A 63-year-old woman, de­scribed by po­lice as hav­ing a men­tal dis­or­der, is be­lieved to have lived along­side her moth­er’s de­com­pos­ing body for weeks be­fore be­ing dis­cov­ered in Ari­ma on Wednes­day morn­ing.

Po­lice said an in­spec­tor from the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices vis­it­ed the house on Cher­ry Tree Cir­cle, San­ta Rosa Heights, around 10 am af­ter re­ceiv­ing in­for­ma­tion from the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer about a foul stench com­ing from the prop­er­ty.

On ar­rival, he con­tact­ed the Pin­to Po­lice Post. Of­fi­cers re­spond­ed with mem­bers of the fire ser­vice and force­ful­ly en­tered the locked house.

In­side, po­lice found the body of 91-year-old Joyce Saun­ders in a bed­room. They al­so found her daugh­ter Pa­tri­cia, who ran to an­oth­er room.

Of­fi­cers tried to re­as­sure her and per­suade her to come out, but she re­fused to leave.

Po­lice even­tu­al­ly sub­dued her and took her to a med­ical cen­tre.