( Memphis 9/5/10) Two people in their early 60's were found dead in their home Friday, when Shelby County Sheriff's deputies did a welfare check at the request of family.

The sheriff's department said that the bodies were badly decomposed.

When authorities arrived, there was no answer and power had been shut off in the house.

They asked Memphis, Light, Gas and Water to turn the power back on. And then, through the back door, they found the couple and their dog.

"Basically, they were good people. But just to themselves," said Sylvester McKinley, the neighbor across the street.

He and other neighbors said they didn't really know the couple very well, because they rarely interacted with others.

McKinley hadn't seen them in five weeks.

"I felt like something wasn't right because the mailbox kept filling up with mail," he said.

On the front door, a Fed Ex delivery notice was left from Aug. 20, and an MLGW notice was left from Sept. 2.

An MLGW spokesperson said that the power was shut off on Sept. 2, the day before the couple were found.

The sheriff's department does not suspect foul play. The people have not been identified, and the medical examiner has not given a cause of death.

On Friday, when the sheriffs' deputies arrived, neighbors gathered on McKinley's lawn.

"Sort of like a circus," McKinley said, "really looked like a circus."

No one had smelled anything; not even the woman who lives next door.

Ellen Trim lives across the street from the couple, and said that the sheriff's department had been out to the house many times over the last few years.

She and others told News Channel 3 they believe the wife was sick with cancer.

"Maybe euthanasia, maybe he tried to ease her pain, and then he couldn't live with himself after that. I don't know," Trim said.

Trim said that everyone felt something didn't add up, when they saw mail overflowing in the mailbox. But because the couple were more or less reclusive, she thought they might have been on vacation, or the wife might have been hospitalized.

"We get in our own little world between work and home, and you don't get to visit as much, as you would like and stay on top of everybody," she said.


http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-dead-couple-in-home,0,907200.story