Pensioner found wheeling 'heavily decomposed' body of daughter around UK town centre

A pensioner who was caught wheeling her dead daughter’s body through a shopping centre gave police a chilling response when confronted by officers. Joan Kathleen Turnell was stopped by police as she pushed her daughter Tracey’s remains around in a wheelchair. Joan, who was 77 at the time, believed her daughter had been dead for more than a year at the time. Staff at a housing association raised concerns about Joan’s behaviour in November 2023 after neighbours complained about a “horrendous smell” and a fly infestation.

Staff said they visited the flat Joan shared with her daughter, but the pensioner refused to let housing officers into her home. She is then said to have wrapped Tracey’s body in a red coat and taken her into the 17&Central shopping centre in Walthamstow, London, in a bid to prove Tracey was still alive, reports the Romford Recorder . Housing officers followed her and noticed a “vile smell” coming from the wheelchair when they walked past. It was then they decided to contact the Metropolitan Police.

Police officers stopped Joan in the town centre and took the wheelchair to a secluded car park. They discovered a “heavily decomposed body” when they lifted the hood. Upon being stopped by the police, Joan said: “Why can’t they just leave us alone? We have been fine and I have been looking after her.”. Senior coroner Graeme Irvine told the inquest Joan was sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Police meanwhile visited her flat, discovering it to be “extremely hazardous” with faeces and other bodily fluids on the walls and floor.

They found “clear signs of infestation of rodents and bugs”. Joan was later diagnosed with prolonged grief disorder and had a brain tumour. She was not required to attend the inquest to give evidence as it was deemed “inhumane” due to her “severe” mental health problems. Nor was Joan prosecuted for preventing the burial of her daughter. She wrote to the court saying she does not know what caused Tracey’s death, and that she didn’t call for an ambulance because they “could not help”. She added: “I kept Tracey with me because I couldn’t bear to part with her. I loved her too much.”.

Tracey suffered with a curved spine, damaged knee and deformed arms throughout her life, the Recorder reports. Joan said her wheelchair-bound daughter had no friends and never had a romantic relationship. Mr Irvine described the family as living “off grid” and “withdrawn”, adding: “It’s clear that her existence was parasitic upon that of her mother.”. Neither Joan or Tracey were registered with a doctor and did not have government identification or Internet access. Tracey did not have a phone and police found no pictures of her, instead identifying her using DNA.

Joan said she couldn’t remember when Tracey died, suspecting it to be in September 2022. She told the inquest they had been watching a film at the time, with Tracey’s eyes becoming “fixed and dilated” after she became unresponsive. Pathologists were unable to identify a cause of death as Tracey’s body was so badly decomposed at the time. It led to the coroner leaving it as an “unascertained conclusion”.