In a fairly morbid example of life imitating art, it was recently discovered that a woman had been living with the corpse of her deceased son for the last 8 years or so. No names were provided in the article but feel free to think of the Bates’ Motel if you would like. What we do know is that the elderly women took a fall that landed her in the hospital. The corpse of her son was discovered by a relative who returned to the house in Brooklyn, NY.
The corpse belonged to a former cab driver in his 50’s. He is said to have been terminally ill when he died. Apparently, no funeral plans were ever made as his mother kept the body for a period of time that could have been up to 8 years. It had been closer to 20 years since some of his family members had seen him. The brown Ford Explorer he owned had sat in the driveway for years without moving. It can only be assumed that the mother was elderly as her son was in his 50’s when he died.
Neighbors referred to her as a bit of a recluse. One neighbor stated, “She never said hello. She was always walking down the street with a grocery bag. She would walk looking down. Something about her always seemed a little weird.” This is ironic because some may say the exact same thing about Norman Bates. The difference in this case is that this woman and her deceased son actually existed outside of the imagination of Alfred Hitchcock. In the movie “Psycho,” the roles are reversed as it is the son who kept the corpse of his deceased mother in the attic. It is unclear if the mother in this real-life Psycho scenario dresses up as her son and kills people who visit the house.
Obviously, there is something not quite right with a mother who would keep her son’s dead body. It must have been a pretty awkward experience for the family member that found him when the mother was in the hospital. That makes the story even weirder because it suggests that at least one family member lived close enough but did not realize the house had been storing a dead body for close to a decade. It also raises questions about the relatives that confirmed they had not seen this man for close to 20 years. Did they not think to ask about him? There are a number of unanswered questions as the article seems a bit incomplete. We do not know the names of the deceased man or his family members and there are not a whole lot of details provided.
The neighbors mention that she seemed a bit off, but she had to have been doing something to preserve the body if no one noticed a peculiar smell within the years that his body was rotting away inside of the home. Then again, this did take place in Brooklyn. Aside from being a little off, it is not clear what prompted the mother to keep the remains of her son. Maybe it is a tragic tale of not being able to part with him, or maybe Anthony Perkins was right, “We all go a little mad sometimes.”
