Walking through a busy London shopping centre, pushing her disabled adult daughter Tracey in her wheelchair, Joan Turnell initially looked completely unremarkable and didn’t attract a second glance from other shoppers.
Indeed the half-mile journey, from the housing association flat they shared in Leyton to the supermarket and coffee shop in nearby Walthamstow, was one the pair had made on many previous occasions – just not for some time.
But if the appearance of the pair was entirely mundane, there was one detail that betrayed that they were far from normal – the overpoweringly strong smell emanating from the wheelchair the frail old lady was laboriously pushing.
And it was this detail that led to the Turnells being pointed out to uniformed police officers who approached Mrs Turnell, only to make the most disturbing discovery: Tracey had been dead for over a year and her mother was wheeling around her corpse.
This extraordinary scenario – which saw Joan being immediately sectioned under the Mental Health Act – occurred in November 2023 but only came to wider attention earlier this week when details of the inquest into Tracey’s death in January emerged publicly.
At that hearing East London Coroners Court was critical of the local authority’s dealings with the Turnells in the years leading up to Tracey’s death.
But the inquest still left many questions about how 77-year-old Mrs Turnell’s life had taken such a strange direction that she had become a recluse.
So, in an attempt to answer some of these questions, MailOnline has attempted to piece together the story of Joan’s life – and it makes for strange and disturbing reading.
Joan Turnell, circled, pushed her dead disabled adult daughter Tracey in her wheelchair through a London shopping centre
Peacocks clothing store in Walthamstow where Joan, then aged 77, was stopped by officers as she wheeled her daughter’s body in 2023
Joan, seen here in the only known picture of either mother or daughter, on her wedding day over 50 years ago, was born in Kent in 1946.
But she and her older sister are thought to have been brought up in the same areas of north east London where her macabre story took place.
Joan’s father William Switzer was a TV cabinet maker for then popular brand PYE and they led a conventional family life at various homes in the London suburbs – with her mum Rita ruling the roost.
Certainly Joan was living in Walthamstow when she met the man who would become her first husband – Alan Salisbury.
It was Mr Salisbury, now aged 81 and living near Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire, who shared the black and white picture taken on their wedding day.
He told MailOnline how they first met, in 1960: ‘I used to walk past Joan’s house in Walthamstow on my way to work and wave at her and her sisters while they played records in the front room.
‘One day her older sister Pat invited me in…and that’s how we met.
‘I was 17 and Joan was 15.’
East London Coroner’s court (pictured) was told that Ms Turnell kept her daughter’s body in their shared flat for at least 14 months
Soon they were dating and their relationship was formalised in the wedding scene shown here in Waltham Forest in the spring of 1967.
But Joan’s father had suffered a debilitating industrial accident at his television factory and was seriously ill in the months leading up to the wedding – before disaster struck days later.
Alan explained: ‘Her father had developed a brain condition following his accident at work.
‘And he died while we were on our honeymoon in the Norfolk Broads. It was quite sudden.’
Joan was very close to her father and was rocked by his abrupt death and its timing, he said.
He continued: ‘‘I often wonder if that mentally scarred her.’
‘Afterwards her mother asked me to move into their home with Joan and so I became the man of the house.’
But the newlyweds’ marriage would not last long – according to Alan his bride’s head was turned by a rival, one William Turnell, who was five years Joan’s senior.
She had met Bill at The Crooked Billet pub in Walthamstow and was soon in love.
Alan continued; ‘Not long into marriage, Joan fell for Bill and that was that. We soon divorced and I Iost contact with her.’
Joan Turnell met William Turnell not long after marrying Alan Salisbury, and she would soon have her head turned by the man five years her senior
Soon after that divorce came through Joan would marry a second time, to Mr Turnell, in Havering, Essex in December 1971 – the man whose name she still carries.
And Tracey was born to the couple the following October, again in Waltham Forest.
But her arrival meant more challenges for Joan – because Tracey was born with severe physical disabilities, including a curved spine, damaged knee and deformed arms, with limited mobility.
Complications arising from her various health issues beset her childhood and consumed Joan’s time.
The couple would not have any more children.
Alan, who later remarried himself and went on to have two daughters, believes their divorce was the catalyst for Joan beginning to become withdrawn from the world – despite now having her own family.
Because, according to Alan, Joan’s marrying a second time would lead to her becoming estranged from her own family.
‘I found out later that her mum liked me but never felt the same about Bill. And apparently that drove a wedge between her and Joan.
Police found Joan Turnell wheeling her daughter Tracey’s dead body in Walthamstow in 2023
‘Joan told her that if she couldn’t accept Bill she couldn’t see her granddaughter. I think they were estranged for a while.’
This version of events was confirmed by another member of Joan’s wider family who said she could be combative – and that this didn’t sit well with her sometimes domineering mother, Rita.
