Family will ‘never forget shock’ of finding woman who lay dead for three years

The family of a woman who lay dead in her flat for more than three years have said they “will never forget” the shock of seeing her heavily decomposed remains, an inquest has heard.

Laura Winham’s remains were found by her brother in her flat in Woking, Surrey, on May 24 2021.

Ms Winham, who was 41 when discovered, was found after her loved ones asked police to break into her home following concerns about her safety.

Her sister Nicola told an inquest at Surrey Coroner’s Court on Tuesday that her brother and mother visited her flat after they became concerned about her welfare. When there was no response to their knocks, they decided to look through the letterbox.

She said: “They were shouting her name and looking through the letterbox. My brother saw what he thought was a seriously decomposed body.

“They called the police and forced entry. Inside they found a mummified and almost skeletal body.

“Both of them saw this and the shock can never be forgotten.”

The inquest heard that Ms Winham’s family had been unable to maintain contact with her after years of mental health struggles caused her to believe they would harm her.

Nicky told the court they last saw her in person in 2009, and contact over social media had stopped in 2014 after she sent them a message on Facebook which read: “It is best to have minimum/no contact. And communications with the family. It is totally out of my hands. There is nothing I can do. Everything I say will get repeated and relayed back. Be patient.”

The family said they believed they were doing the right thing by respecting Ms Winham’s wishes to have no contact with them. Nicky told the court: “We knew that contact with us exacerbated her mental health difficulties.”

Despite this, the family often stopped by to check Ms Winham’s car was still outside her flat.

And in January 2021, her brother Roy tried to visit as their father’s health was deteriorating. After receiving no response, Nicky called New Vision Homes – the landlord contractor for Woking Borough Council from 2015 to April 2022 – regarding concerns about her welfare.

The company said that due to privacy and confidentiality they couldn’t help her. In response, Nicky explained that her sister had mental health difficulties in the past and there was a large amount of post outside the door.

A couple of weeks after the discovery of her body the family were asked by police to clear out the flat, the inquest heard.

A tearful Nicky said: “It was messy but weirdly the kitchen was in order.

“There were 13 duvets and none of them had any sheets of the top. There were some on the sofa, some on the floor and in the hallway. It was like she was moving around.

“Laura would cross out every day on her calendar and the last cross was on November 2 2017.

“There were also several letters which had been torn up and pieced back together by police. I don’t know when it was written but it was from the last few weeks and addressed to a reverend. The common thread through all of them was: ‘I don’t have very much food, I’m running out of money, my phone is broken and that’s why I’m writing a letter. I don’t know what to do.’

“We found a tub of margarine, a bottle of tomato sauce and a few tea bags. There was no dried food, no tinned cans or any frozen food, nothing you will see in a regular household.

“There were also two bag of loose change. She had £3,000 in a savings account but she would have had to go into Woking town centre and I presume she didn’t feel well enough to do that.”

Nicky added that her sister had developed a fear of leaving her flat and wrote notes on her calendar which specified days for online shopping and taking the bins out.

She also told the inquest that Ms Winham was born three weeks early with a number of health problems including being severely deaf. She wore hearing aids, but on a visit to her flat after her death her family only found “very old” ones.

The inquest continues.