Lindsay Kines

Female remains found burning in riverside park

Vancouver city police say the woman's throat had been slashed and her nude body wraopped in a tarp and set ablaze with the help of an accelerant.

"Given the amount of accelerant used, and the tarp, there's no question this was an attempt to destroy the evidence -- to destroy the body completely," Constable Anne Drennan said in an interview Sunday.

"In fact, I suppose if nobody had spotted it at that point, it might have burned much further and been almost commpletely unrecognizable. But fortunately, this couple saw it almost from the beginning."

Vehicle seen in area

She was small, perhaps 147 to 152 centimetres (four feet, 10 inches to five feet) tall with a slim build.

Police found part of a purse beneath the corpse. The purse contained a number of syringes, antiseptic wipes and a large quantity of condoms -- leading detectives to suspect the dead woman had worked as a prostitute.

Drenan said the woman had suffered a number of injuries to her body, but it is impossible at this time to determine the exact cause of death or whether the woman had been sexually assaulted.

However, Drennan said detectives strongly believe the woman was killed elsewhere and then brought to Fraser River Park in the 2000-block of West 75th Ave.

A group of young people in the area reproted seeing a black or dark-colored Volkswagen care -- possibly a Jetta or Golf -- race into the area in the early morning and speed away five minutes later. The witnesses said there were four or five people in the car including one white male.

A second witness said he say four men walking across an open field towards a parking lot in the area -- also around the same time.