NM - Santa Fe author's body discovered; she may have been dead for more than a year

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Mummified body of Chicana author found in New Mexico home after she had been dead for a year
A 70-year-old woman whose mummified body was recently discovered in her Santa Fe apartment has been identified as a Chicana activist, teacher and author.

Santa Fe police said the decomposed remains of Barbara Salinas-Norman - known as Bobbi - were found last week and authorities say she may have been dead for more than a year.

A preliminary autopsy suggested that Ms Salinas-Normal died of natural causes in her apartment after becoming a hoarder and a recluse, cutting off her own sister and brother-in-law.
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Stories from friends and family suggested Salinas' life had been unraveling for some time. She often slept in her car and washed up in the bathroom at a local library.
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The New Mexican reports that Salinas-Norman founded and ran a publishing company called Pinata Publications in the office of her then-husband, Sam Norman, an Oakland lawyer.

She began writing, illustrating and publishing her own books designed to help Mexican American children identify with their culture. She gave up teaching to write full time in 1983.
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much more, with pictures, at Daily Mail link above
 
How could someone with a master's degree in public health education end up like THIS? And didn't anyone notice for over a year that she was missing. Didn't anyone notice a smell from her condo? How sad. She started out with a lot of promise. I have to believe that she became mentally ill at some point.
 
Very sad for her to die alone and forgotten like that after she worked to help others.
 
Very, very sad. It's hard to understand how this happens. We've seen other stories similar to this one.
 
I see that the sister and brother-in-law did eventually check on her after not hearing from her for two years. I think she must have been in the habit of going long periods without contacting them, but eventually the silence became suspiciously long even for her.

Has anyone here read Tim Kreider's essay "The Czar's Daughter," about a friend who was discovered after his death to have been living in conditions similar to Ms Salinas's?

ETA: Here's an in-depth story from the Santa Fe New Mexican:

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/ne...b8b2-29dad198ac66.html?_dc=186013272497.80298
 

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