Rita, who astonishingly lived to the age of 103, only finally passing away in 2021, is even understood to have removed Joan’s name from her will, so intense was their feud.
But despite this turbulent backdrop, Joan’s second marriage proved more enduring than her first but if it was the first stage in her becoming a recluse that was certainly exacerbated when Bill died in 2010.
After Bill’s death Joan and Tracey moved through various social housing addresses, first in neighbouring Leytonstone and then in Leyton.
It was here that Joan and Tracey – who was by now in her early fifties and completely dependent on her increasingly frail mother – were living when the events heard by the coroner this week unfolded.
Their address was a modern purpose-built block of flats close to local landmark Whipps Cross Hospital.
Their ground floor property is understood to have been set aside for residents with disabilities and had three bedrooms – one more than the homes above – in case carers needed to stay over.
But, it’s increasingly clear, there were no carers.
Joan and Tracey’s address was a modern purpose-built block of flats close to local landmark Whipps Cross Hospital
Joan was becoming a total recluse and looking after her daughter only in the most rudimentary way – according to one of the few people who ever spoke to them in this period.
She refused any offer of help and instead cut herself and her daughter off from the world – avoiding social services workers as well as offers of friendship.
That is the recollection of a longtime neighbour – who was appalled by what she gradually realised were their appalling living conditions.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the neighbour explained how she first came to know Joan and Tracey after regularly encountering the pair on their walks when she she was taking her own daughter to school.
She recalled: ‘I was a stay-at-home mum when I first met them and so I had a lot of spare time and I’d go over to see if they wanted any help.
‘Joan didn’t have much in the way of food.
They’d eat snacks mainly, not proper meals. Joan said she liked taking Tracey to the supermarket everyday and buying her a tea from one of the coffee shops.
‘They’d both say to me “You’re our only friend” and it was kind of sad but true because they kept themselves to themselves most of the time and didn’t tend to mix with people too much.
‘Any time I’d try to help Joan she’d come up with an excuse.
Their ground floor property near the hospital (pictured) is understood to have been set aside for residents with disabilities and had three bedrooms in case carers needed to stay over
‘I could see she was struggling and I offered to call social services and see if they could offer any help, even getting Tracey a new wheelchair because the one she had was broken – it looked like it could’ve been picked up from the side of the road somewhere.
‘But each time Joan would refuse and say they were better off alone and it would only make things worse.
‘Joan would always wear the same tatty old clothes and I said to her once “look I’ve got a wardrobe full of stuff I don’t wear anymore…do you want some bits?”
‘She looked at me in horror and said nothing but I knew I’d offended her and she was never the same with me after that – even sometimes trying to avoid me.
‘The place was in a really bad state. Joan smoked a lot and just let the ash from her cigarette drop onto the carpet which was literally black with dirt.
‘Their flat was really cluttered too, there wasn’t a lot of space to move around.
‘But they never had anyone come in and look after them. It was just them and they were always together, never apart.’
This only friend, having done what she could to try to help struggling Joan, soon disappeared from their lives too.
A longtime neighbour of Joan’s told how the flat was in a ‘really bad state’ which they didn’t accept any help with
She continued: ‘I started going to university and then working so I saw them less and less.
‘Eventually I stopped seeing Tracey altogether but assumed that the wheelchair had broken completely so she couldn’t get out anywhere.’
Which brings us to the events of November 2023.
The best account of what happened then comes from Joan herself.
In a short written statement made to the Coroner’s Court, Joan denied causing her daughter’s death.
Describing the day Tracey died, on a day some 14 months earlier, Joan said that she and her daughter had watched a film together.
When the film ended, she attempted to speak to Tracey but received no response.
Joan was unable to remember the exact date of Tracey’s death but believed it to be around September of 2022.
She made no attempt to formally report the death, explaining: ‘I kept Tracey with me because I couldn’t bear to part with her. I loved her too much.’
Joan told the Coroner’s Court in a statement that she kept daughter Tracey with her because she ‘couldn’t bear to part’
‘I did not cause my daughter’s death,’ her statement for the coroner continued. ‘I do not know what caused my daughter’s death.
‘I did not call for an ambulance because I knew that they couldn’t help.’
That decision would inevitably be unsustainable and soon neighbours began to report a strong smell that seemed to emanate from their flat.
Their next door neighbour – who only gave his name as Kiri – said: ‘Tracey had lived there with her mum Joan for at least ten years.
‘They were inseparable – you’d never see them apart. Joan used to take Tracey out practically every day in her wheelchair.’
Kiri said even before the events of November it had been obvious his neighbours needed help: ‘They wore the same clothes day in, day out.
‘You’d know that the clothes hadn’t been washed properly, just sort of run through with cold water.
‘Tracey was thin, frail and very pale.
‘She went everywhere in a wheelchair.
