Buried in lead coffin, victim of 1918-19 Spanish flu may hold viral secrets in his preserved remains (guardian.co.uk)

"A celebrated politician and diplomat who played a key role in the carve-up of the Middle East after the first world war is to be called on to perform a final service which could reap incalculable benefits for global health. Nearly 90 years after his death, researchers hoping to find the best way of treating the predicted bird flu pandemic have been given the go-ahead to exhume the body of Sir Mark Sykes, 6th baronet and co-author of the Sykes-Picot agreement, which dismantled the Ottoman empire. Sir Mark died at the age of 39 in a Paris hotel room in February 1919 while working for the British government at the Paris peace conference. He was a victim of the Spanish flu epidemic which claimed at least 30 million lives; he is buried in the churchyard at St Mary's church, Sledmere, on the borders between North and east Yorkshire. The epidemic was caused by an avian virus, H1N1, which is similar to the current virus, H5N1, and came from a bird in France. Sir Mark's body was buried in a sealed lead coffin, which the researchers hope will produce well-preserved body samples. These could provide unparalleled insight into the mechanism by which bird flu kills and, with luck, contribute to finding a treatment for the virus.,,,"

After Internet sale stopped, lock of hair from Ramses II to be sent back to Egypt (news24.com)

"France is to hand over to Egypt a lock of hair said to belong to the mummy of Ramses II that was put on sale on the internet last year, said French officials on Monday. Egyptian diplomats made a formal request last week to recover the hair, which was seized by French police after going on sale in November, according to the prosecutor's office in the eastern city of Grenoble in France. Tiny fragments of hair, embalming resin and bandages allegedly taken from the mummy of Ramses II came to light after they were put on sale in an internet advert - provoking outrage among the authorities in Egypt. The seller, a 50-year-old Frenchman, claimed the lot belonged to his father who was part of a team of scientists who analysed the royal mummy when it was sent to France in 1976 for electromagnetic treatment against decay. At the time, samples of its hair, resin and bandaging were collected from fragments that fell from its shroud in transport and sent to various laboratories around France for analysis. French authorities recently wrapped up a judicial investigation into the case, but are not expected to press charges against the seller, according to deputy state prosecutor Luc Fontaine...." 

Mummified toddler found in Tucson storage unit (msnbc.msn.com)

"Police Monday were searching for clues to explain how the remains of a toddler ended up a plastic tub in a North Side storage unit. Investigators made the grim discovery Sunday after a manager at the business told police a foul odor was coming from a unit being cleared out because the renter had not made payments since the end of 2006. The possibility the unidentified 2-year-old girl was slain has not been ruled out, said Tucson Police Department Assistant Chief Roberto Villaseñor. Few details were released Monday. Police said the girl appeared to be about 3 feet tall with reddish-brown hair, Villaseñor said. He would not say how long the girl might have been in the storage unit. 'The body of the girl was pretty well preserved considering the circumstances,' he said...."

See a mummy, touch a real canopic jar: New hands-on discovery gallery opens at Royal Ontario Museum (huliq.com)

"The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is proud to unveil the expanded and relocated CIBC Discovery Gallery on Level 2 of the Philosophers’ Walk Building. Starting Saturday, March 10 ,visitors of all ages can engage in an abundance of hands-on activities and real artifacts that bring discovery to life. Venturing through CIBC Discovery Gallery’s three main areas, In the Earth, Around the World and Close to Home, visitors of all ages can learn more about the world around them.... The Ancient Egypt Wall displays a mummy and mummified cat, amulets and statues. Visitors get to touch a real Canopic Jar from 700 – 400 BC...."

3,000-year-old tombs--and two mummies--discovered near Step Pyramid (msnbc.msn.com)

"Archeologists unveiled Tuesday the tombs of a Pharaonic butler and scribe that had been buried in the sand for more than 3,000 years. The tombs, along with the painted coffins of a priest and his girlfriend, were discovered early this year at Saqqara near the famous Step Pyramid of King Djoser — the oldest of Egypt's more than 90 pyramids.... The tomb featured a dark wooden door, which ancient Egyptians believed that the souls of the dead would use to leave their tomb. The door bore engravings in hieroglyphic text and pictures of the scribe and his wife. South of the Step Pyramid, archeologists unveiled a second tomb, which belonged to a butler who died 3,350 years ago. Carved out of limestone, the tomb contained murals that showed scenes of people performing rituals and monkeys eating fruit. The blue and orange colors of the paint were surprisingly well preserved.... Hawass also unveiled two wooden coffins, 4,000 years old, that were found south of the Step Pyramid. The coffins, painted light orange with blue hieroglyphics, contained human-shaped coffins known as anthropoids, in which lay the mummies of a priest and his girlfriend, Hawass said.... "

