Woman dies after being trapped naked in airing cupboard of Welsh holiday home, hears inquest

A care worker died of hypothermia after becoming trapped naked in the airing cupboard of her holiday home, an inquest heard.

Elizabeth Isherwood desperately tried to claw her way out by digging into the walls with copper piping after the door handle of the cupboard broke at the villa she was renting near Machynlleth, western Wales, a hearing in Caernarfon was told.

It is believed the 60-year-old was on her way back from the bathroom in the middle of the night when she entered the dark cupboard and the door shut behind her, leaving her trapped. It was unclear why she entered the cupboard.

Coroner Dewi Pritchard Jones said the round part of the door knob had come off the internal mechanism and she was unable to turn the door spindle.

“Being unable to turn the lock and realising she was trapped and there was no light, at some stage she first of all pulled the shelves off. Whether she used them to try and get out, I can’t say,” he told the inquest.

“What she did do was she pulled the copper piping and a piece was broken off. This was used to try initially to open the door because there were marks on the door, but also used to try and break a hole through the wall of the airing cupboard.

“I believe she knocked some of the plaster off one wall to find blocks behind.”

The inquest heard that in Ms Isherwood’s attempts to save herself she burst a pipe, causing water to pour onto her and accelerating her hypothermia.​

The coroner said water would have been flowing throughout the airing cupboard, spraying everything inside.

The former policewoman, from Wolverhampton, had rented the villa alone on 23 September 2017. She was found dead a week later by caretakers investigating a leak at the property.

“My belief is what happened, being locked in the airing cupboard, happened during the night of the 23rd to 24th and more than likely during the early hours of the 24th,” Mr Pritchard Jones said. “I don’t know how long she was in the cupboard. She was a fit lady.”

But it emerged she had been just inches from freedom after the coroner revealed she had managed to pierce one of the walls.

“Unfortunately, on the other side of the wall was a picture. She had been able to break a hole completely through that wall. I think the presence of the picture meant she didn’t realise. She probably thought she couldn’t get out,” Mr Pritchard Jones told the inquest.

The coroner recorded a conclusion of misadventure because of “the sheer bad luck that the knob disintegrated while Mrs Isherwood was in the cupboard, although I can’t say why she was there”.

Home Office pathologist Dr Brian Rodgers could not give an exact account of how long Ms Isherwood was in the cupboard.

“I can’t tell you when she went in that cupboard but she may well have been in there a number of days trying to get out,” he said.

“Whether she’s somehow gone in the wrong door, got confused, who knows? But she’s entered that airing cupboard and the door has closed behind her.”

The tragedy happened at Plas Talgarth holiday complex at Pennal, Machynlleth. John Jones, head of maintenance at the resort, said he looked into a hole in the airing cupboard wall and saw Ms Isherwood’s body.

“I saw the body of a lady on the floor,” he recalled in evidence. “I was so shocked at what I had found.” ​