Woman's Corpse Found in Home After 8 Months

Police are investigating why a woman's body lay in a house for 8 months while caretakers came daily to tend to the house.

Neighbors of Blanche Roth were shocked to learn Tuesday that she had passed away. They were even more shocked when Wilmington police revealed that she had probably died around May. Roth would have been 88 in September and to the casual observation of the neighbors he had reached that milestone. Tuesday a source, whose name and information is being withheld by authorities called 911 to report her corpse in the quiet cul-de-sac home. Failure to report a death in North Carolina is a felony according to New Hanover County Deputy Charles Smith. Smith also reported that at least four other people lived in the house. Besides that it was visited daily by caretakers, and all that Smith could confirm there was that the caretakers were not nurses. The nature of their work was unknown, but he did say the house was kept in good shape. "They were quiet and stayed to themselves all the time," neighbor Ray Taylor, 72, said of the home's residents.