Olympic gold medalist Tori Bowie reportedly appeared to be heavily pregnant before she was mysteriously found dead earlier this week at her Florida home. The former track and field star also had a long history of erratic and troubled behavior, according to her friends and neighbors living beside her Winter Garden, a smart Orlando suburb.
She died at the age of 32 this week, leaving the athletics world in shock. She had a successful career on the track, winning gold in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 before going on to become the fastest woman in the world the very next year.
Unknown to the World
Bowie appeared to be in the third trimester of her pregnancy at the time of her death, according to a RadarOnline.com report.
According to two neighbors who witnessed the incident, the Olympic gold winner seemed to be seven or eight months pregnant when Orange County deputies conducted a welfare check at 1 PM on Tuesday and found her lifeless body, the outlet reported.
However, Bowie didn't publicly announce her pregnancy. One of the neighbors is said to have claimed Bowie looked like she had 'half a basketball under her shirt', such was her natural slim frame.
Besides, Bowie's friends and neighbors claim that she also had a history of erratic behavior. One person remembered seeing 32-year-old Bowie on the street yelling at a lover while holding a knife, DailyMail.com reported.
The renowned sprinter, who took home gold in the women's 4 x 100m relay at the 2016 Olympic Games, is also reported to have thrown eggs at the house next door in another unsettling incident, the outlet reported.
"I came out of my house one time, and she was standing there in the street clutching a knife and shouting at a man," next-door neighbor Zehra Ugurlu, 52, told the DailyMail.com.
"A family friend of mine managed to talk to her and calm her down but it was scary, it made my daughters uncomfortable.
"Her life was erratic and unhealthy but I'm very sorry about what happened to her. She was so young. Why didn't her friends help her?"
Although police have ruled out foul play, Bowie's cause of death has not yet been revealed.
Death Remains a Mystery
According to court documents viewed by DailyMail.com, Bowie's $500,000 home has been on the verge of being repossessed for the past two years because she owed her homeowners' association more than $22,000.
Locals began to wonder if squatters had moved into the two-bedroom house because the garage door had been left wide open for the previous three months and the front door and windows were routinely left ajar.
Drying laundry was occasionally seen stretched over the front balcony railing.
"We've heard shouting and screaming, loud music in the middle of the night. But what shocked me was that she appeared to have gotten much better lately," another neighbor said.
"Having a baby seemed like it had made her happier. That's what makes it so sad – we are talking about two lost lives.
"It goes to show that you can have fame, success, everything in the world but it won't fix what's going wrong on the inside. She had personal demons but she was a good person."
According to Orange County Court Records, Bowie has also accrued 16 traffic offenses since 2019.
Bowie's mourning sister Tamarra, 36, also made mention of mental health issues on social media.
"People who pretend to be happy have some of the saddest souls and people who do not try to convince the world that they are happy have the most genuine souls, because they are content with just being them for them and nobody else," she said in a Facebook post.
Tributes have poured in from all corners of the sporting world for the track and field athlete, who was also a long-jump champion during her time in college.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, a former adversary on the racetrack, said: "My heart breaks for the family of Tori Bowie. A great competitor and source of light. Your energy and smile will always be with me. Rest in peace."
Bowie's career came to an end after she arrived at the Elite Athlete Training Center in California in January 2019 to prepare for the upcoming season. She was told she wouldn't be allowed inside the premises unless she paid off an allegedly unpaid $6,000 debt.
The same year, Bowie went on to appear in the long jump at the World Championships and finished fourth. However, she did not even attempt to qualify for the Olympics in Tokyo.
Bowie grew up in Sand Hill, Mississippi. Her mother dropped her and her sister off at foster care when she was an infant but they were later adopted by their biological grandmother.
