Mummified Body Found in Michigan May Have Plymouth Connection

By Beth Dalbey

A woman who dropped out of sight in 2008 and whose body was discovered in a mummified state in the garage of her Pontiac, Mich., home last week had a nephew in Plymouth, according to this WCVB report.

The latest twist in the story is that Pia Farrenkopf voted in 2010 – two years after she is believed to have died, according to the Detroit Free Press.

''It kills us to read that maybe nobody cared for her,'' nephew Eric Logan of Plymouth, Mass., reportedly told The Associated Press. ''It's completely opposite. All of us are just devastated. ... We have been looking for her. We've done everything we could do, shy of us kicking the door ourselves.''

The Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office hasn’t officially identified Farrenkopf as the dead woman, but she was listed as the owner the home on Savanna Drive where the mummified body was discovered, and the bank holding the mortgage had filed foreclosure actions against her.

The last time anyone remembers seeing Farrenkopf at her job as a contractor for the now closed Chrysler Financial was in September 2008. She also got a traffic ticket in Pontiac in October 2008.

Oakland County election records show Farrenkopf, who would be 49 now, registered to vote in 2006 in Pontiac, but had not voted until the 2010 gubernatorial election. 

Officials said an administrative error may have occurred and she didn’t actually vote, but the "information, obviously, has to be run to its logical conclusion," Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told the Free-Press.

The mummified body was discovered by a contractor who had been hired to plug a hole in the roof to prevent raccoons from entering the house. Authorities think her body may have been in the back seat of the Jeep Liberty, which had tags that expired in 2008, for at least five years.

Farrenkopf had done her banking business online and her mortgage, utilities and other bills were “all on auto-pilot” until the money in the account – more than $54,000  at one point – ran out in March 2013, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said last week after a briefing with his detectives, the Detroit News reported.

When the account was depleted, foreclosure proceedings began.

A neighbor had kept the lawn mowed, and sometime before she is believed to have died, Farrenkopf asked her mail carrier not to drop off mail at her home because she often traveled, the Free Press reported.