Body found in suitcase in north London
Woman’s body found by police in a wooded area at a sports ground in East Mill Hill
A murder investigation is under way after the discovery of a woman’s body in a suitcase in north London.
The body was found by police searching a wooded area by a sports ground in East Mill Hill at about 5pm on Sunday, after they had been called by a member of the public.
The Metropolitan police said the woman, who was white, had not been identified and a postmortem was due to take place on Tuesday afternoon.
Detectives from the Met’s homicide and serious crime unit are investigating. A cordon remains in place in the area where the body was found.
DCI Nicola Wall said: “It’s a suitcase, nothing extraordinary about that. It’s not the biggest suitcase in the world. Who that body is I don’t know. That’s what we are trying to find out.
“We have worked throughout the night and we are working as hard as we can to find out who is in that suitcase and how they came to be there.
“We are in the early stages. There is a family out there and I don’t want to give the wrong information and unnecessarily worry them.”
Local residents said the area sealed off included a footbridge crossing a brook behind a row of houses
Donna Pickup, 42, who lives in the area, said she and her family had walked through the strip of woods an hour before the body was discovered.
“It’s awful. We saw police with sniffer dogs and quite a lot of police. It was all open when we walked through about 4pm. By five it was all closed off.
“We could have walked past the poor woman without realising she was there. It’s a big shock. There are lots of children and dog walkers who use the park.”
