Dead 3 Years and No One Notices?

December 15th, 2011 - By Brande Victorian

Joyce Vincent was 41 when she was found dead in her home, but she was 38 when she died. For three years, from 2003-2006, her body lay surrounded by Christmas gifts she was planning to wrap; the television still on.

How does this happen? Especially to a woman who was social, who two-years prior had a high-powered job at Ernst and Young, who had rubbed elbows with celebrities, and who wanted to get married? That’s what Carol Morley set to find out. But her new documentary film, “Dreams of a Life,” is about more than just Joyce Vincent, a young, beautiful London woman whose parents were from the Caribbean and who no one seemed to miss when she was gone. It’s about life, death, and loneliness.

To promote the film, the studio Hide & Seek, created a companion website called Dreams of Your Life to engage visitors to examine their own isolation with questions like, “Could something like that ever happen to me?” “Do you have friends?” “If you died, how long would it take for someone to find you?”

The questions are eerily introspective.“Our aim was to make something that would give people a chance to think about the people in their lives and think about whether or not there were any changes that they wanted to make about their degree of connectedness,” Hide & Seek’s Margaret Robertson said.

As for Joyce Vincent, her memory will live on in Morley’s film which debuted at the BFI London Film Festival in October and was shortlisted for best documentary there. You can also read more about her story here.

The film will be available for general release in March. Watch this clip and tell us what you think? Honestly, the way the trailer stuck with me, I don’t think I’d ever be able to get this movie out of my head.

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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  • Ellen Rowell

    I’ve seen it, and it’s unsettling. someone mention the mail carrier not noticing the mail not being picked up, unfortunately, she had a mail slot in her front door, so the mail carrier never knew, all he did was put the mail thru the door.  The show the apartment after her skeletal remains had been removed, and it was eerie.

  • BEVERLY_bennett

    Wow!!! Very scary !

  • FromUR2UB

    I’d really like to see this movie.  I tend to think that the quality of relationships has diminished to the point that this can happen more frequently than we think.  Sometimes it seems that most people are self-absorbed these days…not really interested in what’s going on with other people…what they’re thinking or feeling.  They seem to mostly seek an audience for whatever they want to talk about, without feeling any need or responsibility to reciprocate.  Everyone has a need to feel valued and appreciated, so if interactions with particular people always feel one-sided, eventually they’ll seem unnecessary.  Being alone never feels as lonely as being neglected in a relationship.   Have you ever known people who bend your ear every time they need to talk about something, but weren’t willing to listen to anything you needed or wanted to talk about?  Have you ever had someone repeatedly interrupt you mid-sentence and just change the subject, simply because they weren’t interested in what you were talking about?  I have, so eventually I stopped interacting with those people.  It doesn’t do much good to tell people when they do something you don’t like, because they often don’t care, anyway.  They just act like you’re wrong for telling them that they hurt you.  It’s as if they were doing you a favor by associating with you, and therefore, they never understand your side of it. This is what motivates people to pull away, and then, they think you’re wrong for that too. 

    • deedee21000

      I totally agree with you. It’s making me look at the relationships I’ve developed in my thirties. I am a lot like the woman in the movie, and I have  few people in my life that i call friends. I tried to develop friendships with coworkers when I moved to the city i now live in 5 years ago. I got into a passionate sex only relationship with a guy at the job that got ugly, and now a female “friend” that I confided (first mistake)  it to is distancing herself from me because I still speak to him sometimes.  I’m finally removing myself from the situation, but lustful relationships can be hard to move on from because they know how to push your buttons. I also keep him close so I can learn more about me and why I’m drawn to these relationships in the first place. Relationship gurus, friends, family, etc  are so quick to tell you walk away from people who are flawed, passive agressive, baggaged, emotional problems and when that person jumps off a bridge or dies unnoticed in empty apartment then folk sympathize and want to know what happened.  I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten a forwarded email about a person who reaches out to someone just because only to learn that that person planned to go home that night an commit suicide but didn’t just because someone took time out to give them a good word.

      Now I’m not suicidal, but I do get really sad sometimes I’m not making connections with people like I used to. These days I just try my best to be there for people who want me to be there for them and I hope for the best.

