Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, and this week on Pushing Up Lilies, we’re diving into one of the most heartbreaking and unusual cases I’ve ever seen. Retired Connecticut police detective Mary Notarangelo vanished in June 2024, and wasn’t found for seven months. When she was finally discovered, her skeletal remains were buried under piles of debris in her own home, surrounded by trash, cobwebs, dead birds, and heartbreaking hoarding conditions. In this episode, we’ll talk about Mary’s life, her mysterious disappearance, and the disturbing conditions that made her discovery so difficult. As a former investigator, it’s hard to imagine someone going undetected for so long, especially someone who once wore the badge herself. Let’s take a closer look at how this could happen, the red flags, and what this case reveals about isolation, mental health, and the haunting silence that sometimes follows retirement. Tune in, and let’s uncover the story buried beneath the surface. * Listener discretion is advised.
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00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Okay, y'all, I'm coming to you this week from the Oceana Marina. We are on the ship going from Southampton to Reykjavik. And let me tell you, I am freaking out because there is no Diet Dr.
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Pepper. So, you're about to hear me pop a Diet Coke, which is not my drink of choice, but it's going to have to do. I don't even have regular Dr. Pepper here. So it's all Coke, but that's better than Pepsi.
01:03
So not going to complain too much. See, we're excited to be on this cruise with all my high school girlfriends and or most of them and most of their husbands. My husband couldn't come and so I have a flat husband this week.
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I'm carrying around his head on a stick and we're trying to include the husbands that couldn't come in our photos by holding the stick up. It's kind of funny. You don't have to check out my Facebook page.
01:31
It's very entertaining. We walked a lot yesterday, y'all. I think like between five and seven miles, all I know is that my calves, wait, yesterday, maybe the day before, my calves are hurting. So I went last night for a facial and today I went for a massage and I was cringing when she was rubbing my calves.
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But oh my gosh, they hurt. You can tell this girl has not been exercising. Been on the shots from the med spa, and again if you're interested in those, we can do that virtually you know I own the filling station in Denton Texas: www.thefillingstationdenton.com, and you can actually schedule a virtual weight loss appointment there where you can visit with a nurse practitioner from your home. And we can arrange to mail weight loss meds to you. I do have a couple of podcast listeners who are on the program that I've never met from other states. It’s kind of exciting to see everyone's progress on the shots. We have unlimited supply our supply has not been cut so if you're having trouble getting it from your doctor we have Semaglutide and Trazepatide, and they're both available. Again on the cruise, I kind of want to do an episode later about cruise ship deaths because we know it happens I mean we know the cruise ships have morgues because It would be unrealistic to think that no one ever died on a cruise.
03:02
We always hear about people going overboard, but the fact is people also died in their sleep in their staterooms. And I'm sure there's a lot of other accidents, and I don't want to say it too loud, but on this cruise line specifically, I think the average age is between 60 and 75.
03:19
So a lot of people have health problems. And there is a doctor on board, but they can't fix everything. I haven't been to the infirmary to check it out, but I know they have a lot of deaths on cruise.
03:33
Well, probably not a lot, but they do have deaths on cruise ships. There's around 1,500 people on this ship. So it's kind of one of the smaller ships because it's a luxury cruise line. But it would be interesting to see what their statistics are.
03:46
I feel almost certain that they would all be natural, unless they're accidental from somebody falling and hitting their head or falling and breaking a hip and ending up on hospice because of the fracture.
03:59
But it's weird to think about. Our first annual Pushing Up Lily's Murder Mystery Dinner is coming up October 11th. I will tell you that we do still have some tickets left. However, they are selling super, super quick.
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We are selling a very limited number. It's going to be not me acting. We're going to have actors that I've hired, and they're going to act out a murder mystery play. And then we'll have Chicken and Beef Fajita Buffet.
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So I think it'll be great if you live in the Denton area. It's in Crossroads at Prairie House Restaurant. Delicious food. I worked there when I was in nursing school and still love it. Still go. It's not too far from her house.
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So absolutely love it. I'm off for about three weeks because we did buy a house. So we'll be moving as soon as I get home from the cruise, which is kind of stressful. And I'm trying not to think about it too much, although I'm very excited.
