A woman believed to be between 20 and 30 years old was found dead early Tuesday morning near Interstate 35 and Benton City Road in Von Ormy, and investigators say her body showed no obvious signs of trauma, ruling out an immediate vehicle-collision explanation. A city worker checking grass before mowing spotted the body around 6 a.m., according to Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar. She has not yet been identified.
Sheriff Salazar told reporters the woman was Hispanic, approximately 5 feet tall, and weighed between 125 and 135 pounds, and that she was found lying face down in the grass, according to the San Antonio Express-News. The Bexar County Sheriff's Office is asking the public for help identifying her. As KTSA reports, deputies are simultaneously reviewing surveillance video and checking missing-person reports in an effort to piece together who she was and how she ended up along the highway.
No Trauma Shifts Focus to Overdose or Poisoning
Investigators estimated the body had been at the roadside for only a few hours before it was discovered, with authorities estimating it was deposited sometime between midnight and 6 a.m., the Express-News reports. Because deputies found no obvious signs of trauma, Sheriff Salazar said that ruled out a vehicle collision, steering the investigation instead toward the possibility of an overdose or poisoning. The Bexar County Sheriff's Office has classified the case as a suspicious death while it works to determine what happened.
Officers also noted that the woman did not appear unkempt, a detail investigators are using to help narrow down who she might be, according to MySA. That observation suggests to law enforcement that she was likely not experiencing homelessness at the time of her death, though her identity otherwise remains unknown.
Multi-Agency Response Along a Known Smuggling Corridor
Officers from the Von Ormy Police Department and Bexar County Sheriff's deputies jointly closed nearby roads during initial evidence collection and canvassed surrounding businesses for surveillance footage covering the overnight hours, per the same Express-News account. Sheriff Salazar noted during the news conference that this stretch of I-35 running through Von Ormy frequently yields reports of dumped bodies tied to human smuggling operations moving north from the U.S.-Mexico border, leaving open the question of whether the woman was a migrant in transit — a detail that remains unresolved.
This is not the first unexplained roadside death investigators have handled on this same highway segment. In September 2023, Bexar County deputies investigated another body found along I-35 South in Von Ormy after an off-duty officer reported a deceased man in his 40s suspected to be a hit-and-run victim, according to KENS 5. Von Ormy, incorporated in 2008 and home to just 1,174 residents as of the 2020 U.S. Census per Wikipedia, sits about 15 miles southwest of San Antonio along the busy interstate corridor.
Toxicology and Legal Questions Still Unanswered
The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office will determine both the woman's identity and her official cause of death. Texas law requires the office to conduct mandatory inquests and toxicology testing on all unnatural, sudden, or unexplained deaths, a process that the county's own website notes can take several weeks to finalize. Until those results come back, deputies cannot say for certain whether the death involved foul play, an overdose, or another cause.
If investigators eventually determine the body was moved or dumped by someone other than the woman herself, Texas law provides another avenue for prosecutors. Under Texas Penal Code Section 42.08, knowingly concealing, carrying away, or treating a human corpse in an offensive manner without legal authority is a state jail felony, punishable by 180 days to two years in state jail and fines up to $10,000, according to Saputo Toufexis. Such charges could be applied alongside any homicide case, though no charges have been announced in this investigation.
This is the second unidentified body Bexar County deputies have investigated along a rural roadway in recent weeks, following a case last Wednesday in which a decomposed body was found off Hildebrandt Road and Sheriff Salazar suspected a fatal hit-and-run. Bexar County recorded 209 motor vehicle traffic fatalities in 2025, keeping it among the five highest counties for traffic deaths in Texas, underscoring how frequently the region's highways factor into fatal incidents of all kinds. For now, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office says it will continue reviewing surveillance footage and missing-person reports as it works to identify the woman and determine what led to her death.
