[imagesource: My London / BPM Media]

Sheila Seleoane, born to a South African mother, died alone in her flat in London at the age of 61.

Tragically, she was only found after two-and-a-half years, with her remains on the sofa and apparently flanked by deflated party balloons.

That’s a sad image of terribly sad circumstance, which The Daily Mail‘s David Jones refers to as a “horrifying parable of loneliness and neglect”.

Seleoane, who worked in Peckham, south London, as a medical secretary, is believed to have died in 2019 by natural causes.

The neighbours had complained about the foul smell coming from her apartment, suspecting that she had died all along, but police apparently continued to ignore their pleas to check in on her.

The Sunday Times reported that the neighbours had complained 50 times about the disturbing smell, as well as buzzing flies and maggots infesting other flats.

Eventually, in February, police bashed down the door to find Seleoane’s skeletal corpse:

Image: Daily Mail

UK police have confirmed that no foul play seems apparent in her death, although, strangely enough, there were reports from downstairs residents who claimed to have heard footsteps in her flat a few months before she was found.

An inquest starts this week to figure out how it was possible that Seleoane’s death went unrecognised for so long and why neighbours’ continued pleas were ignored all that time.

Besides her colleagues, the police, and the utility companies being held somewhat responsible for not inquiring further into her possible death, Peabody Trust, the affordable-housing charity from which she rented her flat, needs to also be questioned for not checking in properly.

Seleoane had two funerals, the one in London being the starkest and saddest:

Just two mourners attended the first, on April 19 at Croydon Crematorium, a few miles from where she was found: her brother Victor, a convicted murderer from whom she was estranged, and a representative of Peabody.

Watching this soulless service via video-link was a sobering reminder of her isolation.

The Daily Mail contacted Seleoane’s SA family members in the Eastern Cape who were “deeply distressed to hear of her abandonment” despite never meeting her.

The only published photo of Seleoane is a passport photo:

Image: Daily Mail

They were able to hold another funeral for Seleoane in the Eastern Cape after her remains were flown in at the expense of Peabody Trust:

Here, her distant relatives arranged for her to be laid to rest in the family plot, with at least 100 mourners attending the funeral in a packed chapel with a gospel choir, described by the Mail Online as a “magnificent occasion that finally brought her the dignity and affection she had been denied”.

Meanwhile, the mystery of her death and abandonment remains.

It is a real tragedy that someone could be left all alone for so long without any apparent care from the people she knew in London.

At least she was given a send-off by family in South Africa.

[sources:sundaytimes&dailymail]