Preserved frog could be 25 million years old (msnbc.msn.com)

"A Mexican researcher announced the rare find of a tiny tree frog completely preserved in amber on Wednesday that he estimates lived about 25 million years ago. The chunk of amber containing the 0.4-inch frog was uncovered by a miner in southern Chiapas states in 2005 and was bought by a private collector, who lent it to scientists for study. Only a few preserved frogs have been found in chunks of amber — a stone formed by ancient tree sap — mostly in the Dominican Republic. Like those, the frog found in Chiapas was of the genus Craugastor, whose relatives still inhabit the region. Biologist Gerardo Carbot of the Chiapas Natural History and Ecology Institute, who announced the discovery, said it was the first such frog found in amber in Mexico. Carbot said he would like to extract a sample from the frog's remains to see if they contain well-preserved DNA, in order to identify the frog's species...." 

Mummified man was difficult, but loved  (amny.com)

"At 1:13 p.m. on Feb. 15, Johanna Nemeth's 3-year-old beagle mix, Hazel, strayed onto Vincenzo Riccardi's property. Nemeth called police because she saw a sheet of ice cascading down the front of the house and suspected a burst water main. When police broke down the door, Riccardi was seated in his patterned lounge chair beside his outdated 9-inch television set, which blared only static. His death made worldwide news -- though most reports gave his last name, inaccurately, as Ricardo. From India to Los Angeles, people wondered how a 70-year-old man's death could have gone unnoticed. The last time Adriana Molina spoke to Vincenzo Riccardi, she said, he tried to smack her on the hand with his walking stick. It was early December 2005, a month before Southampton police believe the fiercely independent Italian immigrant died, blind and alone at 70, inside his secluded Hamptons Bay home. There, the mummified remains of the retired construction worker went unnoticed for more than a year. His death made headlines around the world and sound bites on late-night television. Until that final, unpleasant exchange, for three years Molina had visited Riccardi's house almost daily to attend to his needs. She prepared his needles with insulin for his diabetes, read him his mail, kept a log book for his bills, and brought him friendship. But relationships were never that easy with Riccardi...." 

Many questions, some answers: The forgotten blind man who died listening to TV and remained there, becoming a natural mummy, for 13 months (newsday.com)

"Confirmation that a Hampton Bays man had been dead for 13 months, seated in front of a TV set that was still on, came from dates on prescription medications and expiration dates on milk and egg cartons, police said Monday. Investigators expect by week's end to have an official cause of death for Vincenzo Riccardi, 70, whose mummified body was found in his secluded home Thursday after he had been dead for more than a year, police said. All evidence, including a lack of visible injuries, seems to point to a death by natural causes, so the investigation is all but over, pending autopsy results expected in the next few days, Southampton Police Det. Sgt. Randy Hintz said.... The retired construction worker, a widower considered by neighbors to be a recluse, was discovered after police came to investigate burst pipes at the unheated home. The TV screen displayed only static as police entered the room, Hintz said.... Riccardi lived alone, and because he was blind, he had presumably turned the set on just to listen to it, Hintz said...."

Dead and unnoticed for a year, Southampton man becomes mummified in front of television (newsday.com)

"Southampton police responding to burst water pipes in a Hampton Bays home found the mummified body of the owner - dead for more than a year - sitting in a chair in front of a television, officials said Friday. The television was still on. Vincenzo Riccardi, 70, appeared to have died of natural causes in his home on Wakeman Road, said Dr. Stuart Dawson, Suffolk deputy chief medical examiner. The medical examiner's office considered his body mummified because the lack of humidity in his home preserved his features, morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus said. 'You could see his face. He still had hair on his head,' Bacchus said. 'I've been on the job 35 years, and I've never seen anyone dead that long.' Police and county sources said Riccardi, whose body was found Thursday, had not been heard from since December 2005. The medical examiners said they were baffled as to why the electricity would be on in the home all that time.... Riccardi lived alone, his wife having died years ago, Dawson said. Mail had piled up, but then stopped being delivered.... Neighbors said they hadn't seen Riccardi for a while. They said they had tried to keep an eye on Riccardi, who had diabetes and had become blind in his 50s, but since his house was up a long driveway and could not be seen from the street, they did not always know what he was doing.... " 

