Phoenix woman stays with dead mother for days
Police have launched an investigation after an elderly woman was found dead in her home in Phoenix, north of Durban.
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The 68-year-old's decomposed body was discovered on Monday night in her Palmview house by neighbours.
Reaction Unit South Africa's Prem Balram says the neighbours became worried after having not seen her for several days.
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He says paramedics who went to the home found the woman's 47-year-old daughter, who has a mental disability.
Balram says she led them to the bedroom and insisted her mother was just asleep.
"She explained that her mum had arrived from a supermarket last Friday, fell ill and went to bed and had not got up.
"She was not aware that her mother was deceased. There were no injures to the body.
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"The 47-year-old daughter was handed over to family members who came out to the scene a short while later. They were also neighbours present and willing to take care of the daughter."
The woman's exact cause of death is not yet known.
