Jerdine Angela Jones, 68, was discovered in Stocksfield Road, close to Wood Street station.
An inquest was opened into her death at East London Coroner’s Court on Friday morning (July 18).
“The Metropolitan Police Services referred the death to the court as Mrs Jones was found deceased at her home address with no clear cause of death,” said senior coroner Graeme Irvine.
She was “identified through the Metropolitan Police Service, though a variety of sources of corroborating identification evidence,” he said.
No information was given during the brief hearing as to who had called the police to Mrs Jones’s home or why.
But the force referred the case to the coroner for investigation, meaning it decided her death was not suspicious.
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The coroner ordered an autopsy but he said: “Regrettably, the outcome of that post-mortem was that the cause of death is unascertained due to the extent of decomposition.
“In the absence of a clear cause of death, I must open an inquest.”
Coroners are required to hold public inquests to investigate all unnatural or unexplained deaths, and whether future similar deaths might be avoided.
He declared Mrs Jones’s next of kin an “interested person” – a legal status entitling them to legal representation, to scrutinise evidence ahead of the final inquest and to question any witnesses called to testify.
He asked his staff to obtain a statement from the next of kin which included “background about who Mrs Jones was in life, when she was last seen by them, any information that they can provide in elation to her movements prior to her death, and any concerns that they have about the death.”
He also asked his staff to obtain Mrs Jones’s GP records and statements from the Met Police setting out officers’ attendance, investigation and how they went about identifying Mrs Jones.
