A woman who was found dead in her apartment wrote a heartwrenching diary entry prior to her death.
Laura Winham was discovered “mummified and almost skeletal” in her house in Surrey, England, on May 24, 2021, as reported by The Guardian.
The 38-year-old's brother asked authorities to break into her residence following concerns about her safety.
She is believed to have tragically passed away in November 2017. A coroner is looking into how it took so long for her to be found.
Laura, who was reportedly schizophrenic, was born severely deaf and wore hearing aids. She had surgery at the age of 18 to repair a hole in her heart.
Before her tragic passing, the woman wrote in her diary - which was read out by coroner Karen Henderson - that she was running low on food and money.
An extract from September 15 2017 read: “Wish I’d bought rice. Dreaming of [food]. Anyway, I’m starving," and a second entry from September 28, 2017, heartbreakingly stated: “My mobile gave up on 7 September. I got a Tesco run in before it died. I have slept weeks away… I haven’t stocked any food for months because I don’t know what’s happening," cited by The Guardian.
A third entry suggested that she had “about £5 left" and was living off potatoes and cheese, and one more entry from October 2017 read: “It has been a whole month since my last food shop. I cannot believe I have survived this long.”
A pathologist told an inquest at Surrey Coroner’s Court that Laura's cause of death was "unascertained" and that it was not possible to find out her time of death, per The Independent.
The young woman's family revealed that they reluctantly kept their distance after years of mental health struggles caused Laura to believe they would harm her.
Her sister, Nicola, disclosed that the last time she saw Laura in person was in 2009. She also shared that she stopped contacting her sister in 2014 after Laura sent her a message on Facebook which read: “It is best to have minimum/no contact. And communications with the family."
"It is totally out of my hands. There is nothing I can do. Everything I say will get repeated and relayed back. Be patient," she added.
The late woman's family opened up about the horror of finding her "mummified" body when they visited her home in 2021. "They were shouting her name and looking through the letterbox," Nicola told the inquest, per Daily Mail. "My brother saw what he thought was a seriously decomposed body."
"They called the police and forced entry and found a mummified, almost skeletal body. The shock of finding her this way can never be forgotten," they added.
According to The Guardian, it was revealed in court that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) sent Laura letters in February 2016 about making a claim for the new personal independence payment, which replaced the disability living allowance (DLA).
They told her that she may need to attend a medical, and Laura alarmingly responded: “I have only lived on my savings and DLA benefit." Unfortunately, her concerns were not passed on to the DWP.
Nicola has opened up about her beloved sister, describing her as an "extremely caring and nurturing" person who had "demonstrated skills to be a very talented painter".
Our thoughts are with Laura's family and friends at this time.
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