Colombian Woman Found Partially Eaten by Her Cats After She Died From COVID at Her Flat In Spain
Police discovered the decomposing body of a 79-year-old Colombian woman said to be partially eaten by her pet cats after neighbors contacted them, believing that she died from COVID inside her apartment in Spain.
According to a Daily Mail report, a neighbor reportedly raised the alarm as there was a strong smell from her flat and seeing many flies.
Police got firefighters to force entry to the Colombian woman's apartment in the northern Madrid neighborhood of Fuencarral in Spain on Monday, May 31.
Inside the apartment, they found the dead Colombian woman in one of the rooms, with the upper part of her body partially eaten by her cats.
The Colombian woman, identified as Clara Ines Tobon, was living alone in the flat since 1996. She was found in her apartment filled with trash and animal feces. Police said five of the seven cats were also found dead.
Authorities believe that the Colombian woman had been dead for at least three months.
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Colombian Woman Partially Eaten by Cats
Police believed that some of the cats or all of them ate their owner's flesh before dying from starvation, New York Daily News reported. The two other live cats were in poor condition and were taken to an animal protection facility for treatment.
The Colombian woman's cause of death has yet to be determined. However, her neighbors suspected that she had been infected with COVID as she had been ill for some time.
The neighbors added that they believe the Colombian woman may have suffered from Diogenes syndrome, a behavior disorder characterized by domestic squalor, hoarding, and extreme self-neglect.
For several weeks some of Tobon's neighbors were very worried about her. The neighbors said they did not see the Colombian woman even though she used to go out daily to feed stray cats and collecting food from trash cans around Madrid, El Mundo reported.
When her friends had rung her doorbell, the Colombian woman will not answer. Her mobile phone was also turned off, and the letters no longer fit in her mailbox.
In the absence of news from Tobon, the neighbors initially thought she was admitted to a nearby hospital. The neighbors were alarmed when one tenant reported a strange smell and was beginning to see many flies.
The neighbors initially told the police that she could have been dead for a month, adding that the Colombian woman did not have any relatives in Spain.
Currently, the door of Tobon's apartment is already sealed, and no one has entered it since the police retrieved her remains.
COVID-19 Pandemic in Spain
Meanwhile, the mayor of Madrid, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, earlier called for people to remember COVID-19 restrictions after scenes of drinking and partying without masks were reported.
Martinez-Almeida said that freedom does not involve having drinking parties in the street as those are not allowed in Madrid.
According to The Guardian, Spain has been facing a fourth wave of the pandemic, with 3,567,408 infections and a death toll of 79,000.
As of now, more than 13.2 million people of Spain's 47 million population have already received at least one dose of their vaccine, while almost six million have already completed their vaccinations.
Travel between regions is once again allowed that make people go on holiday or visit friends and relatives across Spain.
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