She told police her son had simply moved out twenty years ago. He'd actually never left the house at all.
A Routine Trip for Hospital Belongings
In September 2016, Rita Wolfensohn, an elderly, legally blind woman living alone in the Midwood section of Brooklyn, New York, was hospitalized after a fall. On September 15, her sister-in-law, Josette Buchman, went to Rita's home to gather some personal belongings to bring her at the hospital.
Rita had a well-known hoarding problem, and Josette expected to find clutter. What she found instead, navigating her way through trash and debris toward the home's second floor, was something else entirely: a fully clothed human skeleton, lying on its back on a thin mattress in a garbage-filled bedroom.
A Discovery No One Expected
The remains were intact, still dressed in jeans, socks, and a shirt, undisturbed in a room one law enforcement source later described as resembling "some reverse Psycho scene" — except, unlike Norman Bates, investigators came to believe Rita genuinely had no idea the body was there.
Police identified the remains as those of Rita's son, Louis Wolfensohn, a former taxi driver. Records showed Rita's husband, Jesse, had died in 1987. The couple had two sons: Michael, who died in 2003 at age 38, and Louis, who would have been 49 had he lived to see the discovery.
How Something Like This Goes Unnoticed
When questioned, Rita told investigators she believed Louis had simply moved out of the house roughly twenty years earlier and that she hadn't heard from him since. Extended family members confirmed they hadn't seen or heard from him in a similar timeframe, and acknowledged they hadn't been close with Rita over the years either.
Investigators noted that the room reeked of rotting food but carried no detectable smell of human decomposition — a detail they believed helped explain how the situation could have gone unnoticed for so long, particularly layered with Rita's blindness and a home so cluttered that even close relatives rarely ventured upstairs. Thick cobwebs covering the area where Louis was found suggested no one, including Rita herself, had gone into that part of the room in a very long time.
The medical examiner's office determined Louis had died of natural causes, ruling out foul play. The exact date and circumstances of his death have never been more precisely established, given the state of the remains by the time they were found.
What Happened After
Following the discovery, Rita was moved out of the Brooklyn home and into an assisted living facility. The house itself, by the time most reporting on the story concluded, sat vacant.
The case drew significant national and international media attention at the time, less because of any criminal element — investigators were clear from early on that they didn't suspect wrongdoing — and more because of how genuinely strange and sad the underlying situation was: a mother, isolated and struggling with her own significant health and hoarding issues, unknowingly living for two decades in the same house as her son's remains, having quietly accepted a story about his having simply moved away rather than ever learning the truth.
Sources
Hoarder mom may have unknowingly lived with son's body for 20 years — Boston 25 News
https://www.boston25news.com/news/hoarder-mom-may-have-unknowingly-lived-with-sons-body-for-20-years/451420312/
Did This Hoarder Lose Her Dead Son in Her Home? — Rolling Stone
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/did-this-hoarder-lose-her-dead-son-in-her-home-111937/
Brooklyn Hoarder May Have Lived With Son's Corpse for 20 Years — Patch
https://patch.com/new-york/ditmaspark/brooklyn-hoarder-may-have-lived-sons-dead-corpse-20-years