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The derelict home of Marija Zlatic in Serbia. Picture: Ljubisa Trifunovic.
A WOMAN who lived in a mud hut in the hills of Serbia despite inheriting almost $1 million from her dead Australian husband has died as she lived — alone and in impoverished conditions.
But just where that money has gone is a mystery and has split the village where she lived, with neighbours suspicious of each other.
The 86-year-old Maija Zlatic made global headlines in January this year after years of legal wrangling in the NSW courts finally released to her an inheritance of $941,512 and a string of properties about NSW worth another $4 million, following her husband Momcilo’s death there in 2011.
The dual Australian-Serbian national, living as a hermit in the remote village of Valakonje, died in her sleep with her body discovered by neighbours on Wednesday.
Her funeral was held a day later after a coroner ruled natural causes and she was buried in the town of Boljevac.
About 50 people attended her funeral at the orthodox church but that apparently was to see who else would be turning up.
All the talk centred on a group of locals who lived near her who volunteered to “take care of her†shortly after her inheritance made international headlines.
Mary Zlatic pictured at the front door of her home. Picture: Ljubisa Trifunovic.Source:Supplied
“The people who were ‘taking care of her’ took everything and have even installed cameras to monitor that media or others who tried to approach Marijaâ€, a local told News Corp Australia.
Villagers noted suspiciously when those self-appointed carers bought a new car, then a new tractor and finally made home improvements and ringer her mud hut with security cameras which they monitored, they said, for her own protection.
Now some who knew her are demanding to know where the money was and if there was a will. The carer neighbours were declining to comment yesterday.
Locals in Boljevac said despite her sudden wealth the woman remained living a simple life with no mod cons.
The obituary leaflet for Marija Zlatic. Picture: Ljubisa Trifunovic.Source:Supplied
She had electricity hooked up to her mud hut but no running water and lived with her dogs off her Australian pension cheques. She rarely had visitors except the carer locals and had no family.
She and her carpenter husband migrated to Australia in the 1956 and soon after became Australia citizens living in Sydney’s west.
She made a trip back to the Boljevac region several years later to look after her aged mother but never returned home to Australia and her estranged husband. He sent her money for a few years but the pair eventually lost contact, he remarried, and she was not even aware he had died. The NSW Trustee & Guardian spent years looking for her after Momcilo’s husband named her in his will. They were finally contacted by a Serbian family that had heard he had died and contacted the department which after much probing last August authorised the release of the money and properties including a home in Guildford.
Such was her indifference to her new found wealth, when she dropped two 500 Euro notes in the snow she walked on telling neighbours it was too cold to go back and bother looking for them.