UPDATE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28 -- According to the coroner, the remains were positively identified as Patricia Richey, age 80.
HONESDALE -- Authorities released new details in the gruesome discovery of an elderly woman's decomposed body and her daughter's alleged attempts to hide it.
The death investigation began in Honesdale Friday after the elderly woman was found inside a bed and breakfast by the owners.
According to a search warrant, Patricia Richey, 80, lived on the third floor of the bed and breakfast on North Main Street. She lived there with her daughter Moira, a former officer with the NYPD who now faces questions of when and how her mother died.
The search warrant indicates the owners of Harvest Inn found a decomposed body Friday morning in the room where Patricia Richey was staying.
"We opened the door and there was something in bed covered and that's all we saw, and there was no smell," said owner Mary McHugh.
McHugh runs the inn with her husband and says Richey and her daughter Moira didn't pay rent but stayed on the third floor. The owners last saw Patricia Richey last fall then McHugh tells Newswatch 16 Moira Richey moved to another room after having trouble breathing in her mother's room. That was in February or March of this year.
"She would not let me into the mother's room," McHugh recalled.
Moira Richey was seen walking away from the inn Monday morning.
Newswatch 16 has learned she was an officer with NYPD but the department couldn't say why she left or when.
"You feel sick, you want to throw up, you don't understand how this could happen," McHugh added.
An autopsy was unable to determine how the woman died and an official ID is still pending but the question remains: was the woman dead for weeks or even months while guests stayed just one floor below?
"It's very kind of scary. it was there that long and nobody knew," said Dayna Quinlass of Honesdale.
"It's terrible, today, you know it's terrible. I feel really bad, but nothing surprises me today," said Myrna Zielinski of Bethany.
The owners of the Harvest Inn say Patricia Richey was not in good health at any point while she lived there.
State police are still investigating and so far, no charges have been filed.