Body of NYC storm victim lay undetected for months

[brassmonkey]

NEW YORK (AP) ? In the chaotic days after Superstorm Sandy, an army of aid workers streamed onto the flood-ravaged Rockaway Peninsula looking for anyone who needed help. Health workers and National Guard troops went door to door. City inspectors checked thousands of dwellings for damage. Seaside neighborhoods teemed with utility crews, Red Cross trucks and crews clearing debris.

Yet, even as the months dragged by, nobody thought to look inside the tiny construction trailer rusting away in a junk-filled lot at the corner of Beach 40th Street and Rockaway Beach Boulevard.

If they had, they would have found the body of Keith Lancaster, a quiet handyman who appeared to have been using the trailer as a home the night Sandy sent 5 feet of water churning through the neighborhood.

It took until April 5 before an acquaintance finally went to check on the 62-year-old's whereabouts and found his partially skeletonized remains. His body lay near a calendar that hadn't been turned since October and prescription pill bottles last refilled in the fall.

New York City's medical examiner announced this week that Lancaster had drowned, making him the 44th person ruled to have died in New York City because of the storm.

Neighborhood residents described Lancaster as a loner and something of a drifter, and police said he had never been reported missing. No one stepped forward to claim his body from the city morgue, either, after he was finally discovered this spring. He was buried in a potter's field on an island in Long Island Sound, the medical examiner's office said. A police missing-person squad is still trying to identify any relatives.

But in life, he was well liked by some of the people who saw him sweeping sidewalks around the vacant lot where he sometimes slept.

"When we first moved here, he weeded our entire backyard," said Gerald Sylvester, 55, a retired transit worker who lives in a small bungalow just feet from the trailer where Lancaster died.

Sylvester and his wife, Carrie Vaughan, 60, said Lancaster also mended their fence and once fixed an outdoor light at their house ? but he always refused any money for his help. He wouldn't take any food, either, when they offered, and politely declined their invitations to come inside, explaining he didn't like to go into people's houses.

full article...

[_Richard_]

sad story

[brassmonkey]

Originally Posted by _Richard_

sad story

yeah he drowned probably a drinker passed out.

[_Richard_]

Originally Posted by brassmonkey

yeah he drowned probably a drinker passed out.

perhaps, article said he was on prescriptions, and 'always a gentleman', and never accepted money, so i am assuming a 'wanderer'

feel bad for that family, hope they let it go rather than take responsibility

[brassmonkey]

Originally Posted by _Richard_

perhaps, article said he was on prescriptions, and 'always a gentleman', and never accepted money, so i am assuming a 'wanderer'

feel bad for that family, hope they let it go rather than take responsibility

he went off the meds. yeah i hope they just let it go.

[ludballs]

Sad stuff alright!

[L-Pink]

Poor guy.

[BlackCrayon]

i guess the guy had no one who gave a shit about him. sad.