The Mystery of 'Mummified in Michigan': 2014 in Review

For days on end last winter and spring, Pia Farrenkopf was known simply as “mummified woman” until her family adopted – for lack of some better phrase – “Mummified in Michigan” in a Facebook page they hoped would put a human face on a woman whose remains were discovered in an Oakland County garage in March.

“I do not like the name but I wanted the connection to be made with the story and this page,” wrote Farrenkopf’s niece, Nina Logan, who used the Facebook page to vent her frustration at an international media firestorm that suggested that no one cared enough to look for her aunt.

The mystery of how Farrenkopf died – and why no one noticed she was missing for about five years – captivated readers around the globe. A private woman who kept to herself, Farrenkopf’s mortgage payments and other living expenses were automatically deducted from her bank account, and so it wasn’t until the loan was in arrears and foreclosure was underway that her body was discovered.

But she “wasn’t a nobody,” Logan said.“She had a lot of friends. She had a lot of co-workers.”

Explaining the family’s selection of a name they found offensive for Farrenkopf’s memorial page, Logan explained: “I wanted to draw those of you who were reading the story to this page so I could explain to you who Pia Davida Farrenkopf was.”

DNA finally established Farrenkopf’s identity, but how she died – natural causes, suicide or homicide – may never be known. Officials said at the time there wasn’t enough tissue remaining on the badly decomposed body to perform a thorough autopsy to determine the cause of death.

From the 2014 archives, here are some of our stories:

• Contractor Makes Gruesome Discovery In Foreclosed Home
• How Disapperance of Mummified Woman Went Unnoticed
• Family of Mummified Woman ‘Devastated’ by Reports No One Cared
• New Mystery in Mummified Woman Thought Dead Since 2008: Did She Vote on 2010?
• DNA Likely to ID ‘Mummified in Michigan,’ But How She Died May Remain a Mystery
• Mummified Body Positively ID’d as that of Pia Farrenkopf

Also from the 2014 archives:

• 2014 in Review: Deadly Road Rage, Deadly Soccer Rage, and Mob Rage that Nearly Killed Steven Utash
• 2014 in Review: Animal Cuteness, Coyness, Weirdness and - Remember that Testicle-Eating Fish? - Scariness
• 2014 in Review: 250,000 Vets in Tin Cans on Shelves

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Photos via Mummified in Michigan Facebook page