'My parents weren't penniless, they were fiercely stubborn': Walking Dead star Alicia Witt breaks her silence after her parents were found dead of hypothermia and reveals they refused help and hadn't let her inside their home for 'over a decade'
- Witt has broken her silence after her parents were found dead in December
- She said her parents were not penniless and she had tried to help them
- 'Every time I offered to have something repaired for them, they refused to allow workers into their house,' she wrote on social media
- But the elderly couple have refused to let workers in or move out of the home
- And she added she had not been allowed inside their home for 'over a decade'
- They were found inside their Massachusetts home together
- The actress, 46, was unable to reach parents, Robert Witt, 87, and Diane Witt, 75
- They had been in their dilapidated Worcester home for 'several days'
- Police said there had been reports that the couple was experiencing 'furnace problems' and were using a space heater to heat their home
- Hypothermia is suspected as cause of death because one of them was found wearing a coat indoors
- Firefighters who responded to the scene reportedly checked the air quality inside the residence and detected no noxious gases
- Their daughter began her career as a child actor at the age of eight and appeared in Dune, Twin Peaks, Sopranos, Walking Dead and OITNB
Walking Dead actress Alicia Witt has broken her silence after the shocking death of her parents who were found dead inside their run-down home in Massachusetts, revealing that they refused her help and hadn't let her inside for 'over a decade.'
'It still doesn’t feel real,' the redheaded actress, 46, began her Facebook post as she open up about her parents Robert and Diane's heartbreaking deaths.
The star's parents reportedly died from hypothermia a month ago after their heat went out in their 'dilapidated' home, but Witt said it wasn't because she didn't offer to help.
'My parents were not penniless,' she wrote on Facebook. 'They were fiercely stubborn, beautifully original souls, and with that, they made choices - choices that I couldn’t talk them out of.
'I did help them, in all the ways I could - in all the ways they would let me.
'I had no idea that their heat had gone out. I will never understand how or why they made the choice not to tell me this, not to let me help them with this. My heart is broken,' she wrote.
The end: Her note then said she knew she would never hear the voices of her parents again and she would look for them in a 'breeze, in a song, in a dream'
They did not take her help: She also noted that her parents were not 'penniless' and she had tried several times to help them out but they would not let her. And she shared that she had not been in their house for 10 years
On one of her TV shows: Witt in hit horror television series The Walking Dead for season six
Alicia said that she 'struggled' and as much as she helped, 'what else could I have done,' she said.
'Short of petitioning the court system for taking control of two otherwise very sharp, very independent, very capable adults. They were a united, intertwined, indivisible force, determined to do things their own way. knowing they had each other - battling them the way I would have had to in order to do this truly felt like it would have destroyed them,' noted Witt.
She explained that she 'begged, cried, tried to reason with them, tried to convince them to let me help them move - but every time, they became furious with me, telling me I had no right to tell them how to live their lives and that they had it all under control.'
Witt added: 'It was not for a lack of trying on my part, or the part of other people who loved them.'
The star said that a detective had told her over the phone that her parents were found dead after she had placed a welfare call when she became concerned she had not heard back from them.
Witt also shared that she had not been allowed in their house for 'well over 10 years' and didn't know bad it had gotten.
The elderly couple were suspected to have died from hypothermia - a dangerous drop in body temperature caused by a prolonged exposure to cold - possibly played a role in the couple's deaths as one of them had a coat on. But their health had been in decline for a while as her father Robert Witt, 87, was fighting cancer and her mother Diane Witt, 75, had Parkinson's Disease.
'She was a frail little thing, a good wind would blow her away,' the neighbor told the Boston 25.
The couple was found in their home a day before Christmas when temperatures were hitting the teens at night.
Authorities said the Witts' were found without any signs of trauma, but a space heater was found inside the home that needed repairs and that their furnace was malfunctioning, according to the Telegram and Gazette.
Police, alongside an unidentified relative, checked on the couple around December 24. The relative had reportedly told authorities that they had loaned the couple a space heater after their furnace went out a week prior.
In addition, no obvious signs of trauma were found on the bodies, and no traces of poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide were detected during a subsequent inspection.
'There were no signs of foul play. It is under investigation,' police said after the bodies were found in the Sussex Lane home.
The 'reclusive' couple reportedly kept to themselves since the pandemic and hadn't been often seen by neighbors. The neighbors also said the couple rarely answered the door.
'In the last four years we haven't seen them at all,' the neighbor told the Telegram and Gazette.
The neighbor also said the Witts' have been having heating problems since 2018 and had declined an offered to fix it and saw 'someone from the State' dropping off food weekly to the couple, the Telegram and Gazette reported.
