An elderly woman who was found dead inside a chest freezer in a home in the Allied Gardens area of San Diego, California, was identified Thursday as Mary Margaret Haxby-Jones.
Out-of-town visitors to the house found her body on December 22. Law enforcement officials believe she had been missing or was believed to be dead for nearly nine years, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Thursday.
The woman lived in the house on Zion Avenue before she died, the outlet said. According to CBS 8, she would have been 81. Police are now working to determine if her death was linked to a crime or some form of accident:
Haxby-Jones was a registered nurse in the 1980s and had occupied the residence with her husband, identified as a man named Robert.
The Union-Tribune said, “Homicide detectives are treating the investigation as a suspicious death because of the unusual circumstances surrounding how the body was found.” However, a cause of death is pending.
Police said a missing persons report was never filed regarding the woman, NBC News reported.
Meanwhile, one neighbor who knew Haxby-Jones had difficulty recalling the last time she saw the woman, per Fox 5.
“She’s a nice lady, that’s all I can tell you. She says ‘Good day, good morning, goodnight.’ That’s it,” the neighbor commented:
The people who found her body in the running freezer and called police are related to someone living at the house. Officials are trying to determine the woman’s relationship to the current residents.
Other neighbors told NBC News they remembered seeing an older man at the home, while another community member who lives two houses away said he also saw a man there:
“We’ve never seen anybody walk in and out. Even the old man–I’ve never seen him on a sidewalk. I’ve only seen him like at the door,” he explained.