A four-month search for a missing Las Vegas woman came to a ghastly end when her husband found her corpse in their home amid a labyrinth of squalor that had been impassable even to search dogs.
Bill James had no idea that the body of his hoarder wife, Billie Jean, was under the same roof as he helped police scour the home and the Nevada desert for her. Then he spotted her feet poking out of a floor-to-ceiling pile of junk this week.
Police said they searched the home several times – even using dogs from a unit that helped locate bodies at ground zero after September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. But they were unable to find the body of amid the piles of clothes, knick-knacks, trash and junk.
“For our dogs to go through that house and not find something should be indicative of the tremendous environmental challenges they faced,” said police spokesman Bill Cassell.
Clark County Coroner’s office spokeswoman Jessica Coloma said it could take weeks to determine when and how the 67-year-old woman died. The husband had been co-operative throughout the investigation and quickly notified police of his discovery.
One thing was not in doubt: Billie Jean James loved to hoard. In the driveway sat two huge trash bins that required industrial-sized trucks to haul them away. The front patio was filled with knick-knacks including old chairs, smaller trash bins and a 3m basketball hoop.
Inside, Cassell said James’ piles of clutter left just small pathways to walk and strong odours that hindered their search – generated by animals, decomposing garbage, food, clothes and other stuff.
“If there had been any indication that there was a remote possibility that somebody was back underneath that stuff we would have taken the appropriate action,” said Cassell.
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