The body of a woman, discovered in a shallow grave behind a home in the 400 block of 22nd Street, has been identified.
But Falls police have not yet released her name pending the notification of family. The Gazette is also withholding the woman’s identity to allow for notifications.
Criminal Investigation Division (CID) and Crime Scene Unit (CSU) detectives made the grisly discovery of human remains in a small plot of land, roughly 2 feet wide, 3 feet long and about 18 inches deep in the backyard of a vacant home at 417 22nd St. around mid-morning Tuesday.
The remains were found wrapped in blankets and investigators said they could not immediately determine how long the body had been buried. An autopsy by the Erie County Medical Examiner on Wednesday morning reportedly remains incomplete pending toxicology testing.
Neighbors said the woman lived with her boyfriend in an upper apartment at 423 22nd St. Those same neighbors said they sometimes heard and observed the couple “fighting.”
“Oh, you could hear them yelling,” one neighbor said. “Not that that is unusual in this neighborhood.”
The male half of the couple was reportedly hospitalized with a broken leg on Sunday after an incident involving Falls police. Police also reportedly received a “check the welfare” call for the female half of the couple that same day.
Friends of the woman and neighbors said they had not seen her in the past few months.
Police said they were led to the discovery of the body as part of a missing person investigation that began on Monday. Detectives arrived in the 400 block of 22nd Street around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday and initially searched the backyard at 423 22nd St.
Investigators brought in a K-9, specially trained to locate missing persons, and discovered the makeshift grave, behind 417 22nd St., at about 10 a.m. Detectives spent about four hours digging and sifting through the area around the grave and recovering evidence from inside it.
The CID and CSU detectives returned at mid-afternoon to execute a search warrant on the upper apartment at 423 22nd St. They removed a Husky dog from the apartment before conducting their search.
Sources said the detectives were also looking for video from security cameras at nearby homes to aid in the investigation.