Woman Dies Trying to Get Into Home Via Window

A neighbor saw what he thought was a department store mannequin hanging upside down from the window of the house next door and ignored it. It turned out to be a woman who died of exposure while trying to break into her home.

The body of Sherry Gaydos, 34, clad only in her underwear and socks, was found Wednesday by the neighbor, hanging upside down with her left leg wedged in a pantry window at her home.

Gaydos’ husband, John, was asleep inside the house when the incident occurred, unaware of his wife’s struggle for life, police said.

“It took two policemen to pry the window off her foot,” John Gaydos said. “She hung upside down by her ankle and froze to death.”

Gaydos said his wife left home while he slept Tuesday evening and drove the car to the end of the alley, where the vehicle struck a telephone pole.

Sherry Gaydos was taken unconscious to a Dayton hospital for treatment, then was released or left on her own, her husband said. In the meantime, her car--with the keys inside--was towed out of the alley, he said.

Police told Gaydos that their investigation showed that his wife took a cab from the hospital to their home around 1 a.m. Wednesday.

With her keys gone, Sherry Gaydos apparently tried to force her way into a pantry window at the rear of the building and became trapped after the window closed on her foot, her husband said.

Gaydos said his wife apparently had removed some of her clothes “because she was trying to be thin enough to get through the small window.”

“It was very small. No human could really have gotten into it,” he said.

It appeared Sherry Gaydos tried to boost herself through the window using a metal garbage can. The can was tipped over beneath the window.

Wilma Johnson, the neighbor who discovered the woman’s snow-covered body, said she noticed the body hanging from the window about 9 a.m. Wednesday but thought it was a department store mannequin. When it still was there several hours later, she investigated.

Gaydos said he was at home while his wife was trying to enter the house, having fallen asleep on the couch. He said he awoke at about 11:30 and went to bed but was not aware that his wife had left.

Dave Lett, an investigator with the Montgomery County coroner’s office, said the official cause of death was not determined pending toxicology tests.

“With this type of death, a woman hanging out of the window by one leg in her underclothing in severe weather, you question that kind of death,” Lett said. “But at this point we did not find any foul play.”