Grim Discovery Made 8 Months After Ex-Detective Went Missing

A 73-year-old Connecticut woman who had been missing for nearly 8 months was found inside her hoarder home, and the conditions were so abhorrent an excavator was needed to retrieve her decomposed body.

Mary A. Notarangelo, a member of the Bridgeport Police Department who retired on disability following an on-duty car crash that injured her back and legs, had gone missing last July. She was found on Feb. 24, but it wasn't until this week when police revealed the details.

According to Connecticut Insider, Notarangelo had very few relatives and they were hardly ever in touch. A man who occasionally helped her with tasks around the house is the one who reported her missing on July 3.

Glastonbury Police Chief Marshall Porter told the outlet that police attempted to search the house several times, but the home's ghastly conditions made it impossible. Authorities went to incredible lengths to find the missing woman -- from bringing in a cadaver dog and using a drone to calling in the state's environmental agency and a biohazard waste collection company, to no avail.

Related: Teen's Body Found in Beloved Lake as Deaths Pile Up

Finally, police returned with an excavator, and that's when Notarangelo's decomposed body was discovered. Police called the ordeal "strange."

“Hoarders usually have paths. But this was like just piled floor to almost ceiling,” the chief said. “You literally would have had to climb over stuff.”

The hoarding conditions were so bad, police who climbed the piles "had to bend over so they wouldn't hit their heads on the ceiling."

According to a police report obtained by ABC News, "dead birds were found in cages along with mice running about the house and a live cat, along with a terrible stench."