They never stated a cause of death
Morley showed the results of the inquest onscreen; the document cleared stated the cause of her death was unknown (I think the word used in the document was "unascertained"). Over time, Joyce's body gradually melted into the carpet, leaving no tissue to examine.
never explained how the malodor of a rotting corpse went unnoticed, for not only weeks, nor months... but 3 years??
This was explained visually by showing her apartment. There was no unit above her, no unit below her, and no unit on one side. Obviously, there was lots of free-flowing air around her apartment to carry the smell away; her location was high above the streets and the shopping center that served as the base of the housing units. What smell was left, residents attributed to the dumpsters located some distance below. In any case, she only had one window open, locked in fact in a slightly open position.
How come her landlord never sought the unpaid rent?
Again, documents shown in the film stated that the Metropolitan Housing Trust owned that flat. In other words, Joyce lived in public housing and some or all of her rent was paid for her by housing benefit, no doubt electronically. The local MP interviewed in the film made many inquiries into the questions of why neither the battered women's organization nor the housing trust checked up on Joyce in all that time; the MP never received a satisfactory answer, although reportedly those organizations have made changes in the way they follow up with clients.
How come the electric company never turned off her power after 3 years of bill debt??
Joyce had some savings and her bills were paid by direct debit. There were also hints in the film that those public housing units above the shopping center were sort of "written off" and close tabs were not kept on those expenses.
So Morley did address many of the technicalities of Joyce's case. There are many unanswered questions, however. I am haunted by some of them. For example, news accounts of the inquest indicate that some of the unopened mail piled in front of her door was dated as early as February 2003. Also, unused food and medicine in her apartment had expiration dates as early as February 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4906992.stmConsidering this evidence, I have to wonder why the coroner settled on December 2003 as her probable death date, and not February 2003. Granted, the expiration dates of some food items found in her flat were as late as November 2003, but many food items have long shelf lives like that. She had undergone an operation for an ulcer in late 2002, and it makes more sense to think that Joyce may have succumbed to some kind of post-surgery complication earlier in 2003 rather than later.
She was found surrounded by a small pile of partially-wrapped Christmas presents, and maybe that was why the coroner guesstimated her death as occurring in December 2003. But what if her hospitalization in late 2002 kept her cut off from any part of Christmas 2002? She moved into the flat where she was found in February 2003. Maybe she was finishing the wrapping those gifts as a belated way to reach out and reconnect with some people after the shock of her medical trauma? So many questions. We'll never know because the police will not release any information about the contents of the gifts or their addressees, and the actual items were destroyed because of contamination from the decomposition process.
It seems she wasn't actually wrapping the gifts when she died, as implied in the film. She was actually clutching a shopping bag when she was found, and one witness at the inquest testified that she appeared as if she had just come in from shopping and sunk down onto the sofa. If she had been found before decomposition had advanced so far, the contents of the shopping bag would have given her date of death, as a paper receipt would have been included with her purchases.
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