Went to do a welfare check on a friend and found her dead on the couch in her condo

I'm sorry to be so blunt, but that's what happened, and it happened barely more than 24 hours before I posted this thread (May 3rd, 2025)...

This woman's name was Emily and I’ve known her since 2006, when we were in 11th grade. My girlfriend Amanda met Emily at Middle Bucks Institute of Technology in 2005.

Emily turned 36 last November, and to say she was unhealthy was understatement. Mine and Amanda's relationship with Emily over the last two years has been very tumultuous, and that's a whole other story.

We had recently started talking to her again, and Amanda realized while we were at my house watching TV that she hadn’t heard from her since Thursday (May 1st). Amanda last texted with her on Thursday, and I hadn’t texted with her since Monday. It was a little after 8pm when Amanda told me she had a bad feeling; I texted Emily to humor Amanda, and it was marked as “delivered” but not “read”. I then called her. It rang a few times and went to voicemail.

Emily only lived about 15 minutes from my house. Amanda's birth mother passed away in February and was found in her apartment roughly five days after her death. Her mother lived in Coatesville, which is about an hour from us, and we were spared seeing the body. Nobody deserves the indignity of dying alone and then rotting over the course of several days, so hopped in the truck and drove to Emily's condo in a severe thunderstorm. We knew full well at this point that there was a good chance we'd be finding a dead body, and my aunt said we were very brave for going into this, knowing what we might be walking into.

Emily's white Mitsubishi Outlander was parked in its usual spot, and her condo was dark; I really got a bad feeling at that point. I had brought a sledgehammer from home in case I saw her in obvious distress through the window and needed to break in.

Emily’s condo is more than 40 years old (the building was built in 1984) and each condo has only has one door. Emily's is a first floor unit. There is a patio, with the door on the right and the window is directly in front of you. As stated above, all of the lights were out, but the blinds were partially up.

My Taco has illegally wired foglights...



What this means is that the truck is a base model that didn't come with them, and I had aftermarket LEDs installed. The foglights can be turned on simultaneously with the high-beams; I used this to my advantage, as even though my truck was at an angle the lights shined through the front window. Even though all of the lights in the apartment were off, I had a pretty clear view and saw Emily lying on the couch. She looked as if she’d passed out drunk (but she doesn’t drink) and was sleeping, and she was in her pajamas.

I actually believe that I might have started knocking before I looked through the window. I pounded on the glass and we both were pounding on the door.

Amanda said she believed she saw Emily’s chest going up and down, which led us to believe that she was in distress but alive.

I called 911, and they had both the police and EMS there in pretty good time. In a stroke of pure luck, a detective with the local PD happened to be on call and lived in the same development.

So, the cop shined his flashlight through the window, and Emily didn’t move, so the medic donkey-kicked the front door. He busted the door frame in about three kicks. They went in, and I tried to go in after them, but the cop stopped me.

Amanda and I were relegated to watching through the window. As soon as they turned on the light, I knew something was wrong. Something did not look right about Emily, a combination of her skin color and the position her body was in. The medic started attaching EKGs to Emily, and at that point the cop shut the blinds to keep us from looking in. Moments later, he came outside and told us that Emily was gone, and had been gone for a day or two. The central A/C had been on in the apartment, so that likely preserved her body. After comparing text messages with a friend who last talked to her at 9:42pm on Friday, we believe she passed some after 10pm on Friday, and likely in the morning or possibly even early afternoon on Saturday since all of the lights were off inside the apartment.

Amanda promptly lost it upon hearing the Emily was dead. I had called my dad around the time they started working on Emily, and started to tear up when I told him she was dead.

So, Emily had a 10-year dog named Hannah, and we ended up taking her so she didn’t end up going to the shelter. My parents and I are presently caring for Hannah while we decide what to do with her.

We gave our info to the police and were there until almost midnight. The police were finally able to get ahold of Emily’s dad, who drove out and hugged Amanda to show his gratitude. Emily’s dad is not a dog person, and he was glad that we volunteered to take Hannah.

We were there when Emily’s body was wheeled out to the coroner’s van. I had Hannah on a leash, and she started whining and attempting to follow the gurney. Even though Emily was in a body bag, Hannah knew it was her; I was on the phone with my mom when Emily was taken out, and started crying upon seeing Hannah’s reaction.

Amanda recently purchased a 2002 Chrysler PT Cruiser from her landlady for $800. The car is not exactly pretty but it has a clean title, working A/C, and only 95K miles. It needs rear shocks in order to pass PA state inspection, which we will be having done in a couple weeks. The Cruiser will also be getting new front brakes and a new steering rack.