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I'm still also slightly stressed out because I haven't really had a chance to pack the house, because I was too busy packing me to get ready for this trip. But I wouldn't miss this trip for the world. I'm excited to get back and try to get moved, so if anybody has moving tips, I would love to hear some of your ideas to make it a little less stressful and not quite as cumbersome. Because it's not something that I'm looking forward to. But I want to talk this week about, and I know y'all have heard this story, and I feel like the only reason that this was in the news was because this lady was a former police detective, and we probably wouldn't have heard anything about it had that not been the case. Because the situation is not really that abnormal when you're in my line of work, I mean, we do see this all the time. So, we're talking about Mary Notarangelo She was 73,
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and again, she was from Connecticut, she was a former police detective. And as a detective, I mean, I work closely with detectives, I go on crime scenes, they're almost always there, not always, but they kind of know how to work the scene.
06:11
So they're very familiar with death scenes, but it again doesn't exempt you from death. And we never know how people live. We never see them. I mean, some people are very messy, sloppy, and some people are just downright nasty.
06:28
They just don't clean their house at all. And I've gone to a lot of scenes where the homeowner is a hoarder. I've seen everything from old pizza boxes with dried pizza, dead animals, bugs, every kind, empty beer boxes, empty soda boxes, cups with some sort of liquid in them that have mold floating on top.
06:56
And many, many times we'll find gallon jugs of milk that have been emptied or drank, and then filled with urine. So a lot of people, if they don't take care of their home, and everything gets completely out of hand, they can't even get to their toilet.
07:14
Sometimes they may not have water, so their toilets won't flush anyway. Many people will have buildup or clothing or trash or something in their bathtub so that they can't even bathe. And so when they can't get to the restroom, basically it's like not having one and they start urinating in these milk jugs.
07:39
You know, you know when you see a yellow milk jug without a label on it at a crime scene, it's probably urine. And it is gross, but we see we see it a lot. We see it a whole lot more probably than you can imagine.
07:53
So that's some of it for today. else that we see in hoarder's homes but Mary was reportedly a hoarder. She was found dead in her home more than seven months after she was originally reported missing.
08:07
Her remains were discovered in her home in Glastonbury in February after multiple attempts to locate her since July of 2024. So she was just found February of 2025. They've been looking for her since July.
08:27
Originally, a friend had called for a welfare check on July 3rd, 2024. She had last texted this friend around June 12th. So it had been more than two weeks. But at that time when the two texted, Mary said that she was having abdominal cramps.
08:49
She was vomiting and that she had fallen. It's unclear why the friend waited so long to call the police, didn't go to the residence to try to help her. All of that is unclear. I feel like if I lived close by and we were good friends, we'd have to be good friends.
09:10
If you texted me and told me that you failed, I would probably come and help you up and make sure you were okay and make sure that you weren't injured. And if you were, I would take you to the hospital or at the very least call 911.
09:25
When police went to the home after he called them, they couldn't find her. Again, sometimes people are hard to find. These residences are very cluttered. People end up underneath things and hidden. I had gone to a scene once where a son lived with her mom.
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The mom had Alzheimer's and the mom had called the police multiple times and said that she couldn't find her son. And his truck, he drove a semi, his truck was parked out front and his personal vehicle was out front as well.
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So she felt like she knew enough to know that he was home or somewhere in the area that she couldn't find him in the house. Several days went by because she called the police, I'm going to say maybe three times.
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Eventually, the police came over. The reason they didn't go in initially is I think there was a dog in the house and didn't want to enter. I think after the third 911 call, the police actually went into the residence.
10:26
She was a bit of a hoarder. There were some boxes kind of lined up all in the living room. And there was a bit of a maze where the boxes were high, but you would have to walk this little path to get around them.
10:39
And the son was decomposed. I could smell him when I walked in the house. So it shouldn't have been a huge surprise to the police and can't really tell me that they couldn't smell him from the door. He was decomposing his recliner.
10:53
there and had been there the whole time. Ever since the mom called the police said she couldn't find him. I guess she never thought to go in there. I mean, who knows, she could have gone in there and forgotten that she saw him.
11:07
I'm not really sure. But anyway, long story short, she was in the house as his body was decomposing. I'm going to say probably four or five days had gone by. You could smell him and she was just cooking dinner like, you know, she couldn't smell anything.