      • FromUR2UB

        I hope you find that person who makes you feel loved and valued.  Not in that selfish, ”I’m a queen…princess…diva!” way, where women make demands and expect people to jump, because wanting to treat someone like a servant is not loving that person.  But, hopefully you’ll meet someone who treats you with concern, respect and consideration…who’ll let it be about you SOMETIMES, and you do the same for him.  At times, it can feel like people think you deserve every bad thing that happens to you, but none of the good.   Because of that, I wish for you that you find some females who can support  you in your happiness and defeats, because it’s equally important to be able to share your victories with someone and know they’re genuinely happy for you, as share your pain with someone who’s not secretly glad about your misfortune.  I pray that you can trust them all to be on your side when you really need it, and grab you by the shoulders and give you a good shake, when you need it. Hopefully, they’ll also trust you in that way.  In addition to all that, I hope you can truly enjoy their company, share good hearty laughs about something together,  savor good foods together, watch a good movie together, take a nice vacation together, make plans for the future, together.  I wish these for me too, for whatever time I have left.

  • Guest

    It has happened before:
    Isabella Purves–5 years–Scotland
    Natalie Jean Wood–8 years–Sydney, Australia
    Hedviga Golik–42 years—Croatia

    This woman was significantly younger than the others when she died, though.

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    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Adrienne-Smith/100000669290277 Adrienne Smith

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  • TsadiGee

    I can (kind of) see how it might be possible…

    Because privacy is hard to come by, and harder to maintain, some of us go to the extremes for our privacy. Even those who think they “know” us…don’t. There’s still some distance between us and those who think they’re close to us. One group of friends probably thought she was off somewhere, being fabulous; another group probably thought she was with other friends…but a question is raised: How did her electricity stay on for that length of time w/o bill payments?? I guess we all need to build bridges instead of walls.

  • Miss Truth Hurts

    *sigh* This is fake, but hey it’s a better plot/storyline than what Hollywood is putting out lately. It would have been more believable had she been in her OWN HOUSE and not an apartment. I mean, 3 yrs and no rent paid, and no Landlord knocked on her door to speak to her about it? 3 Yrs and her mailbox is over flowing with mail & the landlord/building manager doesnt collect & and take up up stairs & knock on the door: “Hey Ms. Vincent your mail is all over the floor…Ms Vincent? You there?” …. Stop it! *lol*….Like I said if she were in her own home on her own property, maybe I would have fell for it.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PNG3DVFSGPP65XJXFZC25D3JRU Lan

    Another restaurant cliaimed to use fresh mozz arella cheese,where it’s dishes were actually made with economy cheddar.the ”fresh pasta”advertieshed on another meau tumed out to be frozen.–Agedate. ℃⊙M–a nice and free place for younger women and older men,or older women and younger men,to interact with each other.

  • Ravenelvenlady

    You all MUST be making this up!  This cannot possibly be true.  This is the story of someone who was ENGAGED in life–attractive, and talented (and using those talents in the world).  She wasn’t a recluse.  Even if people knew her on a SUPERFICIAL level, they KNEW who she was.  She was financially independent, she had a career, friends, acquaintances, BILLS and responsibilities.  She could have been on a missing person’s list and searched for and FOUND MUCH earlier than three years.  She wasn’t discovered in some obscure ditch, but in an APARTMENT because she was not a homeless person who had a psychotic break and decided to disappear. It even looks like she died of natural causes perhaps?  Was there any evidence of possible foul play?  This is a very  DAMNING to society as a whole, and there is absolutely NO implication of the SLIGHTEST fault on this young woman’s part.  How can we allow any member of society, especially one who is engaged and interactive, slip through the cracks like this?  Terrible, terrible, terrible! These are the kinds of stories that make me ASHAMED to be a member of the human race.

    But alas, thank goodness for the Christmas holiday, and that we can recognize someone who really believed that we are worthwhile.  If it wasn’t for Christmas Day, and the fact that people cared enough to make a documentary about this to bring our attention and raise consciousness about this, I would be utterly depressed about this.

  • Bruh Luv

    Who was paying her electric bills, etc??  TV still going?

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