
If you’re wondering why there are no photos of the foyer in this listing for the ranch home at 8402 Glenscott St. in the southeast Houston neighborhood of Meadowbrook Freeway, it’s likely out of respect. Because that’s the room where Sybil Berndt, the previous owner of this 3-bedroom, 2-bath home, fell, lay still face down on the floor for 3 days, passed away, and then slowly decomposed over the course of 3 months, all while her twin 48-year-old sons Edwin and Edward carried on with their lives, staying inside and watching TV and eating popcorn, potato chips, and candy.
There was a brief period after their mother fell, 2 days before her 89th birthday, when the twins considered getting her to a hospital, but they worried they might not be able to pay for her medical bills, according to investigators. Later, they worried how they might pay for her funeral. (It appears their mother had more than enough money to cover both.) Their mother, according to the twins’ account, never asked for help.

Murder charges have been dismissed against 48-year-old twins Edwin and Edward Berndt, who let their mother lie on the foyer floor of their Meadowbrook Freeway home for 3 days after she slipped and fell— and then left her body to rot in place for 3 months after she died there. The Berndt’s attorney, Robert Scardino, has claimed the twins were born mentally disabled and had depended on their mother for their care. He described the scene investigators found at 8402 Glenscott St. to 11 News reporter Courtney Zubowski back in May: “It doesn’t appear that there was any hygiene [or] baths or showers taken. There was water, but it was trickling water. There was no air conditioning. There were a lot of empty popcorn bags in the house. There were a lot of broken egg shells in the house and a lot of empty tin cans where they were eating food out of a tin can which indicated to me there wasn’t any grocery shopping. . . . 