Mummified cat to be donated to National Museum of Scotland (scotsman.com)

"It is difficult to imagine them as anything other than cuddly family pets. But hundreds of years ago, cats were seen as mystical creatures, associated with evil spirits. So the discovery of a mummified cat - believed to be almost 180 years old - in a New Town basement is being put down not to a case of feline misadventure, but to witchcraft. It is thought the animal was the unfortunate victim of a superstitious belief that dead cats could bring good luck to a building. It is believed the cat has been trapped underneath the floorboards of the basement of 1 Rutland Square since it was built in the 1830s. The cat remained relatively intact, with distinct feline features and a paw fixed against its face.... It will now be donated to the National Museum of Scotland, on Chambers Street, for further examination. Dr Andrew Kitchener, the museum's curator of mammals and birds, is keen to find out about the cat's history and how exactly it died. "

Another mummified cat found beneath the floorboards in Edinburgh (scotsman.com)

"It is difficult to imagine them as anything other than cuddly family pets. But hundreds of years ago, cats were seen as mystical creatures, associated with evil spirits. So the discovery of a mummified cat - believed to be almost 180 years old - in a New Town basement is being put down not to a case of feline misadventure, but to witchcraft. It is thought the animal was the unfortunate victim of a superstitious belief that dead cats could bring good luck to a building. It is believed the cat has been trapped underneath the floorboards of the basement of 1 Rutland Square since it was built in the 1830s. The cat remained relatively intact, with distinct feline features and a paw fixed against its face. The animal was unearthed by builders renovating the basement, which belongs to business-to-business mail service DX Network Services...."

From January 2004: "A mummified cat discovered in one of Edinburgh’s oldest buildings by workers restoring a painted ceiling is to go on display in a city museum...the practice of putting dead animals into buildings was quite common across Europe in the 18th century. "

Baltimore's Dime Museum to auction off entire contents--including the shrunken heads (concordmonitor.com)

"This time it's for real. After struggling to convince Baltimore and beyond to believe in its homage to the grotesque, the freakish and the phony, the American Dime Museum's strange seven-year show has come to an end. Soon, the entire collection will go to auction - every shrunken head, every bizarre biological specimen, every mummy. 'To the bare walls, as they say,' says Dick Horne, the museum's owner, curator and biggest fan. 'No offers refused.' Baltimore, a city that prides itself on an organic quirkiness, has been unable to sustain what has to be its strangest attraction. "We're losing another great piece of Baltimore personality," said Baltimore filmmaker John Waters. 'It was esoteric and great and hilarious and very fitting for this city. Maybe it was just too good to be accepted by enough people.' The American Dime Museum opened in 1999, a vehicle to showcase and justify Horne's obsession with turn-of-the-century curiosity venues and the circus freak shows they evolved into. Horne, 65, stands in the museum's dimly lighted front room, hands jammed into the pockets of a black leather jacket, talking about why he's giving up. He can't afford to heat the building anymore, and he can't afford to keep going without a salary. And he felt in his gut that, despite 'having the best collection of human hair art anywhere,' the museum would never obtain a corporate grant...."

More on the mummified infant found in a Florida storage unit

Final word on mummified baby: Why did media report the discoverers' name? (palmbeachpost.com)

"Editors took plenty of flak for identifying the woman who recently discovered a partially mummified baby boy wrapped in a Jan. 9, 1957, edition of The New York Daily News inside a suitcase packed in a larger suitcase. The Post originally reported that neither the name of the woman, who found the child while cleaning out her deceased parents' Delray Beach storage unit, nor the names of her parents had been released by police. But a Feb. 1 article, 'Woman: Let dead baby 'rest in peace,' ' about a statement the woman had released, stated: "The woman asked for anonymity in the statement but was identified as Odette C. Lamanna, 46, in an accompanying police report about the Jan. 22 discovery. By law, police release all information in initial police reports unless it would jeopardize an ongoing investigation.' The report added: 'Lamanna had requested to remain anonymous, but The Palm Beach Post traditionally names people who appear in police reports on major investigations.' 'I was both stunned and saddened,' wrote Rita S. Milelli. 'In one sentence, the article tells the readers that the woman requested anonymity, and then it immediately identified her. Further in the article, the readers are provided with information on the area in New Jersey where she and her family reside, and are provided with lots of speculative thought for this whodunit-when mystery." The West Palm Beach reader asked: 'Why not break with tradition and let compassion, discernment and basic humanity rule the day? This woman has not broken any laws, so it doesn't serve the public interest to reveal her identity....' " 

