The naked body of a woman believed to be the victim of a killing was found Saturday evening behind a trash receptacle in the parking lot of a downtown apartment complex.

&#8221She didn’t die by her own hand,“ Warren County Coroner John Thomason said.

The report of the body was made at about 6:30 p.m. by a resident of The Vicksburg Apartments who was taking out her garbage.

&#8221I went to throw away my trash and I saw the legs behind the Dumpster,“ said Dot Palermo of The Vicksburg. &#8221She was laying on her stomach with her legs protruding beside the brick wall – it looks like somebody just put her there. She was just naked as she could be – it’s just unbelievable.“

The trash receptacle for the 11-story complex, formerly the Hotel Vicksburg, is in a parking area off Walnut Street near the corner of Clay.

Capt. Mark Culbertson of the Vicksburg Police department initially said the woman was believed to be someone who frequently walked along Washington Street, a block away. But that woman was later found to be alive.

Culbertson said the cause of death had not been determined, and Thomason said even the woman’s age could not be determined in the initial investigation. He said an autopsy would be performed today at Mississippi Mortuary in Rankin County.

Thomason said the woman appeared to have been dead since Friday, but he was unsure.

The area where the body was discovered is secluded and hardly visible from Clay Street or the parking lot.

No windows of the apartment building face the spot where the body was found.

Crime scene investigators with the Vicksburg Police Department blocked off the perimeter of the apartments to help with the investigation.

Traffic along Clay and Walnut streets was blocked for hours while officers scoured blocks of the downtown area.

If the case proves to be a homicide, it will have been the fourth in Warren County this year.

No arrest had been made in one other, that of David W. &#8221Jones“ Anderson, who was gunned down while leaving a 50th birthday party at the Elks Lodge on Walnut Street, about four blocks north of where the woman’s body was found Saturday evening.