The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

THE elderly woman who was found dead and partially decomposed had a history of “mental illness,” according to police sources.

She has been identified as 54-year-old Rebecca Ashe.

Ms Ashe’s body was found around 10am on Sunday in bushes east of Dignity Gardens when a young girl, walking in the area, “smelt a foul odour.”

Officer in Charge of the Central Detective Unit, Supt Rolle said when police were contacted and found the body, they saw that “the body of the deceased female was partly naked” and in a stage of decomposition.

“It also appears as though she may have been beaten as there are injuries to the face,” he said.

Police originally said the death was being investigated as a homicide, however, police sources say the woman had a history of mental illness and frequently wandered the Carmichael Road area. Police are not sure if she died of natural causes or if she was murdered, the source said.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Anthony Ferguson said an autopsy has to be performed to determine the exact cause of death, but until then the death will be investigated as a homicide because it is better to “treat it as a murder than to not.”

If Ms Ashe’s death is classified as a murder, it would mark the country’s 30th for the first four month’s of the year, according to The Tribune’s records.