Coldest Case: Woman Found Dead in Snowbank Outside Woodlawn Cemetery
Police outside of Woodlawn Cemetery early this morning after a 49 year-old woman found dead on a pile of snow. Photo by David Greene
by David Greene
Police were called to a long and desolated stretch of Jerome Avenue, between Bainbridge Avenue and East 233 Street on the Woodlawn Heights – Norwood border, after a woman was found dead, laying in a pile of plowed snow from the recent storm.
Police outside of the chapel at Woodlawn Cemetery where the body of a woman was found dead on the snow-covered sidewalk early Sunday morning. Photo by David Greene
Officers from the 50th Precinct were called at just after 3:20 a.m. this morning, after the still-unidentified 49 year-old woman was found behind a parked white van outside of the Woodlawn Cemetery, less than 100-feet from the cemetery’s chapel. Paramedics declared the woman dead at the scene.
Investigators stood over the scene for several hours, treating the case as a homicide because of the desolate location however, police have stated that drug paraphernalia was found near the woman’s body.
Unable to determine if the cause of death was weather related, a drug overdose, suicide or homicide, one police official stated, “All we can say is that she was found face-up on a snow-bank and there was some drug paraphernalia nearby.”
Police declined to say if the body had any visible signs of trauma or if the woman was clothed at the time of her death. The Office of the City’s Medical Examiner will determine the woman’s cause of death and the woman’s identity is being held until notification to the family can be made.
The 50th Precinct has yet to record a single homicide for the year.
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