Top cop makes an alarming admission after stumbling upon a rotting corpse inside Geelong ‘house of horrors’
A leading Victorian police sergeant has recalled how officers were left traumatized after discovering the body of a man who had been dead for five years in a ‘house of horrors’.
The body was found in a social housing on Russell Street in Newtown, Geelong, south-west of Melbourne, in December 2022.
The man’s sister, in her 70s, lived in the house and police only discovered her deceased brother when they went to arrest her on an unrelated matter.
Forensic officers in biohazard suits were forced to wade through floor-to-ceiling rubbish, rats, dead possums and human feces to reach the ‘skeleton’.
When police arrested a woman at a Geelong home in December 2022, they discovered her brother’s rotting corpse inside.
Geelong CIU Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Guthrie said members of the force needed extra support after finding the man’s body.
“It was quite shocking to the members present,” Mr Guthrie said The Geelong Advertiser.
“The smell, the condition and then removing the body with the help of the funeral directors, it was quite horrible for them, really horrible.”
He said recent news reports had “brought back some terrible memories” for the officers who attended the scene.
A woman believed to be living with her brother’s corpse was known to cut the front garden of her property (pictured) with scissors
“It’s clear that this kind of thing shouldn’t happen,” he said.
Newtown is considered an affluent area and the house is a 15-minute walk from the GMHBA Stadium, home of Geelong Football Club, and a stone’s throw from the busy cosmopolitan center of Pakington Street.
Residents along the leafy street complained to several government agencies for years, but their objections fell on deaf ears.
Both the woman and her brother were described by neighbors as friendly but distinctly odd characters in the otherwise affluent neighborhood.
‘She was a bit strange. We all knew her. She wasn’t dangerous or anything,” a neighbor who wished to remain anonymous told Daily Mail Australia.
“She was cleaning, doing things, picking up leaves. She was always so nice and clean. She was quiet, reserved, withdrawn. No one knew what was happening inside.”
Forensic officers in biohazard suits waded through knee-deep trash, human dirt and rats to remove what was left of the man during the discovery in December 2022
The house now stands empty, with planks covering the property’s broken rear windows.
Nicole Stratton, who has lived directly behind the “house of horrors” for the past six years, said she was ashamed of what happened to her neighbor.
“She definitely had mental health issues, but I was definitely surprised by the dead body in there,” she said Monday.
‘As messy as the house was on the inside, it was neatly maintained on the outside.’
The woman was released without charge last year in connection with the death of her brother.
The coroner is still investigating the exact circumstances of his death.