Neighbour Kiri said Tracey was ‘thin, frail, very pale’ and ‘went everywhere in a wheelchair’
‘Joan was a small lady as well and would really struggle to push her. She didn’t have the strength, if you blew on her she’d probably fall over.’
But sometime in the late summer or early autumn of 2023, things changed.
Kiri went on: ‘Suddenly Tracey wasn’t around any more and Joan would be going out on her own.
‘I stopped her a few times and asked if Tracey was ok and where she was and Joan always replied “She’s lying down inside” and left it at that.
‘There was one time when I bumped into Joan as I came through the entrance to the block and she was in her doorway.
‘We started talking but when I stepped a bit nearer towards her, she got really defensive and closed the door over as if to warn me off.
It was strange, but she clearly didn’t want me anywhere near the flat.’
Soon he began to suspect the truth: ‘Nobody knew for sure what was causing the smell but I had a suspicion it was Tracey and that she was dead inside the flat.
‘It was the smell of death and it’s not something you forget.
‘We complained three times to the caretaker who raised the matter with the housing association but nothing ever seemed to be done about it.’
Even before Tracey’s death, the housing association – L&Q Group – had been alerted to the increasingly decrepit state of the flat.
In August 2022 – a month before Tracey is thought to have died – a gas engineer who had noticed the smell while working in their back had raised concerns.
Housing staff attempted to visit to inquire but no one answered the door and their policy meant they could not enter the flat without consent – and so made a referral to Waltham Forest council.
Following further complaints about the bad smell, housing officers once again attempted to speak to Joan on the morning of November 7, 2023 but she refused to let them inside.
This incident seems to have prompted her macabre walk with her daughter’s corpse: in a misguided attempt to convince the authorities that Tracey was still alive, Joan apparently decided to take her daughter out.
She left their home shortly after the official visit, wheeling her deceased daughter’s body, which was almost entirely shrouded in a large hooded red coat in a crude attempt to disguise its status.
Joan, as she had many times previously, wheeled Tracey to a nearby shopping centre, the 17 & Central in Walthamstow.
Unbeknown to her, she was being followed by those now extremely suspicious housing officers.
When they noticed the same powerful smell that neighbours had reported to them, they called 999.
Joan was soon stopped by two uniformed Metropolitan police officers outside a Peacocks clothing store – and asked if she could follow them to a more private location, a relatively secluded car park nearby.
It was there that one of the officers lifted the hood of Tracey’s coat and discovered her already decomposing body – which was already in a state that meant pathologists were later unable to determine a precise cause of death.
One of those officers was DC Emma Roberts.
DC Emma Roberts was one of the police officers that discovered Tracey’s decomposing body
She told the inquest that Mrs Turnell had asked her and her police colleagues: ‘Why can’t they just leave us alone? We have been fine and I have been looking after her.’
When officers went to her home they found it ‘extremely hazardous’ as it was so unclean.
In the investigation that followed, it was determined that Tracey appeared to have had no close friends or romantic partners.
She did not own a phone and police were unable to source a single photograph of her, in the flat or on any social media, meaning she had to be identified by DNA.
Joan was later diagnosed with ‘prolonged grief disorder’ and was also found to be suffering from a brain tumour.
She was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and a decision was taken that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute her for preventing the unlawful burial of her daughter’s body.
Coroner Graeme Irvine told the court why he had decided to allow her to make only a written statement: ‘I found it inhumane to summons Mrs Turnell to give live evidence. I don’t think the nature and quality of her evidence would have assisted me.’
He added that he had concluded that Joan had ‘severe mental health problems’.
Mr Irvine gave Waltham Forest Council 28 days to respond to questions about their handling of the case, adding: ‘The very tragic and concerning circumstances under which Ms Turnell’s death was discovered have caused me grave concerns,’.
Cllr Louise Mitchell, Cabinet Member for Adults and Health at Waltham Forest, said: ‘The details at the centre of this tragic incident are extremely saddening.
Cllr Louise Mitchell, Cabinet Member for Adults and Health at Waltham Forest (pictured) said they are doing ‘everything in their power’ to prevent a repeat of the ‘tragic incident’
‘We owe it to Tracey and Joan to ensure the lessons of this case are learned and that we are doing everything within our power to prevent it happening again.’
Joan’s older sister, who is now 82, married and lives in Hertfordshire, did not respond to our approach.
Joan’s former neighbour and friend summed up her feelings on learning of what would happen to the pair: ‘It’s so sad.
‘Joan obviously couldn’t bear to leave her daughter even when she’d died. I just wish she’d accepted the help but she just shut them both away.’
But perhaps the final word should go to Joan’s former husband who hadn’t heard any news of her in decades until this week.
‘I didn’t know Tracey had died nor that Joan hadn’t been well. I find it shocking and very very sad,’ he said.
