‘Death stench’ – Neighbour of lady who wheeled lifeless daughter round city has ‘nightmares’

EXCLUSIVE: Next door neighbour of Joan Turnell, 77, said he still has nightmares when he saw decomposing daughter’s body ‘carried out’ of the flat in Walthamstow, London

A man who lived next next door to a woman who kept her daughter’s dead body for a year before wheeling her corpse around a busy town centre has said he still has ‘nightmares’.

The neighbour claimed he reported a “death stench” seeping through the cracks of the flat countless times, but that “no one did anything”.

Authorities say Joan Kathleen Turnell, then 77, was stopped by police pushing the decomposing body of her daughter, Tracey, around the town centre in a wheelchair on November 7, 2023. However, one neighbour says he actually saw authorities “carry the body” out of the ground-floor flat in Whitehouse Mews in Walthamstow.

Neighbour Kiri, 60, said: “I still having nightmares and flashbacks of seeing the body”. He also described the flat as a “s*** hole.”

The inquest into Tracey’s death found the elderly mother had been dealing with both prolonged grief disorder and a brain tumour. She is thought to have kept her daughter’s decomposing body in the flat with her for more than a year.

When she was found with the body, Joan is believed to have told officers: “Why can’t they just leave us alone? We have been fine and I have been looking after her.”

Pathologists were unable to find the cause of death as Tracey’s body was so decomposed. However, it was discovered that Tracey had been living with a range of health conditions, from a curved spine to deformed arms.

Joan has since been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Neighbours of the woman told the Daily Star they alerted their housing association, L&Q, about the smell but Kiri claims for months they did “nothing”.

He said: “I asked the caretaker, ‘What’s that smell? What’s that rotting smell?’. I kept complaining about the death stench, no one did anything.”

Kiri described how the state of the flat deteriorated over time and that the smell lingered from the flat into the lobby, and then into his apartment. He said: “You couldn’t walk in here without holding your nose.

“It was a s*** hole. They were both always in dirty clothes. I asked where Tracey [the daughter] was as I’d not seen her for months and she [Joan] said she was alright.

“I saw there was human faeces on the floor when I looked through their garden, it might have been from her daughter but she said it was fox poo. You could tell they both had mental problems and she always told me the smell was nothing.”

Kiri was also open about how the ordeal had significant effects on his mental health.

“I saw them taking the body out of the flat. It was me who kept telling the caretaker [who] told me the body was in there. I had to go on meds because I was having nightmares and flashbacks of seeing the body when I was sleeping. It’s like this isn’t my home, I just sleep here,” he said.

Despite the significant work being done on the flat, Kiri still notes that reminders of the horrific events linger. He said: “You can still smell the stench when it gets warm.”

Other neighbours told the Star they had no idea where Tracey was until police turned up.

“One of the neighbours told us they [police] found a dead body and that they brought the skeleton out the house,” said one neighbour. They went on to say Joan was always “dirty and unkempt” and that she was “unwell”.

The community told the Star that Joan frequently took her daughter out for walks, however, there came a point when they stopped seeing her as frequently.

Another said: “All of a sudden she was not with her daughter so we assumed she went into a care facility. She [the mum] seemed fine and would still say hello, she was friendly. I didn’t see any change in her behaviour.”

Kiri has blamed L&Q housing association for not acting on the smell coming from the flat and believes they could have prevented the situation. He has also questioned why there was not a carer checking on the elderly mother who was single-handily looking after her disabled daughter.

Kiri has said: “This could have been prevented, of course a carer should have been coming – they needed help.”

L&Q and the Met Police have been approached for comment.