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Home My Public Portal AboutFarrell, Jim, Georgia, and Robert7"he -51.ate 3014 March q, /q cy:� Neighbors recall Robert Farrell fondly Boise man lived with dead mother for seven years By Marianne Flagg The Idaho Statesman Once the shock falls away, the lives of Robert Farrell and his mother, Georgia Farrell, seem an unfortunate tale of illness and isolation. Neighbors and others describe Robert Farrell — who lived in a South Boise condo for seven years with his mother's corpse — as an intelligent, educated man who must have been gripped by illness. "This can't be, unless Bob was very sick," McCall resident Lois Wilde said when she found out about her old school friend's predicament. "He was always so squared away and logical." Wilde, 67, said Farrell was two years ahead of her at McCall High School. She hasn't seen him in a decade. Farrell remained hospitalized Tuesday at St. Alphonsus Re- gional Medical Center for physi- cal problems. He has not been in the psychiatric unit as previous- ly was reported, hospital spokes- man Bob Hieronymus said. Farrell is declining interviews and wants no information about his condition released, Hieron- ymus said. Farrell's wife, Virginia, who has been separated from Farrell for many years, declined on Tuesday to talk about her husband. Ada County Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg said Tuesday that X-rays taken Friday of Georgia Farrell's body confirmed her son's statement that she had had abdominal surgery. "You could see signs. (Surgical) staples showed up," he said. ti The U.S. Social Security Ad- ministration is investigating what happened to Georgia Far- rell's Social Security checks the past seven years. Sonnenberg said investigators "found stacks of them never cashed." Georgia Farrell died of natu- ral causes, probably in 1987, when she was about 88, Sonnen- berg said. Her mummified body was found Friday morning by neigh- bors and a handyman who went "to Farrell's condo at 4200 Pasa- dena Drive to check on him af- ter he failed to answer the door- bell. Her body lay for un to. seven years on a couch in a back living room. Next -door neighbor Beatrice Taylor, 84, said no foul smell came from the condo. Calls from radio stations and newspapers from as far away as New York, Boston and Washing- ton, D.C., have buzzed around neighbors, some of whom de- cline to talk about the incident. Sonnenberg made the radio rounds, although he turned down some that seemed to want lurid details, he said. In the past few weeks, Taylor, a widow, said Robert Farrell looked frail. "He was as thin as a rail; his clothes hung on him, and his hair needed cutting," she said. In the distant past, Farrell was a helpful neighbor. "He was tickled to death if he could do me a favor,". she recalled. Howevesr, in recent years, Far- rell's social contacts withered. He grew quiet and avoided her and other people, she said. A neighbor who didn't want to reveal her name said Farrell's phone was turned off, and he came by once late at night to use hers. "I didn't know him, so I didn't let him in," said the woman, who lives alone. Farrell didn't want to talk about his mother. "He always said she was in there," Taylor said. "He was telling me the truth." When she and other neighbors never saw Georgia Farrell, "We thought he put her in a nursing home and didn't want to say." k She remembers Farrell caring.; for his mother when she had* cancer surgery years ago. Sonnenberg said interviews: with Farrell revealed he may: not have been able to handle his+ mother's death. "I feel he cared about his mom: very much," Sonnenberg said. m Taylor knew the Farrell fam-y ily slightly in McCall in the ear-: ly '40s. She said Georgia Farrell; moved to Boise after the death; of her husband, Jim Farrell. Jim Farrell was an Idaho For est supervisor from 1941 to 1944,`r. according to Payette National: Forest records. The Idaho and: Weiser forests merged and be came the Payette Forest in 1944. Robert Farrell attended the: University of Idaho, Taylor said.: School records show he gradu-y ated in 1949 with a degree ins economics. He reportedly re-' tired in 1974 from a desk job at: the Central Intelligence Agency: in McLean, Va. A call to the,* CIA was not returned Tuesday. Taylor said Farrell moved to" Boise after retiring, inheriting, the Boise condo from an aunty • who died. For Taylor, the Farrell story: is a sad reminder that you can: live next to someone and know: little about what is going on ins their lives. ` Taylor said she, like other: neighbors, feels bad that she: didn't know what was happen- ing with the Farrells. But, "I was busy. I had two' sisters in nursing homes, and my: husband was sick," she said. �,e: