Mary Cerruti Body Found: Skeleton Of Woman Missing Three Years Found Inside Walls Of Her Home By New Owner

The new owner of a home in Houston made a gruesome discovery hidden inside the walls — the body of former owner Mary Cerruti, an elderly woman who got stuck and died between the walls of the home.

Police this week confirmed the body’s identification and released images of the body of the 61-year-old woman, who was last seen in 2015. As the Daily Mail noted, the skeletal body was only recently identified after extensive forensic tests.

Investigators believe that Cerruti was inside her attic when she fell through a loose board, leaving her trapped inside the home’s walls. The skeletal body was found with clothing an a pair of eyeglasses matching one that the woman wore. The new owner of the home had previously found bone fragments, but it was not until last week that the majority of the skeleton was found inside the walls of the home.

It was unclear how the bone fragments spread through the house, but the report noted that the skeleton was “rat-infested.” The woman was known to live a secluded life and kept curtains across her windows to prevent anyone from seeing in, the report claimed.

Authorities had also found six dead cats inside the home while searching for Cerruti after she went missing. Neighbors said she took care of stray cats in the neighborhood.

Pictures of Cerruti’s skeletal body spread across the internet, including in reports including one from the Sun. Reports noted that there were no outward signs of trauma or injuries on the remains, though they were mostly picked apart by animals and insects.

Some neighbors who had looked after the elderly woman were shocked that she was dead inside the home the entire time. Others were skeptical of the story of how she fell and became trapped in the home.

“The gap in the boards appears to be maybe eight inches, and Mary was certainly very frail, but it’s hard for me to believe that a person could step on a board, and their entire body would go down a crack that is two inches wider than a dollar bill,” neighbor Roxanne Davis told KHOU.

“There were a couple hundred pairs of eyes on her house at all times, and anybody could look down and see that she was alone, she was elderly, she was frail and she was vulnerable, flat-out vulnerable.”

Skeletal remains found in walls of home ID'd as woman missing since 2015: https://t.co/st3oy0cRa1 pic.twitter.com/aKmdoJ8aPA

— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) January 24, 2018

Investigators did not say exactly how Mary Stewart Cerruti died or how her house could have gone into foreclosure and sold without her body ever being found.