Stomach-churning police body camera footage shows ceiling-high piles of garbage under which the body of a retired Connecticut detective was found more than eight months after she disappeared.
The remains of former Bridgeport cop Mary Notarangelo, 73, were discovered underneath mounds of trash at her remote Glastonbury home, along with dead birds, mice and a living cat.
Video shows officers struggling to pry open the front door due to the heaps of garbage pressed up against it from inside the house, footage shared by police following a Freedom of Information Request from CT Insider showed.
Many of the windows were boarded up on the property, which is set back from the road within dense woodland.
Used toilet paper, cans, plastic bottles and other detritus can be seen in the footage, most of which was taken in July 2024 when officers first visited the house looking for Notarangelo, not knowing she had already died.
Workers in hazmat suits and masks are shown sifting through the garbage, making movement inside the home next to impossible.
“I got a cat!” one officer is heard saying after finding the animal, the only living creature discovered inside the property.
“You can taste the foulness in your mouth,” another officer says, remarking on the property’s powerful odor.
“It’s literally filled with used toilet paper and feces. It’s just not safe,” an officer says.
The grisly find was one of the most extensive hoarding cases the officers had ever had to deal with, the Glastonbury Police Department’s Public Information Office Kevin Szydlo told WTNH.
Notarangelo’s death was first reported in June, although her skeletal remains were found at her house last February.
She was first reported missing in July 2024 after a friend who came to check on her noticed bird seed that had been delivered for her beloved pet birds left outside.
Notarangelo last texted the friend around June 12, 2024, complaining of falling, vomiting and abdominal cramps, he told investigators, video footage shared with CT Insider shows.
The former detective worked in Bridgeport between 1985 and 1986, and was promoted to detective in 1992 and then sergeant a year later, the department said.
She was forced to retire on disability following an on-duty car crash in which injured her back and legs, a friend said.
Notarangelo’s cause and manner of death is undetermined, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Connecticut said.