We took the truck because we didn’t feel comfortable driving the PT Cruiser, which is street legal (insured and registered, and with inspection stickers valid through July 2025) but still needs a lot of work, in the rain. Obviously, two large adults and a dog won’t fit in a regular cab Taco very well; my parents had already said I could take Hannah, but I called them to see if they could bring the Murano out to get Hannah home. My parents took the truck home, while Amanda and I took Hannah in the Murano. We went to Amanda’s house so she could get her clothes and finally got home at probably close to 12:30am.

I believe that I will be fine in two or three weeks, but as of right now it has only been 25 hours since we found Emily; I still have very vivid images of Emily's body splayed out on the couch. Amanda has PTSD from stuff that happened to her prior to us meeting, and I am thinking that will be needing some pretty serious therapy.

I am still fucking numb over what I saw last night.

 

Sorry Charlie. Not an easy thing to deal with.

Not dropping a like. Feels… wrong.

 

I’m sorry you had to go through this.

 

Sorry to read this. You all are good friends for checking in on her and taking foster care of Hannah. Terribly sorry about your friend and wishing you and Amanda both well. Take care of yourselves

 

Oh... my heart goes out to you and Amanda, with gratitude for your folks taking care of Hannah, and in hope she finds a new family.

 

The Black Lab, named Porter, is my dog; Hannah is the brown dog out on the deck…

 

Labs are the best ! Here’s a picture of mine.
I hope this isn’t inappropriate. RIP Emily. It’s an unfortunate reminder to be grateful for everyday and to go the extra mile for the people we have around us, even if sometimes our history can be complicated all we have is each other.

 

I can't imagine all the things that must be running through your minds - My condolences and positive thoughts to you both.
Thank you for looking after her dog - do you have any interest in keeping her?

 

We do not know if we are going to be able to keep her at this point, but if we can't and you are interested, I would encourage you to send me a PM!

 

If I were anywhere close, I'd definitely consider it, but I'm in Colorado, and moving to Florida.

 

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@TnShooter

I detail cars at Enterprise Rent-a-Car, and I work ten hours on Monday (71am-6pm). I texted my boss and another supervisor at 5:42am to say that I needed to talk to them in the break room when I got to work; I got to work and promptly broke down crying while telling the one supervisor what happened on Saturday. I don't know why the emotions hit me right then, but needless to say, I was given the day off and sent right back home. I have come to the conclusion that the emotions hit me at the moment because for starters, I was tired and had gotten less than ten combined hours of sleep since the wee hours of Sunday morning. The other thing is I think I finally came to terms with the fact I'd not only found a dead body, but that it was dead body of somebody I'd known for almost two decades and had just been texting with five days earlier.

While the lights were off in the condo, and Emily was only partially illuminated by my Tacoma lights, there was an illusion that she was either sleeping or unconscious. When pounding on the glass and repeatedly screaming "EMILY!" was obviously not working, and Amanda said she thought that Emily's stomach was going up and down, I came to the misguided conclusion that she was unconscious but still alive. Shining a flashlight through the window directly into Emily's face also did nothing.

When the first responders kicked in the door and one of them turned on the lights in the condo, this immediately shattered the illusion that Emily was alive. As stated above, her body did not look the least bit grotesque, but something about her did not look right. Her skin had a yellowish hue to it, while at the same time it looked pale. She also had dark spots on the lower parts of her body, which would indicate that blood was pooling at the lowest spots of her body. I still cannot get the imagery out of my head, and that is really bothering me right now.

 

This is most certainly will take time to process and grieve, and I would highly recommend therapy, if that's available to you.
Either way, you are probably going to be revisiting this at random times for quite a while, hopefully with less frequency as time goes on, but take the time you can to grieve in your own way - it's different for everyone.

 

Well said Sir.
I agree, it will take time.

 

Still makes me sad to read this..and I know we talked off here too.

Hugs man. She was lucky to have people like you in her life.

 

I'm sorry for your loss Charlie. It's not your fault.

It can take months and sometimes years to grieve and process and the grieving process isn't step by step. Sometimes one reverts back before moving forward. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are all part of it.

PTSD is a normal reaction to experiencing something like that. It's a shock to your system, because it's someone you knew and cared about despite what sounds like some fallouts.

The best thing you can do is take care of yourself. Keeping your employment is important too. Focus on getting enough sleep, eating healthy and slowly getting back into your routine. Talking through it in therapy to process it, having a circle of friends to lean on and having some hobbies will help.