Cops: Embalmed head found 1 year ago may be that of woman with heart ailment

ECONOMY, Pa. — A woman whose embalmed head was found in the western Pennsylvania woods more than a year ago might have died of a heart ailment, police said Monday.

Tests conducted on the woman's hair at the FBI Forensic Lab in Quantico, Virginia, showed traces of lidocaine and atropine - drugs used to treat acute heart ailments - in her system, Economy police Chief Michael O'Brien said at a news conference.

The woman's head was found Dec. 12, 2014, by a boy walking through the woods in the borough about 15 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Police have yet to determine who the woman is or why her head was severed from her body after it was embalmed.

Authorities performed a burial service for the head at Beaver Cemetery on Saturday, the anniversary of the head's discovery. They called a news conference Monday in hopes the publicity from the burial would help them disseminate the latest information on the case.

"Her identity is a priority of this investigation," O'Brien said.

Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh said a Salt Lake City company, IsoForensics Inc., was hired to test isotopes found in the woman's body. Those substances are elements that form in human bodies from the food and drink that a person consumes, and can form combinations unique to certain geographic areas.

The tests suggest that the woman moved several times in the months before she died, which means she might have been in the care of family or friends, Berosh said.

In general, the tests showed that the woman likely lived somewhere in the Allegheny Mountain region, including western Pennsylvania, but stretching as far north as eastern New York and Lake Ontario, eastern Ohio, northern West Virginia and Maryland, or western and central Pennsylvania.

Another twist added to the mystery was that rubber balls were found in the woman’s eye sockets, officials told Channel 11 News.

“This is just not common practice in the funeral business,” Beaver County Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi said.

Authorities enlisted experts to do an age regression photo of the woman at 50 and then at 30, hoping to jog someone’s memory. Police said they won’t rest until they are able to positively identify her.

“She was somebody’s aunt, mom. We need to figure this out,” Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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