Discoverers' plea about mummified baby: 'Please let his child...rest in peace (miami.com)

"The family that found a partially mummified baby wrapped in 50-year-old newspapers had no idea why the baby was left in a storage unit or whether it was a relative, according to a statement released Wednesday. 'Please let this child, whoever he is, family member or not, rest in peace,' said the family of Odette Lamanna, the 46-year-old New Jersey woman who found the baby in her mother's Delray Beach storage unit. The statement from Lamanna and her family, released by Delray Beach police, said they were surprised by the media attention and did not want to discuss the matter publicly, calling the 'world-wide coverage . . . extremely unsettling for us.' Delray Beach police believe the baby died 50 years ago. Though foul play is not suspected, police have sent the baby to a forensic anthropologist in search of the cause of death. X-rays show it had no broken bones. Scientists also are comparing Lamanna's DNA to the baby to see if they are related. The baby was discovered Jan. 22, with an umbilical cord, wrapped in The Daily News of New York and encased in two suitcases. The bill for the storage unit had gone unpaid after Lamanna's mother died Dec. 9. Odette and her husband James Lamanna left their home in Landing, N.J., to go through her mother's belongings, mostly old household goods...."

Forensic anthropologists may offer final account of mummified infant (palmbeachpost.com)

"The mystery of the mummified baby in the suitcase is in the carefully gloved hands of scientific sleuths called forensic anthropologists. When the remains are too old, the pathologists call in the anthropologists. 'Their expertise is soft tissue. Ours is hard tissue,' said University of Florida forensic anthropologist Anthony Falsetti, head of the renowned C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory in Gainesville, which has been asked to examine the remains of the infant found this week in a Delray Beach storage unit.... The Pound lab will try to answer two of the questions: the baby's age and manner of death. Give them a couple of weeks. Scientists at the Center for Human Identification at the University of North Texas will attempt to extract DNA that may lead to an identification. Give them three to six months.... The case is the stuff of television ratings: A 46-year-old New Jersey woman arrives at a Delray Beach storage facility to check over the items left there by her late parents. Inside a suitcase, she finds another suitcase and inside that, a gruesome discovery: the mummified body of an infant boy, umbilical cord still attached, wrapped in the Jan. 9, 1957 edition of the New York Daily News and adult-sized women's pants.... The woman is left wondering if the baby was her older brother, born or stillborn before the parents were married in a Catholic church. There are clues: the newspaper, the photo of a 5- or 6-year-old girl, rosary beads, a religious prayer card and a birthday prayer card. One of the suitcases is plastered with travel stickers from New Jersey to Georgia. Don't jump to conclusions, warns Finnegan. The newspaper could have been around for years before it was used. There are lots of Catholics in New Jersey. And South Florida. Wait for the science. Because of the condition of the body - shrunken to 13 ounces from dehydration - an autopsy was not done by Palm Beach County Medical Examiner Michael Bell. But X-rays showed no broken bones or apparent trauma. Leave it to the anthropologists and the DNA experts.... "

Clues reveal painful circumstances of infant's birth (miami.com)

"The mummified baby encased in newspapers from 1957 and found this week in a Delray Beach storage unit still had an attached umbilical cord, police said Thursday. Packed with the infant boy were rosary beads, a rendering of Jesus, a photograph of a 5- or 6-year-old girl and a birthday prayer, said Delray Beach police Detective Gene Sapino. X-rays showed no broken bones, though 50 years of dehydration left the newborn-sized baby weighing 13 ounces by the time his body was sent to the medical examiner this week.... Sapino would not release the identities of either the baby's presumed mother, who died in December at age 76, or the woman's daughter, who discovered the jarring family secret this week when she flew from New Jersey with her husband to clear the storage unit. But a few details helped make clearer why someone was carrying a painful secret for 50 years. For one, the apparent mother of the baby was not married in 1957. She and her husband, who died in 2003, were married in the late 1960s, Sapino said.... Medical historian Janet Golden said unwed pregnant women in the 1950s faced ''severe ramifications and social stigma'' and risked losing a job, an education or any future respectable marriage if they were found out. Golden, of Rutgers University-Camden, said most unwed middle-class women of the era concealed pregnancies or left for maternity homes and put the infants up for adoption...." 
 

