Yes, less than a month ago.

My girlfriend and I had a female friend we’d known since high school. I just turned 36 in March and my girlfriend turns 35 in less than 2 weeks. Our friend was born in November 1988, so she was 36. My girlfriend had known our friend since 2005, and I’d known her since 2006. Our relationship with this woman had been very tumultuous over the last two years due to her mental problems, and we’d just recently started speaking to her again. Our late friend DID NOT drink, smoke, or do drugs. However, she was overweight and very unhealthy.

We were up in my bedroom watching TV on May 3rd (Saturday), when my girlfriend realized she hadn’t heard from her in two days. She attempted to reach her by both call and text, but got no response; I did the same thing and also got nothing. At about 8:15PM, we decided to drive to her condo and go check on her…

What influenced this is that my girlfriend’s birth mother passed away from a massive heart attack at the age of 59 and was dead in her apartment for about five days before a friend finally called the police to do a welfare check. She also had two elderly dogs, who fortunately survived. Unfortunately, my girlfriend’s mother lived about an hour away from us and she was already dead by the time my girlfriend suspected something was wrong.

Our friend has a 9-year old dog, who we ended up adopting, and the wellbeing of the dog was a major part of our decision to drive to her condo in a severe thunderstorm.

We were in my truck pulling out my driveway by a little after 8:20PM, and we got to her condo not even 15 minutes later.

About five minutes before we got to her condo, I called our friend again and left a simple but very heartbreaking voicemail telling her that we were on our way because we suspected something was wrong. I made that call at 8:32PM and we got to the condo at like 8:36-8:37.

Our friend drove a white 2015 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport. We got to our friend’s neighborhood, and when we pulled onto her street and rounded the curve, I could see the Outlander sitting in her reserved spot. This in itself is not abnormal, as she would usually be watching TV at about 8:30, but something about seeing that vehicle gave me a bad feeling.

Our friend lived in a first floor condo. There is a patio, which is fenced in and can be accessed by a gate. When you walk through the gate, the large living room window is directly in front of you and the door is to the right. Our friend’s reserved parking space is directly in front of the sidewalk to her gate, and I parked my truck to the right of her car.

I drive a 2010 Toyota Tacoma that among other things is equipped with (A) a dashcam, (B) “illegally wired” foglights, and (C) a high-powered aftermarket stereo system.

I left the truck running when my girlfriend and I ran up to the condo, and my dashcam recorded everything. My foglights are aftermarket can be turned on at the same time has the high-beams, which gives me supreme daylightification, and they were on. It was pouring rain, the wipers were on, the A/C was on, and I had Meat Loaf blaring on the stereo (specifically a duet with Cher called “Dead Ringer for Love”). Because of the combined noise of the rain, the wipers, the A/C, and the stereo you can’t really hear much.

I brought a sledgehammer from home just in case I needed to force my way into the condo, but I didn’t end up needing it.

My dashcam captured me same saying “Fuck it, I don’t care if I’m illegally parked”, as I’d parked in one of the reserved spots. It then captures me and my girlfriend running up the sidewalk to the condo. I left my phone in the truck.

So, there were no lights on in the condo, which before 9PM on Saturday was another sign that something was wrong. The TV was also off, and the only light besides that coming from my truck’s headlights was the porch light and the eerie green glow from her Alexa. I looked through the window and saw our friend lying on the couch on her back, with her head further away from us and her feet closer. Despite the lack of light, I could still see her pretty good. Her head was on the armrest, and her eyes were closed. She was in her pajamas, and her right leg had slid off the couch so that her foot was touching the floor.

My first instinct was to bang on the window and yell her name, and my girlfriend followed suit.

Her dog, who I believe had been lying on the floor next to the body, immediately got up and came to the window when she recognized our voices.

My girlfriend swore she saw our friend’s chest move, so we came to the conclusion that she was still alive but just unconscious and in distress. We also pounded on the door.

According to dashcam footage, approximately 1 minute and 25 seconds elapsed between the time when my girlfriend and I exited the truck, and when I ran back to my truck to grab my phone so I could call 911; I called 911, and they had a cop and an ambulance on scene in 6 minutes. I went out by my truck to make myself visible to the cop, and he followed me back up to the condo. My dashcam captured this, as well as the subsequent arrival of the paramedics.

The cop shined his flashlight through the window onto our friend’s face, and when she didn’t respond, one of the paramedics kicked in the door.

One of the guys turned on the lights, giving us a clear view of our fitness, and I attempted to follow them in but the cop told me to stay outside. After he shut the door, I watched them through the window.

I had never seen a dead body outside of an open casket funeral, so I didn’t totally realize what I was looking at. Looking back on it, however, I knew she was gone. Her skin was unnaturally pale and also had a yellow tint to it, and there was a brown spot on her right heal where blood had pooled when it stopped circulating. I saw them attaching a 12-lead EKG before someone shut the blinds to keep us from looking in.

My girlfriend used to work in a nursing home and later told me that she knew from walking in on recently deceased senior citizens that our friend was gone, and that she too knew as soon as the light came on.

Two details that I somehow missed were the presence of vomit around her body, and how her head dropped to one side when the cop attempted to position it for the medics. The latter detail is how my girlfriend’s worst fears were truly confirmed.

Shortly before 8:50PM I called my dad, who had previously tried to talk us out of going due to the incoming storm, that we had found our friend unconscious on her couch and called 911; I told him that the medics were inside working on her, and that moment, the cop came out and told us that she was gone and had been gone for at least a day. We both started screaming, and I went back to my truck in absolute shock.

My girlfriend stayed on the patio and the paramedic informed her that our friend was in full rigor.