In today’s “WTH” news, a Brooklyn woman was found living with her mother’s corpse, propping her up at the dinner table and sleeping next to her skeleton every night. Chava Stirn, 28, even dressed like her mother, wearing the same black outfit and shoes that 61-year-old Susie Rosenthal had on when she died.
A law enforcement source said Stirn would lay her mother’s bones on trash bags in the kitchen of her cramped Borough Park apartment for a sleep over. Police believe she lived with her mom’s remains for two to three years. The gruesome discovery came only after the building’s superintendent investigated a leak coming from the apartment.
Stirn refused to open the door, prompting emergency workers to knock it down. The woman, who lived with her mother before her death, never left the house. She was unwilling to let anyone inside the apartment, so a relative would sometimes leave food outside her door, the police sources said. Upon discovery, Stirn was found sitting in a chair, disheveled, surrounded by waist level trash. Neighbors never suspected any foul play or smelt any human remains, although they reported weird noises and screams of “I kill myself!” coming from the apartment.
Stirn was taken to Maimonides Medical Center for a psych evaluation. The cause of Rosenthal’s death has not been determined and relatives declined comment.