(1010 WINS) (Woodbridge, N.J.) Skeletal remains discovered in a basement last week were identified Monday as a woman last seen alive in March, the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office said.
Sophia Taggert’s body was found hanging from a pipe attached to a water heater. The prosecutor’s office said she appeared to have committed suicide, but that the death remains under investigation. “There was no indication that the body had been moved at any time between death and the body’s discovery, but the cluttered condition of the basement may account for why the body was not discovered previously,” the office said in a statement. Taggert’s husband, Donald, 57, and their three children still live in the Avenel Street home. A relative discovered the remains on Friday. She was last seen March 10, walking to a nearby store.
. . . Soooo, Mom is missing for ten months and no one bothers to look in the basement? No wonder she killed herself . . .
hmm, I don’t remember hearing about this. You would think that eventually the smell would get some attention. On the other hand, if I was ever missing, I know my loving family would leave no stone unturned looking for me, 'cuz then they’d have to cook their own food, wash their own clothes etc…
Maybe the dad killed her and left her to rot so that it looked like first an abandonment and then later, a suicide. He could have thrown the kids off his trail by explaining the smell was from her being gone and no one to clean the mess. And the clutter in the basement can be explained by him saying that he was too distraught to go through items that she owned since she left him, thus giving the body enough time to dessicate.
For about 3 years, we lived in a house that had a basement we never went in once. I’m not really sure why noone ever went in, but noone ever did. Maybe the mother picked the basement because she knew noone would ever go down there. I can’t account for the smell, however. The whole thing seems a little fishy to me too.
Maybe they had a good de-humidifier in the basement. If she dried out instead of getting well, juicy, then perhaps that explains why they might not have smelled anything.
'Course I’ve known of some people who have such smelly homes a rotting corpse wouldn’t have stuck out, aroma-wise.
But if Daddy had even done so much as to report her as a Missing Person to the police, wouldn’t they want assurances that he had at least sort of searched the entire house? Well, I suppose there shoudl be some question asked now, unless it turns out jsut to be a winter silly season story.
Plus, her friends/relatives might get bored with being told “No - you cannot speak to her on the 'phone” etc.
I hope they send the kids to therapy now. “Can’t understand why I[m so afraid of basements . . . Maybe because my Mom was hanging dead in one for nearly a year while we were upstairs watching South Park?”
And can you imagine the relative who found her? Rummaging around in a dark, cluttered basement, peek around this corner and . . . !
I rarely go down to “Mr. Basement” because it fucking creeps me out. You can’t access it from the house (more of a cellar arrangement), but if it’s cool enough, I would imagine the decomposition factor would be minimal. But the whole story stinks of corruption to me. I would have thought the whole house would have been searched – top to bottom – when she turned up missing.
Kalhoun: my basement creeps me out too but tf there was a strange noise or smell, I would buck it up and go down to check it out. There is a door in my half bath where I can acess it.