Court records also showed that couple didn't have cable, a television, or a computer in their home.
A neighbor said that Alicia was involved in her parents' lives, and whenever she would be in the area, she would send a car to pick them up. When one of the actress' films was on TV, Robert and Diane would come over to the neighbor's house to watch it because 'they didn't have a color TV,' she said.
Authorities have yet to confirm the exact cause of death. An autopsy was conducted.
Witt also shared several throwback photos with her parents.
'They were brilliant educators, deeply kind, curious, intuitive, wise, young at heart, funny - there will never be enough adjectives to describe them,' she said of her parents.
Witt also turned her attention to the stories that have come out.
'The circumstances around my parents’ sudden passings have become fodder for press, and there are some misconceptions rolling around - understandably so,' she wrote.
'This is very delicate for me to write because I'm wanting to honor their privacy, which they held so tightly.
Heart is broken: 'It still doesn’t feel real,' the redheaded actress began her Facebook note
'There’s an awful irony in the fact that, because of the very lengths they went to in order to protect their privacy in life - that privacy has been stripped away in death.'
She said she never imagined she would have to talk about this publicly - much less, amidst overwhelming floods of grief.
She found out on the phone: 'It’s been a month since I got scared, not having heard back from them, and called to have them checked on. Waiting, phone in hand, praying fervently that the next call would be from them, angry I'd gotten someone else involved. Knowing as soon as I heard the detective’s voice on the other line that they were gone'
A very sad loss: Alicia Witt has broken her silence after the shocking death of her parents who were found dead inside their home in Massachusetts a month ago
They were not well: The elderly couple were suspected to have died from hypothermia as one of them had a coat on. But their health had been in decline for a while as her father Robert Witt, 87, was fighting cancer and her mother Diane Witt, 75, had Parkinson's Disease
She then shared that even if she could have had a crystal ball and looked into the future, and if she could have said to them ‘you are going to break my heart and the hearts of all who love you with a worst-case-scenario ending if you don’t let us help you’ - she thinks they still would have made the same choices.
'They weren’t willing to make different ones,' she said.
Alicia said that her last words to her parents were 'I love you.'
'That part was simple; never in doubt. They loved me so. I loved them so,' she ended her Facebook note, which was also partially shared on Instagram.
They were that way: She then delved into the circumstances of their personal lives. 'My parents were not penniless. they were fiercely stubborn, beautifully original souls, and with that, they made choices - choices that I couldn’t talk them out of. I did help them, in all the ways i could - in all the ways they would let me,' she noted
Also in her note said she knew she would never hear the voices of her parents again and she would look for them in a 'breeze, in a song, in a dream.'
Alicia added that she was 'deeply grateful for the gift of having been able to quietly travel to Worcester earlier this month for a beautiful service and burial, to mourn and to celebrate them in total privacy.'
And she said that she would be forever be indebted to Mercadante Funeral Home for going to great lengths to make this possible.
'Thank you, also, to all those who have reached out with your memories about my parents.,' said the Sopranos star.
She had her privacy: Alicia added that she was 'deeply grateful for the gift of having been able to quietly travel to Worcester earlier this month for a beautiful service and burial, to mourn and to celebrate them in total privacy'
The fans have been kind: And she said that she would be forever be indebted to Mercadante Funeral Home for going to great lengths to make this possible. 'Thank you, also, to all those who have reached out with your memories about my parents.,' said the Sopranos star
She was left out: When they were found, it was noted that their house was 'dilapidated' and that they had not fixed their furnace. Alicia said that she 'struggles' and as much as she helped, 'what else could I have done,' she asked
A relative found the bodies at their home in Worcester (pictured). One of the parents was said to have been clad in a coat indoors
The couple, pictured, had been described by a neighbor as having been ill for 'some time,' and were using a space heater to heat their home after experiencing 'furnace problems'
Witt in the 1984 David Lynch film Dune, after being discovered by the film director at the age of eight
Witt with her father, Robert Witt, 87, pictured left, and mother, Diane Witt, 75, pictured right
The couple had lived in Worcester, about 50 miles east of Boston, for decades, according to reports.
Their daughter began her career at the age of eight after being discovered by David Lynch, who cast her in his version of the sci-fi classic Dune in 1984 and an episode of Twin Peaks.
Witt went on to appear in a number of hit television series, including the Sopranos, Two and a Half Men, The Walking Dead, and Orange is the New Black.
Witt is also a pianist and made her stage debut in Los Angeles in 2001.
Alicia Witt breaks silence a month after her parents were found dead - Daily Mail
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