Woman Who Lay Dead In Her London Flat For Two-And-A-Half Years Sparks Online Debate On Loneliness And Human Neglect

The only picture that anyone could find of Sheila Seleoane was her passport photo. Sheila was a lonely woman whose body lay dead in her London apartment for two-and-a-half years before anyone discovered her.

Her picture was published for the first time on DailyMail as it was given by her long-lost family in South Africa, who used it to illustrate the order of service at her funeral in her ancestral homeland.

Months were spent investigating the disturbing story of Sheila and how in many ways it is a parable for the depersonalization of life in many parts of urban Britain.

In the coming time, investigators of her case will reveal how Miss Seleoane passed away and a report will be published to understand how her death went unnoticed for such a long period of time.

But before that, there are certain fresh elements to this case that cannot go unnoticed.

Among them is the macabre claim, made by a neighbor who lived directly below the dead woman, that footsteps were heard in her fourth-floor flat in Peckham, South London, many months after she had died — supposedly alone and without anyone knowing (or caring) what had become of her.

We will talk about this later but first, let us discuss one poignantly ironic observation.

It is that Miss Seleoane's distant relatives, who lived 8,000 miles away and never once spoke to her, much less met her — have shown more concern, since learning of her death, than anyone with whom she had contact in Britain.

There must have been someone who surely looked into her disappearance. I mean how could no one including her colleagues, the police, utility companies, and certainly the Peabody Trust, the affordable-housing charity from which she rented her flat couldn't notice her absence. 

In the past few weeks, the British-born medical secretary has been remembered at two funerals. But the details of the funeral tell us everything that we need to know.

Just two mourners attended the first, on April 19 at Croydon Crematorium, a few miles from where she was found: her brother Victor, a convicted murderer from whom she was estranged, and a representative of Peabody.

Watching this soulless service via video link was a heartbreaking reminder of her isolation.

As a pastor gave a superficial overview of Miss Seleoane's 61 years of life (without referring to her disgraceful abandonment) the two men sat dutifully on opposite sides of the aisle. When it finished, they shuffled away quickly.

If only the housing trust had honored the promise it made to residents of Lord's Court, the block of flats where Miss Seleoane lived, several neighbors would have attended.

However, they didn't know that the funeral had taken place until the Mail informed them.

'Everybody is disgusted that Peabody didn't tell us, but I'm glad that she at least had a proper send-off,' said one.

Peabody responded to the neighbour's subsequent complaint with a letter stating Miss Seleoane's 'immediate family' — presumably meaning her furtive brother, her only living relative in Britain — wanted a 'private' service.

However, after her body was found, a kind soul traced her distant relatives in the Eastern Cape, from where her mother Adelina emigrated in 1954 to work as a doctor's housekeeper in London.

Deeply distressed to hear of her abandonment, they were determined to mark her passing with a traditional Methodist ceremony, and burial in the family plot.

To their credit, Peabody did arrange and pay for Miss Seleoane's remains to be flown to South Africa.

Finally, the lady got the dignity and affection that she deserved as a human being after a funeral was held for her in her home country with a packed church echoing with stirring eulogies and uplifting strains of a gospel choir.

Some members of her sprawling South African family travelled many miles to be among the 100, or so, mourners led by Miss Seleoane's sister, Bella Brooms, one of her two surviving siblings.