Mamaroneck newspaper wrapping mummified infant may provide clue (thejournalnews.com)

"Florida police probing the discovery of a 50-year-old mummified baby may learn as early as today if the mystery is somehow linked to the Lower Hudson Valley. Police in Delray Beach, Fla., want to know if the 1957 edition of "The Daily Times" newspaper used to wrap the baby's body was the same Daily Times once published in Mamaroneck and later merged into The Journal News. Delray police spokesman Jeff Messer said that determination could come today, when detectives will review an edition of the Mamaroneck paper from Jan. 9, 1957 - the date found on the paper used to wrap the baby boy.... Police said the grisly discovery was made Monday, when the daughter of an elderly couple, who'd died in recent years, was cleaning out a garage-sized storage compartment her parents had kept since 1996. Stashed away amid the artifacts was the mummified baby, which was wrapped in the aging newspaper and stashed in a suitcase placed inside another suitcase. The panicked woman, whom police did not identify, called 911, Messer said. Now it's up to investigators to piece together the circumstances...." 

Scientists begin work to determine infant's cause of death (miami.com)

"The mysteries: What caused the death -- maybe 50 years ago -- of a partially mummified baby found this week in Delray Beach? And who was the tiny victim? The sleuths: an exclusive band of scientists wearing face masks, rubber gloves and symbolically appropriate black laboratory coats -- led by a forensic anthropologist known to police as 'the skull guy.' The tools: scalpels, plastic measuring devices called sliding and spreading calipers, a sophisticated X-ray machine called a Faxitron, and vats of hot water. 'It's a fascinating process every single time I get a case,' said Anthony Falsetti, director of the University of Florida's C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory. 'Even though the questions are the same, the circumstances are always unique.' He spoke Wednesday as the partially mummified remains of a baby boy were en route to his lab in Gainesville. A woman found the body Monday in her late parents' storage bay, wrapped in a newspaper from Jan. 9, 1957, and stuffed in a suitcase inside another suitcase. The Palm Beach County medical examiner had done what he could, determining the baby's gender and size, noting that he had hair and chubby cheeks. That was it. Virtually everything else remains unknown...." 

Woman cleaning her deceased parents' storage unit discovers mummified baby in suitcase (guardian.co.uk)

"A woman cleaning out her dead parents' rented storage unit discovered a partially mummified baby boy, wrapped in a 1957 newspaper and stuffed inside a suitcase-within-a-suitcase. The body will be sent to a forensic anthropologist to determine the cause of death and whether the baby was born alive, authorities said Tuesday. The daughter who found the body Monday night ``was a little rattled at first'' and wondered to herself, 'Could this be a sibling?' said police spokesman Officer Jeff Messer.... The storage unit had been rented by the couple in 1996. The man died several years ago and the woman, who was in her 70s, died last year, Messer said. The couple's daughter had flown down from New Jersey after receiving a letter warning that the contents of the storage unit would be auctioned off because the rent had not been paid for several months, Messer said.... According to investigators, the child was wrapped in a newspaper called the Daily Times dated Jan. 9, 1957. They believe the paper was from New Jersey or New York.... "

Mummified infant, possibly from the 1950s, found in Delray Beach storage unit  (centredaily.com)

"A partially mummified baby was found inside a suitcase at a warehouse storage unit, police said. The remains, found Monday night, were wrapped in 1950s era newspapers inside two suitcases at the self storage center. The medical examiner's office declared the remains human and took them for further inspection. The storage unit had been rented by a couple in 1996, but the man died several years ago and the woman died in the past year, said Delray Beach police spokesman Officer Jeff Messer. The baby was found by the couple's daughter, who flew down from New Jersey after receiving a letter stating that the contents of the storage unit would be auctioned off because the rent had not been paid for a while, police said...."

