A women died homeless last year, unaware she had an unclaimed $884,447 inheritance.

Struggling with mental health issues and drug abuse, Cathy Boone died in January 2020 in a warming shelter in Oregon, completely unaware of her latent fortune.

Her family took out newspaper ads and enlisted the help of a private investigator when her mother died in 2016, leaving Boone the windfall, but no one was able to locate her.

The money which was eventually transferred to the Department of State Lands, remains unclaimed although Boone’s two biological children may have a claim to it.

“Given a year and a half of effort taken by the personal representative and the attorney for this particular estate, there really isn’t much more that the state could do. This is a unique case and we sympathise with the family” said Department of State Lands spokeswoman Claudia Ciobanu.