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A woman died at work, no one noticed for four days

A worker at one of the world’s biggest banks was found dead in her cubicle after several colleagues complained of a foul smell.

Friday, August 30 | Top stories | From the Newsroom

A Wells Fargo employee came to work on a Friday morning and died at her desk – but her body wasn’t discovered until four days later, Arizona police officials said.

Denise Prudhomme, 60, was found slumped over in her cubicle at the bank’s corporate office in Tempe on Tuesday, August 20.

She had used her ID to scan into the building on August 16 at 7am, according to police.

“To hear she’s been sitting at the desk like that would make me feel sick,” an employee at Wells Fargo told K12News, an NBC affiliate. “And nobody did anything. That’s how she spent her last moments.”

A Wells Fargo employee was found dead in her Tempe, Arizona office cubicle on Aug. 20, police officers said. Picture: KPNX
A Wells Fargo employee was found dead in her Tempe, Arizona office cubicle on Aug. 20, police officers said. Picture: KPNX

The employee said several workers had complained of a foul odour when they came back to work after the weekend, but shrugged it off as bad plumbing, according to the outlet.

Another employee said a colleague found Prudhomme dead at her desk in a cubicle while walking around the building, K12News reported

Security guards then alerted police.

A Wells Fargo building (file photo). Picture: iStock
A Wells Fargo building (file photo). Picture: iStock

Officials have not released Ms Prudhomme’s cause of death, though they said the preliminary investigation did not show any signs of foul play.

The investigation is ongoing.

The building has security guards who should have found Ms Prudhomme earlier, workers fumed.

“That’s the scary part. That’s the uneasy part,” one employee told K12News. “It’s negligence in some part.”

Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company shared a statement with several other news outlets that it was “deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague” and will be providing counsellors to support office employees.

The company said it is co-operating with the Tempe police in their investigation.

This story was published by the New York Post and reproduced with permission

Original URL: https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/at-work/woman-found-dead-at-work-in-wells-fargo-office-after-four-days/news-story/8584c886a005e9fdececaf28f87677b1