'Mummified' cake from Queen Victoria's wedding in 1840 to be displayed at Windsor Castle in April (guardian.co.uk)

"A few crumbs of history, packed into a battered cardboard box, have turned up among the Van Dycks and the Leonardo drawings in the royal archives. Fragments of Queen Victoria's wedding cake, preserved since February 10 1840, will go on public display for the first time in April, in an exhibition at Windsor Castle celebrating generations of royal marriages. 'It seems mummified rather than actually decayed,' Jane Roberts, librarian at Windsor Castle, said. 'It is extraordinary that it has survived.' There was a great deal of cake at Buckingham Palace in February 1840. The box was one of thousands given to guests or sent as souvenirs: Victoria was related to all the royal families of Europe, and all would have expected a piece. There were several cakes to cope with the demand, one measured three yards across and weighed in at more than 300lb (about 140kg). This was trounced by a cake for Elizabeth Bowes Lyon and the future George VI in 1923, which stood 2.75 metres (9ft) high and weighed 360kg. The tradition continued with the present queen's wedding in 1947, when ingredients came as gifts from all over the world to postwar rationed Britain, and pieces of cake were sent in return." 

Preserved body found in Medford freezer by construction crew during home repair (komotv.com)

"A construction crew working at a Medford home at first thought they were staring at a game animal when they opened a freezer. But it turned out to be a human corpse, wrapped in duct tape. Police haven't yet identified the male body, or said how the person died. But they've arrested 58-year-old Paul Henry Mahanna, who lives at the house. He was charged with abuse of a corpse and held on $500,000 bail.... The body was taken to a State Police crime lab for an autopsy. Mahanna has lived at the home with another man for a long time, George said. He would not comment on the other man's identity.... A crew with RBS Home Restoration was called to the house two weeks ago to fix water damage caused by burst pipes. Crew members were working in the garage, where there was a 7-foot chest freezer, said Steve Hanlin, owner of the company. Mahanna had told the workers not to remove the freezer, Hanlin told the Medford Mail-Tribune. On Wednesday, the crew was nearly finished when a worker attempted to pry off a blanket that had frozen to the freezer lid. What he found inside sparked a brief debate, Hanlin said.... Soon they realized it was a human body. Hanlin gathered his crew, left the home without telling Mahanna and called the police.... " 

Former medical student who stole hand from corpse as present for dancer makes plea bargain with prosecutors (c-n.com)

"A man accused of giving an exotic dancer from South Plainfield a severed human hand stolen while he was a medical student pleaded guilty to theft Thursday, part of a plea deal that will spare him jail time. Ahmed Rashed, 27, was charged in September with second- and third-degree theft for severing and taking the left hand from a cadaver in May or June of 2002 while he was a first-year student at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. In Superior Court, New Brunswick, Rashed pleaded guilty to the third-degree charge of stealing research materials. The second-degree charge of the unlawful taking of human remains, which carried a maximum prison term of 10 years, will be dropped in exchange for his plea, prosecutors said. He is due to receive probation at his March 1 sentencing hearing. As part of the plea agreement, he has agreed not to seek medical licensure in New Jersey during his probation period, said Assistant Middlesex County Prosecutor Judson Hamlin. The prosecutor's office is seeking a probation term of five years, Hamlin said. Rashed's attorney, Kalman Geist of West Paterson, declined comment after the hearing before Judge Frederick DeVesa. Rashed refused to speak to reporters...."

Mummified man in Tula apartment had been dead six years before discovery (pravda.ru)

"Dwellers of an apartment building in the city of Tula, central Russia, were horrified to learn of a discovery made in one of the apartments. The mummified body of a tenant was found in a sitting position in the kitchen of his apartment. The tenant had been dead for six years. One hazy morning a telephone started ringing in an office of Mark Ignashin, an investigator with the prosecutor’s office of Tula’s central district. 'This is a duty officer of a district police station. We’ve received a report on a mummified body found in apartment building No 142 on Lenin Street. We’re sending a vehicle to pick you up, Mr. Ignashin,' said the officer and hung up. No sooner had Ignashin stepped into a typical Khrushchev-era tiny apartment than he became aware of a pungent putrid smell. A mummified body in a plaid shirt was seated at a kitchen table. The brownish parchment-like skin covered the mummy’s dried-up bones. An empty vodka bottle and a glass sat on a dusty table. One of the policemen brought a bunch of newspapers from a living room. All the newspapers dated back to February of 2000. Valentina Muradova was brought in as a witness to the official search. The woman peered at the mummy for some minutes until she finally recognized her neighbor called Vladimir Ledenev, 68, who vanished without a trace six years ago. According to police records, Ledevev had earlier spent four years in prison for battery. His neighbors told the police that the man had started drinking heavily after his mother passed away ten years ago. Ledenev was frequently seen collecting empty bottles for a living because his pension was pretty small. Eventually, Ledenev disappeared at the beginning of 2000...."