PHILADELPHIA, Miss.—Police in Philadelphia, Miss., say no foul play is suspected in the death of a Colorado woman whose body was found hanging from a tree on Saturday.
Police Chief Dickie Sistrunk said an autopsy report shows the death of 34-year-old Donna Giao Dao of Colorado Springs, Colo., was “consistent with suicide.”
The body was spotted about 6:30 a.m. Saturday by a passing motorist.
“Her body was hanging over the ditch about 20 feet up in the tree on a nylon rope,” Sistrunk said.
Sistrunk told The Neshoba Democrat that Dao had apparently come to Neshoba County from Tuscaloosa, Ala., where she had been working in a nail salon, to gamble at Pearl River Resort. Sistrunk says he was contacted by her employer who had heard about her death in news media reports.
Sistrunk said members of Dao’s family in Colorado told investigators that they had not seen Dao in over three months.
Authorities found a pair of shoes and a hat placed neatly on the ground at the trunk of the tree, Sistrunk said.
“There was no sign of a struggle, no disruption of the tree or the immediate area,” Sistrunk said. “The only way she could have gotten up the tree would be by climbing a vine rope.”
———
Information from: The Neshoba Democrat,
