The Chapala Ministerio Publico (MP) district’s attorney’s office reports an odd string of deaths among elderly foreign residents registered between May 31 and June 6.
Nearly all of the cases involved individuals who lived alone and, pending contrary autopsy results, appear to have expired due to natural causes. For several, disposal of the remains was complicated by a lack of information regarding the deceased’s next of kin and last wishes. In those situations MP agents turn to consular officials to help locate someone authorized to make an official identification, retrieve the corpse from the regional morgue in Ocotlan and take possession of personal property.
U.S. citizen Thomas Arthur Marcen was found dead is his Chapala apartment on Thursday, May 31. The apparent cause of death was a heart attack.
On Friday, June 1, Cheri Ellen Tirrell fell into cardiac arrest while en route to the Chapala Red Cross by ambulance. The Indiana woman collapsed as she got out her car after crashing into a tree near her home in Riberas del Pilar. After a failed attempt to revive her at the clinic, doctors reported detecting signs she had suffered a heart attack that may have been the cause of the collision.Armi Helena Maartenson, a native of Sweden residing in Chapala, died on Sunday, June 3, while undergoing emergency treatment for a pulmonary embolism at the Red Cross and IMSS clinic.
U.S. citizen George M. Godoy, succumbed to hypovolemic shock on Monday, June 4 after checking himself into the Clinic Ajijic. The authorities are still investigating the circumstances that may have provoked the internal bleeding. He was 59 (see obituary this page).
On Tuesday, June 6 the body of German citizen Gudrun Volbehr Friedel was found in the apartment she rented in central Ajijic. She appears to have been suffering from various health conditions that propitiated heart failure.
MP officials say they have had no luck in contacting relatives of an Australian who died more than a month ago. Bodies that remain unclaimed at the morgue are eventually subject to burial in a common grave.