A woman believed to be in her 40s was found dead near a hiking trail in Highbridge Park on Wednesday morning, discovered face up in the southern half of the upper Manhattan park with a small wound on her back. Police were still working Thursday to determine who she was.
Officers responded to the park at about 9:20 a.m. Wednesday, according to New York Daily News, which first reported the discovery. Cops are trying to determine the woman's identity, and the New York City Medical Examiner's office is working to find her cause of death, the outlet reports.
An autopsy will determine whether the woman was the victim of a crime, according to the same report. No other details about the circumstances of her death, a possible suspect, or a weapon have been released.
Where in the Park She Was Found
Highbridge Park runs nearly three miles from Washington Heights to Inwood, abutting the Harlem River Drive and sitting east of Amsterdam Avenue, per the Daily News account. The woman was found in the park's southern half, the report notes, in a stretch of green space that has long served as a hiking and running corridor for residents of the surrounding neighborhoods.
A Decades-Old Echo in the Same Park
Wednesday's discovery is not the first time Highbridge Park has been the site of a body found under troubling circumstances. In June 1997, a plastic bag containing the body of an unidentified woman was found in the park, according to The New York Times. Two Parks Department workers discovered the bag at 11:20 a.m. in a wooded area near Harlem River Drive after noticing an unusually large swarm of flies, the Times reported at the time.
Detectives from the 30th Precinct investigated that 1997 death as a killing, per the Times. That case remains a separate, decades-old chapter in the park's history, with no confirmed connection to Wednesday's discovery.
For now, the woman found this week remains unidentified, and investigators have not said whether her death is being treated as a homicide. The Medical Examiner's findings are expected to shed light on how she died.