11:23
I think she was cooking like pinto beans or something because I remember the smell and I was just like, but yeah, so he was there, but she was a hoarder. So he was difficult to find. She was living there and that wasn't even the worst hoarders home that I've been into.
11:38
We've had to climb over stuff before. But the police here, they sent a drone into the house and the drone became disabled when it hit cobwebs. So that's how, you know, she wasn't a good housekeeper on top of being a hoarder.
11:54
I mean, you can collect junk and still be somewhat clean. But that was not the case here. So there were cobwebs all through her house. There were multiple searches. This is what really gets me. And I mean, I get it.
12:07
Like you walk into the home. It's gross. It's nasty. You don't want to expose yourself to all the things. So you don't look quite as hard as you should. But you know, she's missing her cars there. You pretty much know she's there.
12:24
You smell her, but you don't continue looking. So there were more searches conducted. So, July 5th, July 11th, July 12th, and then not again until November 20th. In February of this year, this is when she was found, a work crew discovered her skeletal remains beneath a pile of debris just inside of her front door.
12:51
So she was right there, right inside the front door the entire time. Now officer said there was a six foot tall mountain of garbage blocking the entranceway. There were dead birds found in cages. And there were mice running around the residence.
13:11
And they also apparently sound a live cat. There was no path. And again, I've seen this multiple times and you had to actually climb over garbage to get from one room to the other. It sounds like it was pretty bad if you can picture it in your head.
13:30
Her body was found inside the front door under clothing, blankets, and garbage. Now she worked for the Bridgeport PD from 1985 to 1996. And she promoted to detective in 1992 and then sergeant a year later.
13:49
Now she retired on disability after an on-duty car crash that injured her back and legs. But since retirement, she kind of lived a reclusive life. When she was found her remains were so badly decomposed that only some hair was left on her head, so basically hair on a skeleton, if you can picture that… Yeah. You know I look at this because I see this every day and I'm like why is this news? But I like to introduce y'all to it cuz I know you don't always see what I see, and not all the stories come out in the news and make the media. Now her friend went to check on her on July 3rd and noticed the groceries on her driveway had been picked through by animals and the mailbox was full. So, we've talked again about decomposition reasons to check on your neighbors I know that years ago I did an episode on checking on your neighbors,
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making sure your neighbors are okay. Remember, if their mailbox is full, they're not getting the mail. There's a reason they're not getting the mail. If you know them and they're not in the hospital and you know they don't have family and their cars are there, or you know they've ordered groceries that have been delivered to their driveway and they've been out there so long that animals have gotten into the food,
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you know something's up. But her friend who saw her regularly, apparently prior to this, said that she only weighed about 90 pounds and barely ate. Now hospitals were contacted by the police just to check to see, because that's you know one of the obvious places we would want to look, to check to see if she had been transported there or picked up somewhere else and admitted to the hospital.
15:43
There had been no activity on her cell phone, which also indicates that she wasn't living, and her two vehicles were in the driveway. So here's a bunch of clues, right? She's not in the hospital. The groceries she ordered were eaten by animals.
16:00
Her mail's piled up. Her cell phone's not on or working. Hasn't been used in a couple of weeks. You just know she's in that dadgum house, and you can't tell me that they did not smell her. Now the fire department used a ladder to make entry into the second floor window, and there were mountains of used toilet paper.
16:23
Okay, so we've talked about this before too. I've had people that are reclusive, hoarders, living in a very cluttered home, who don't get up out of the chair and actually tear off pieces of a cardboard box and put it between their legs and urinate on it so that the cardboard box soaks up all the urine and then throws it across the room.
16:47
Seen that more than once. Also, if it's a male this is when they often will urinate in a milk jug. So we'll see just milk jugs filled with urine. Mountains of used toilet paper y'all, probably because she couldn't flush it you know because she probably didn't have plumbing, and the stench of urine as you can only imagine. Urine, feces, decomposed body, dead animals, even if I couldn't see in the house imagining the smell is enough. Police chose not to enter at that time, so to me I mean that shouldn't really even be an option. You can't enter? I mean there are ways to prevent being injured, I understand if you truly feel like you're going to be injured, and it could cause a problem. I just ,as a person not even as an investigator, but just as a person, I couldn't go home and sleep at night knowing there was someone in there and I had not looked for them. I don't know how y'all feel about that. But the police department declined to allow their cadaver dog to enter the home due to the conditions.
