Italian Woman Found Dead Sitting in Dining Room Chair Two Years After Her Death

Newly surfaced reports have revealed that the body of a 70-year-old Italian woman was found inside her home near Lake Como, in northern Italy, two years after her death.

Officials have identified the deceased as Marinella Beretta, and have revealed that her body was found sitting in a chair in her dining room after the Como fire brigade responded to complaints about trees in her garden, according to France24. It was reported that authorities responded to her home over concerns that trees in the area could be uprooted by recent strong winds.

Beretta’s cause of death remains unknown but examiners believe she died sometime toward the end of 2019.

Como City Hall press officer Francesca Manfredi confirmed the incident to CNN on Wednesday. Manfredi says no relatives of Beretta have come forward yet, and that local police are investigating to see if she had any surviving relatives.

Como Mayor Mario Landriscina said that the government will take care of Beretta’s funeral arrangements and is encouraging members of the community to attend her funeral. “This is the moment to be together, and even if this woman had no relatives, we could become her relatives,” said Landriscina.

“Taking care of each other is the experience of families, institutions, of our being citizens. No one should be alone," Elena Bonetti, Italy’s minister for family and equal opportunities, wrote on Facebook. "What happened to Marinella Beretta in Como, the forgotten loneliness, hurts our consciences. Remembering her life is the duty of a community that wants to remain united.”

A 2018 report by the National Statistics Institute previously found that nearly 40% of Italians over the age of 75 live alone and do not have relatives, nor friends, to turn to in the case of an emergency.

“Many of us still have memories of the chaotic, branched families of peasant Italy. Instead, the modern family is reduced to an ever tighter fist: two spouses and a couple of children, at best. And when [one does not] have even spouses or children, you die alone, [or] live alone, which is almost worse,” Massimo Gramellini, editorialist for the Corriere della Sera newspaper, wrote of Beretta’s death.