William Wilson made the gruesome discovery after entering the home for the first time

When William Wilson bought a house at an auction, he was paying $95,300 for a three-bedroom home in Cape Coral, Florida.

But Wilson got more than he bargained for.

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When he went to the house for the first time, he found a mummified body lying on the floor of the master bedroom. He immediately called 911.

“I bought a house at a tax deed auction,” Wilson told the dispatcher. “Apparently, the reason was it was full of unpaid taxes; the owner died and she couldn’t pay her taxes. Nobody ever came and got her, so she’s still in the house.”

“And you said it appears to have been quite some time?” the dispatcher asked incredulously.

“It’s been at least three or four years,” Wilson responded.

As it turned out, the house had belonged to Carmen Garcia-Viso, who had moved from Miami and bought the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in 2002. Born in 1937, Garcia-Viso never really spoke with her neighbors.

It’s unclear how long Garcia-Viso has been dead. No one had seen or heard from her in about four years. The taxes hadn’t been paid for three years. The city mowed the lawn occasionally and treated the property like any other vacant home. The police had checked on the house twice in 2013, but had seen no indication of anything amiss. No one had gone inside.

Wilson told the news-press.com that the interior of the home was piled high with boxes, papers, pizza boxes and old food. He said that the body had been partially eaten by animals. He now has to decide what to do with the house.

Neighbors are now left wondering what they should have done.

“Even when she lived there, we didn’t know her,” says Javier Herrera, who rents a home on her street. “She kept to herself. We figured she had died, but no one in the neighborhood knew her well enough to make sure she wasn’t still in the house. I feel really bad about that.”

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