More details are emerging about the life of a California woman found dead in a chest freezer shortly before Christmas.
On Dec. 22, police said they were called to a home on the 4900 block of Zion Avenue. There, they were met by “out-of-town family” who allegedly made a grisly discovery: the remains of a dead person “inside of a chest freezer.” Last week, San Diego police and the medical examiner’s office identified the body in the freezer as Mary Margaret Haxby-Jones. Detectives think she lived at the residence where her body was found, although she may have been “missing or dead up for up to nine years.” She would have been 81 at the time her remains were discovered.
According to a report in the LA Times, the woman was “estranged” from family and worked as a nurse anesthetist at Zion Medical Center in San Diego from 1980 until 1999. A anonymous family member who spoke with the Times said Haxby-Jones was former military and “rescued exotic birds.” The family member, related by marriage, was under the impression that Haxby-Jones had no living blood relatives.
As the LA Times noted, a “U.S. Army Retired” sticker can be seen on a red car parked in Haxby-Jones’ driveway; a truck next to it also has a military sticker on the back windshield.
The medical examiner’s office is still determining a cause of death, but the police department said in a statement that there was “no obvious traumatic injury” found. “Detectives are interested in speaking with anyone that may have known her or have relevant information about her,” the department said in a statement. Detectives have been tight-lipped so far on if anyone else lived in the home with Haxby-Jones and the circumstances around the other family members’ visit.
A San Diego Police Department suspicious death investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact SDPD’s homicide unit at 619-531-2293 or call Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.
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