, Público 9 Fev. 2011.
- Morta em casa há nove anos, Correio da Manhã 9 Fev. 2011.
- PGR pede esclarecimentos sobre actuação do Ministério Público no caso da idosa encontrada morta, Público 10 Fev. 2011.
- Augusta não fugiu, Público 10 Fev. 2011.
- PGR exige averiguação no caso da mulher deixada morta em casa durante 9 anos, Jornal Digital 11 Fev. 2011.
