In a recent study in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the authors looked at records of deaths for which pathologists were unable to determine a cause during an autopsy (coded as “unascertained”). In the vast majority of cases, including Giddings’s, this is usually because a body is too decomposed to examine properly. Their research suggests that the number of unascertained deaths in England and Wales increased five-fold between 1992 and 2022, even as overall mortality rates were falling.
Yet these figures only account for the most extreme cases of decomposition, notes Theodore Estrin-Serlui, a pathologist in London and one of the paper’s authors. He estimates that 8,000-9,000 people were found in an advanced state of decomposition in 2022.
Several factors influence how rapidly a body decomposes. Corpses rot faster in hot and steamy conditions; those of obese people tend to waste away more quickly. Yet warmer weather and wider waistlines cannot explain why decomposition has become much more frequent among certain groups, especially older men. “We’re talking about people who die alone and aren’t found for a good period of time,” notes Dr Estrin-Serlui. Frequency of decomposition, he suggests, can be used as a proxy for social isolation.
The theory seems plausible. In 2021 30% of all households contained only one person, compared with 17% in 1971. Rates of unascertained deaths tripled among British males over 60 between 1990 and 2010, the largest increase, at a time when the fastest-growing group of people living alone were middle-aged men. Family breakdowns, rising separation rates and changing social norms have pushed more people to live alone. People may not know who their neighbours are. In central London residents often live stacked in flats, in close physical proximity to one another but with little social contact. There, rates of decomposition at home are twice as high as in suburban Hertfordshire
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