Neighbours shocked to discover dead woman had been next door to them for as long 12 years, according to reports

A woman’s dead body might have sat in her home for 12 years because her husband couldn’t bear to part with her.

Christina Malley was found dead in an Aberdeen home in Scotland but neighbours didn’t know she existed. Picture: Google

A woman who was found dead after failing to turn up for a COVID-19 vaccine may have passed away up to 12 years ago, it has been reported.

The “skeletal” remains of the woman, named locally as Christina Malley, were found in the Aberdeen, Scotland, home she shared with her elderly husband on February 25.

Her husband Daniel Malley, 78, is believed to have told cops he held on to wife Christina’s body as he could not accept she was gone.

The alarm was raised after nurses came looking for the pensioner, who was in her 80s, after she failed to turn up for her coronavirus vaccination.

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Nurses attended the property looking for the woman. Picture: DCT Media/Cascade News

Cops are trying determine exactly when and how she died but fears have been raised that it may have been more than a decade ago, the Evening Express reports.

A source said of the ongoing police probe into Christina’s tragic death: “Mr Malley said she had died of natural causes ‘a few years ago’.

“He told officers he was still coming to terms with the loss and was extremely lonely. He couldn’t accept she had gone – he couldn’t let her go.

“He kept the body in the house because he didn’t want to be apart from his wife in life or, sadly, in death.

“He’d told anyone who’d asked she was abroad, but most neighbours didn’t know she even existed.”

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There are now reports the woman had been dead for 12 years. Picture: DCT Media/Cascade News

Neighbours have admitted they had no idea she existed – despite records suggesting she had lived next to them for more than 25 years.

Residents told how her husband Daniel was a regular at the pub and paper shop but said they never saw him with a wife.

Records show Daniel and Christina married in 1976 and in 1995 moved to the home where her body was discovered.

Locals said nobody visited and it was thought they had no friends or family while Daniel had allegedly repeatedly refused care and medical help.

One neighbour revealed: “The nurses asked me if I knew about the woman because she had missed her vaccine.

“I told them I’ve never once seen a woman there, just Danny. I had no idea anyone else lived at the house. The nurses said she was still on the electoral roll and they had to find her.

“I’ve been told she’d been dead for years when they got her.”

Another stunned resident added: “I’ve never seen him with a wife in all the time I’ve lived here.

“It gives me a shudder when I think she could have been lying in the house all that time. Why was there not a smell, or flies? It’s just so odd.”

The ground floor property has been boarded up while specialist forensic officers examined the home for clues.

A Police Scotland spokesman confirmed that inquiries into the circumstances remained “ongoing”.

“The death is being treated as unexplained and inquiries are ongoing. A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission