Death by Shopping ; Her Car Piled High with Bags, a Popular and Respected Middle-Class Lady Returns From One of Her Daily Shopping Trips. Nothing Odd About That. But Then She Vanished ... And the Scene Police Found at Her Home Was As Tragic As It Was Bizarre

Summary

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AT FIRST sight, the rigid symmetry inside Joan Cunnane's house was strangely beautiful. There were suitcases and boxes neatly stacked from skirting board to ceiling, packed tightly as if constructed as some kind of human hive. The interior of her little bungalow was no longer recognisable as comprising two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and living room.

Every conceivable space, virtually right up to the ceiling, was crammed full of the clothes, antiques, electrical appliances, bric- a-brac, jewellery, books, shoes and fancy goods that her obsession had driven her to buy.

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Extract

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Death by Shopping ; Her Car Piled High with Bags, a Popular and Respected Middle-Class Lady Returns From One of Her Daily Shopping Trips. Nothing Odd About That. But Then She Vanished ... And the Scene Police Found at Her Home Was As Tragic As It Was Bizarre

If you had forced your way into the kitchen, hearing the crunch of 3,000 video cassettes underfoot, you would have seen suitcases on the work surfaces and boxes in the sink. You would have seen a meticulously-hewn 2ft wide space running from doorway to doorway, like an indoor canyon through the mounds of shopping where once there had been a hallway.

And, before the tragedy, if you had made it past the bags, stacks, piles, parcels and trunks, you would have seen Joan's den, a kind of nest made from cardboard boxes and bits of clothing, where she slept, feeling safe, perha...

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