A 63-year-old woman was found dead inside her East Village apartment Tuesday afternoon, and San Diego police say the circumstances surrounding her death are unusual enough that the department’s Homicide Unit has taken over the case. Officers were called to a residence on 17th Street around 2 p.m. after the discovery, and investigators are now working to figure out exactly what happened.
According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, a property management employee found the woman dead inside her apartment, prompting a call to police. FOX 5 San Diego reports that the San Diego Police Department’s Homicide Unit is investigating because of the “unusual circumstances” surrounding the death, though no cause of death, suspect or arrest has been disclosed.
The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office is now tasked with determining the woman’s cause and manner of death, per the same report from FOX 5 San Diego. That determination has not yet been made public, and police have not described any evidence of foul play, a timeline for the investigation, or identified the woman involved.
Investigators Appeal for Tips From the Neighborhood
Police are asking anyone with information about the case to come forward. Tipsters can reach the Homicide Unit directly at 619-531-2293, or contact Crime Stoppers anonymously at 888-580-8477, the station notes.
East Village has seen scrutiny over suspicious deaths before, though each case has stood apart on its own facts. Back in 2017, homicide detectives investigated the suspicious death of a man in his 70s found in an East Village studio, after a maintenance worker discovered his body on a bed inside an apartment building near Market and 12th streets, as reported by the Union-Tribune at the time. Police said that man had suffered a head injury, and investigators pulled surveillance footage from the building’s common areas, but none of it shed light on how he died, leaving the Medical Examiner’s Office to determine whether the death was criminal.
For now, the East Village case from Tuesday remains open, with no cause of death confirmed and no suspect named. Residents in the neighborhood are left waiting on the Medical Examiner’s Office and the Homicide Unit to sort out what happened inside the 17th Street apartment.
