Retired Connecticut detective found dead inside her hoarder home — eight months after she went missing
The rotting body of a retired Connecticut detective was found buried in “deplorable conditions” inside her hoarder home more than eight months after she was last seen alive, police revealed this week.
Mary A. Notarangelo, 73, had to be removed from her Glastonbury home with an excavator after conditions inside made it nearly impossible to search the property, Police Chief Marshall Porter told the Connecticut Insider this week.
Cops “weren’t equipped to handle” what they found when they tried to search the property, Porter said.
“I’ve never seen such deplorable conditions. Hoarders usually have paths. But this was like just piled floor to almost ceiling,” Porter said. “You literally would have had to climb over stuff.”
Dead birds were found in cages along with mice running about the house and a live cat, along with a terrible stench, according to a police report released Wednesday and seen by ABC News.
A cadaver dog, a drone, and specialist state environmental agency and biohazard waste collection workers were all called in, Porter said.
The drone was disabled after cobwebs entangled themselves around its blades, according to police.
Notarangelo was last seen alive over a year ago on June 12 last year, according to police.
She was reported missing on July 3, 2024, by a man who occasionally helped her with tasks around the house, Porter said.
Officers couldn’t physically enter the home because of the items piled up, and also searched the nearby woods surrounding her remote home.
But cops doubted she had gotten far since she used a walker, Porter said.
Although police didn’t see any evidence that she was alive, they were concerned about cleaning her entire house — at an estimated cost of $100,000 — only for her to return from an extended trip.
But as the months dragged on, Porter decided they had no other choice, he said.
Cops made several attempts to search the home, but it wasn’t until the biohazard company’s second attempt in February this year using an excavator that her skeletal remains were found under a pile of debris just inside her front door, Porter said.
“They were prepared with equipment and dumpsters to excavate the entire house,” Porter said, but Notarangelo’s remains were found shortly after they began their work.
The cause and manner of her death is undetermined, a staff member of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner told Connecticut Insider on Tuesday.
“It’s tragic and very strange,” he said.
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Notarangelo had few relatives and they were rarely in touch with her, Porter said.
She was a retired Bridgeport police detective and longtime Wiccan, according to officials and friends.
She retired on disability after an on-duty car crash injured her back and legs, her friend Patti Steeves told ABC News.
Her disappearance had been a mystery in town, and as recently as March, a friend had expressed dismay about the lack of updates on her whereabouts. It is not clear why February’s discovery was only announced this week.
“It’s so upsetting and so sad,” added Steeves, who had worked with Notarangelo at the Bridgeport Police Department as a civilian employee.
“She, as quirky as she was, she was a good person at heart.”