In a Detroit home, an 80-year-old woman’s body, which had decomposed sat alone in the mess of her kitchen had been chewed on by her dog named Jack. Sally Honeycheck’s corpse was discovered over Thanksgiving 2018; the tragic story just revealed.
According to the Detroit Free Press, Honeycheck’s cousin, Linda Kajma had become worried when Honeycheck didn’t answer the phone on Thanksgiving. When Kajma entered the home on December 1, the level of “filth” was unimaginable; no one knew the woman had lived in such squalor. What Kajma found next was unbelievable.
Honeycheck’s corpse had been sitting upright in the kitchen. Bones stuck out of the red sweater and the plaid pants the woman had been wearing; her nose, mouth, eyes and ears were gone. Shocked at the discovery, Kajma originally thought it was a Halloween prank, but soon realized how heartbreaking this had been.
“No one should have to live like this. No one should die like this,” Kajma told news reporters.
And Honeycheck died in a nylon lawn chair in her kitchen amid mounds of filth, rats, dirt, take out food bags, greeting cards, empty sardine cans and trash piled a foot high; over her head. A picture of the Last Supper hung on the wall over her chair. Her Rottweiler Jack and the rats had chewed on her body. The dog was found dead in the next room.
The Wayne County Medical Examiner stated Honeycheck died of natural causes, but there had been “extensive postmortem animal consumption of body.”
Honeycheck had lived in the family home with her sister for nearly seventy years, and the women spent most of their time together. Eventually they seemed to stay home more and more – it was suspected they were hoarders, but never to the extent of the conditions discovered. No one was allowed in the home.
Strange as it may seem, Honeycheck had always looked impeccable whenever she went out. Inside, the blinds were closed, the delivered groceries were left outside and no friends came to visit. From the outside, the lawn was mowed, the bushes trimmed, but when Honeycheck checked herself out of the hospital on November 12, for 19 days no one saw or heard from her until she died on December 1. Her sister, Lorraine had been at a Detroit hospital after suffering a stroke.
On routine home checks, police had checked the mailbox – no mail. They talked to the neighbors and knocked on the door. The sisters responded twice and kept in touch with their cousin.
No matter how the story is viewed, this was heartbreaking indeed. Sometimes people keep their illnesses so covered up, even their closest relatives and friends are shocked.
Rest in peace Sally Honeycheck with your dog Jack.
(Photos via screenshots of video Detroit Free Press)
(Photo of Rottweiler is not Jack)
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