17:54
Neighbors were debating on whether or not to call the police prior to the friend finally doing it on July 3rd because her mail was piling up and they knew, they must have listened to my podcast, no I'm kidding, they knew the mail was piling up and she wasn't getting it like she normally did.
18:14
Police had the power cut off eventually due to the fact that they had seen the inside of the home and they felt like it was a fire hazard. And she was entered as a missing person on July 5th. And on July 11th, environmental services spent the day going through the house.
18:36
Now when she was finally located, the bones from her forearms and her fingers fell apart. And again, we see that a lot. When the tissue is missing, when someone's decomposed, there's nothing to hold everything together.
18:53
So when you go to move the body, things fall off, things fall apart. Sometimes it's hard to prevent even though we're super careful and super respectful at a crime scene. You know many times people are decomposed and they fill up with fluid and when we move them the bubbles of fluid burst and so it'll kind of make a mess.
19:19
And it's not on purpose but sometimes it's just really difficult to move somebody without making a mess or knocking something off. And in a situation like this, what I can say is at least she was in one piece and there were no animals that actually drug her body into different parts of the home.
19:40
Because we have seen that a lot. I've seen animals try to get their owner's attention when the owner is deceased and grab them by the arm and accidentally rip the arm off and then drag it into another room.
19:54
If something like that had been the case it would have been even harder to find everything because she would have been kind of scattered throughout the house. In this case she was in one piece outside of just being bones with probably very little tissue and so it's not abnormal again for this to happen.
20:17
Her cause of death could not be determined due to the condition of her remains. And again if you don't see any kind of trauma to bones then you can only assume that there was no crime but you can't say beyond a shadow of a doubt and even though she had medical problems and probably took some medications.
20:44
at her age, being 73, you can't say beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was natural. Because we also know that she told her friend that she had fallen. So we don't know, because no one went over there at the time.
20:57
Did she break a bone? Did she have an injury? Did she hit her head? So because we really just don't know, that's one reason why a lot of these cases are ruled undetermined. No visible injuries. Although there is knowledge of medical history, there's also knowledge of an accidental fall, which could have caused an injury.
21:20
Now, they would have been able to visualize the bones to see if there were any fractures. But things like head bleeds at this point, you can't see them. There's not enough tissue. There's not enough there to really do that evaluation because of the decomposition.
21:39
As far as I understand, there was no history of drug use or alcoholism or anything like that. So they don't believe that to be related at all. But this is one reason why we have a lot of undetermined cases.
21:52
I always hate them when a case comes back undetermined because I always like to be able to just give the family some idea of what happened. I feel like that brings them some sort of closure. But in cases like this, we just don't always know.
22:07
And so we explain it to family just like I did you. We know she failed. We don't know if she had an injury. We know she had some medical issues. And we don't see any signs of trauma. But we just can't say because we weren't there at the time.
22:24
And so we don't want to guess. That's not how this works. If we don't know, then it's undetermined. And again, it's a shame. But I mean, chances are it's a natural death. She had been complaining of abdominal pain and had been vomiting and then reported the fall.
22:42
So she probably collapsed. Who knows if she was in the same spot when she was found that she fell in we don't know that that's a problem when you live by yourself is You know, you may not necessarily have someone checking on you.
23:00
I am off my cruise in two weeks Still here is still cruising knock on wood have not gotten sick haven't gotten seasick Haven't had to take anything to prevent seasickness Don't even have the bands on my wrist, but I have all the things handy just in case I need them So no problems yet again knock on wood Let me know if y'all ever cruise.
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Where did you go? Did you love it? Give me some ideas on cruises and I kind of want to do Finland, but I do want to go to Greece Let me know where you've been hop onto my social media pushing up lilies on Facebook and Instagram Feel free to reach out.
23:41
If you're a nurse again with questions about forensic nursing, reach out to me and ask me the questions that you have. So maybe I can help you kind of direct you in one way or another, depending on what your goals are.
23:53
I hope that you'll have an amazing week and stay safe. I will talk to you soon. Bye. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple podcast.
24:11
This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public. Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at PushingUpLilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.