A former beauty queen died after a 20-year battle with anorexia which triggered an obsession with making her cheekbones stand out.
Julie Wilson’s weight plummeted to just five stone as she tried to seek a more ‘chiselled’ look after being crowned Miss Ware at the age of 20 in 1991.
An inquest into her death heard she died up to two months before she was found at her home in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, on January 9.
Julie Wilson was crowned Miss Ware at the age of 20 in 1991 – but soon developed anorexia
Ms Wilson died aged 46 from multiple conditions including heart failure caused by her anorexia.
Speaking after the hearing at Hatfield Coroner’s Court, her mother Gina Wilson told how her daughter’s obsession with having a ‘sculptured face’ propelled her eating disorder.
Mrs Wilson, 74, said: ‘After winning Miss Ware, she was getting thinner and thinner. At her lowest weight in 2013 she was just five stone. It was her worst time.
‘She was just sitting on bone, it was awful to see. In her photos you can see that she had quite a full square jaw.
‘She thought that if she lost weight, she would have a sculptured face.
‘Julie once said, ‘do you think I can have my jaws chiselled?’ I told her that that just wasn’t her face. Her skin was thin and pale.’
Mrs Wilson, from Braintree, Essex, said Julie was happy and healthy prior to taking part in the Miss Ware competition in 1991.
Julie was happy and healthy prior to taking part in the Miss Ware competition in 1991
Speaking after the hearing at Hatfield Coroner’s Court, her mother Gina Wilson (pictured with Julie’s father Norman), told how her daughter’s obsession with having a ‘sculptured face’ propelled her eating disorder
But after developing the disease, it stayed with her for more than 20 years and she was forced to give up her job in Asda as her organs shut down.
Mrs Wilson said: ‘She used to play piano, violin, guitar, she worked so hard, all the time. She worked at a car dealership and she absolutely loved it – Julie adored cars.
‘The older people get, the worse the disorder gets, and people don’t realise that this really does affect everyone.
‘We didn’t really discuss it to begin with – we just made sure that there was always food available when she came to visit us.’
Mrs Wilson said she and her husband Norman, 81, finally confronted Julie about her health in 2000, when she admitted to needing help.
She said: ‘One Christmas, maybe in 2000 but I’m not sure, she came over and asked about the special sweetcorn salad I used to make.
‘I told her that I hadn’t made it this year, but would go and quickly rustle some up now – and she came and sat down and ate a bowl.
‘She ran out the room straight after and I popped my head around the stairs, I half-knew what was happening.
‘When she came down from the bathroom, I asked her, “Have you got it all up now?”
‘She sat as a 5’11 girl on her dad’s lap in the living room with her hands around his neck and cried. She said, “I think I need some help.”‘
Despite getting help, he disorder propelled her into a spiral of drinking, self-harm, and isolated behaviour
Julie was hospitalised and despite having turned to her parents for help, Mrs Wilson said she started shutting them out as she continued to struggle with the condition.
The disorder also propelled her into a spiral of drinking, self-harm, and isolated behaviour.
But despite Julie insisting that her parents stay out of her life they visited her home while she was in hospital to feed her cat, Boobie.
Julie’s neighbours called police after a postman noticed her mail was piling up under her letterbox
‘One of the times that we went to feed her cat, I noticed that the curtains were drawn – I said to Norman that she must be home,’ said Mrs Wilson.
‘We shouted for her through the letter box and she screamed and screamed, saying that she didn’t want us in her life – that I’d rummaged and ransacked her cupboards and she didn’t want to see us every again.
‘We stayed in touch and wrote to her every week. She never answered any of our calls but we sent her birthday cards and letters at Christmas asking her to write.
‘She never answered to any of it at all, she never replied to us and we were too scared to go back and visit after the way that she’d shouted before – it was horrible.
‘Julie changed her number in 2016, and we never got through to her ever again.’
In November last year Julie’s neighbours called police after a postman noticed her mail was piling up under her letterbox.
Officers attended and checked the back of the property and when they saw that Julie’s cat had died, they broke into the front of the house.
Once inside they found Julie’s body in the hallway of her home.
A post-mortem found that Julie’s body was too decomposed to pinpoint an exact cause of death.
Her parents urged other anorexia sufferers to learn from Julie’s tragic story and seek help
The coroner for Hertfordshire, Geoffrey Sullivan, was not able to rule on an exact date of death, putting it between November 19, 2016, the last entry in her diary, and January 6, 2017.
He ruled that Julie had died of natural causes.
Mrs Wilson added: ‘It hurts so much that people are going to wonder why it took so long for her to be found.
‘People will think that we’re awful, they’re going to think that we didn’t care at all.
‘I just wish that it had happened when she had all her family around her and she wasn’t alone or that it happened when we were allowed to visit, so that she wasn’t there for so long.
‘It’s heartbreaking. We’d just like to say to any other anorexia sufferers out there, please take warning.’