Latoya Vance dashed out of her house, holding a cup of tea in one hand and her 2-year-old daughter in the other, to run her morning errands. Fay Rogers was in her home cleaning. James Adams bounded down the steps of his light-blue house for his daily morning walk.

Latoya Vance and her daughter live near near where a body was found in Dorchester, the corpse apparently having gone unnoticed for days. (Jim Davis/Globe Staff)

It was an ordinary Tuesday morning in Dorchester, and life on Mascot Street was moving to its normal rhythm.

A few hours later, Vance’s brother-in-law saw the corpse in the yard as he parked his car.

The body of Nervin Charlot, 19, lay outside a broken-down Audi sedan behind an empty house. He had been dead for almost 60 hours.

The Nov. 9 discovery of Charlot was at least the third time since May 2009 that a body was found many hours after death.

In a city where homicide investigators are called out about 250 to 400 times a year for reports of killings, attempted killings, suicides, and overdoses, it is unusual for a homicide victim to lie outside unobserved for long. But in the neighborhoods where this has happened, the discoveries are unsettling, chilling reminders of how people in a city can be so absorbed in their daily lives that they do not see a body moldering away.

“He wasn’t in hiding; he was very clear and in the open,’’ Vance said, standing outside her house, which abuts the yard where Charlot was found. “What bothers everybody is no one saw him back there. . . . I feel devastated for his family to know that he died in the backyard of an abandoned home.’’

Adams, leaning on his porch railing, also wondered how it was possible that Charlot’s body went undiscovered for so long. Charlot’s sister had reported him missing, and some of his friends had been looking for him, without success. Police believe he was shot early Nov. 7.

“I don’t know; I just don’t know,’’ Adams said. “Maybe it was one of those moments when people have so much on their mind, they’re too busy to see it.’’

Charlot’s body was discovered 18 months after several other corporeal discoveries on the city’s streets. In May 2009, a dead man was found in Dorchester, behind a car, more than eight hours after he was shot. In August 2009, in Hyde Park, two dead men were found in a car, several days after they had been killed.

Police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said a dead body can lie undiscovered for “moments to days to weeks to months.’’

In the most recent case, police officials are investigating how officers, who were on the street investigating another shooting, missed Charlot’s body. Detectives believe that Charlot was shot the same night as Emmanuel Louissaint, 17, who was shot in the chest outside 64 Mascot St. and died later at the hospital. Charlot and Louissaint were probably members of the same gang and together that night, according to Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis.

Some neighbors fear that Charlot was still alive when emergency officials left the scene.

“He probably would have lived if they had found his body,’’ Rogers said, shaking her head.

But Driscoll said that preliminary autopsy results showed Charlot’s injuries were so severe that he would not have been able to survive even if he had received immediate medical attention.

Friends who were with Louissaint did not tell police that Charlot was missing from their group, she said, and police focused their attention on Louissaint.

“It’s important to note that the detectives are dependent upon the immediate evidence, as well as preliminary witness statements,’’ Driscoll said. “We responded to the victim that everyone was pointing us to, and we did not receive any further information at that point, despite the fact that there may have been someone else who fled with injuries.’’

The previous incidents of undiscovered bodies also involved complex crime situations.

On May 13, 2009, police rushed to the area of 24 Wilcock St., where two men in a car had driven by and opened fire on a group of men. Police saw the fleeing car and chased after it, unaware that a bystander, Fred Bing, 49, had been struck three times.

The next morning, at about 6:45, a passerby found Bing’s body and called police.

Three months after Bing’s shooting, police were called to 175 Clare Ave., the address of a four-story apartment complex.

Inside a black Toyota Camry sat two men, Anthony Glover, 33, and his friend, Paul Roberson, 25. They had been stabbed and shot and had been dead at least three days, according to neighbors.

Driscoll said the men were probably killed by someone who was inside the car with them, which is probably why nobody reported hearing gunfire. Shotspotter, a gun detection system that can pinpoint the location of a shooting, is not installed around Clare Avenue, but it is unlikely the system would have picked up the muffled shots, Driscoll said.

Clare Avenue, a residential street, is off busy American Legion Highway and often used as a shortcut to Hyde Park Avenue. Residents of the apartment complex often smoke and water potted plants on the balconies overlooking the parking lot.

The Toyota was tucked in a back corner of the lot, but it was visible from the sidewalk, where people often walk to nearby bus stops.

Still, the only indication that something was amiss was the odor coming from the car, according to neighbors.

“The people in the [complex] all complained about the horrible smell,’’ said Rosa Machado, member of the Clare Avenue Neighborhood Association. “We all thought it was the trash.’’

The son of a resident of the complex found the bodies after he approached the car to investigate the smell, neighbors said.

“When we found that it was bodies, everybody just panicked,’’ Machado said. “I didn’t know if it was somebody that we knew . . . if we could have somehow avoided it.’’

Since the bodies were found, neighbors have taken a strong interest in watching over Clare Avenue, Machado said. About 30 people now come to the crime watch meetings, three times more than Machado said she used to see.

Now, if neighbors see a strange car on the street, they immediately call each other, she said, and ask: “ ‘Do you know whose car that is? Is that your car?’ ’’

Vance, from Mascot Street, said that before Charlot’s body was found, she would have minded her own business if she heard a strange noise. Now, she said, she will act on her curiosity.

“Maybe you’re a big busybody, but at least someone will be able to say: ‘I saw. I heard,’ ’’ she said. “We have to look out for our neighborhood.’’

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.

© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

Published Thursday, November 18, 2010.