The mystery woman whose bikini-clad body was found stuffed in a trash bag by a group of spearfisherman off Florida’s Gulf Coast has been identified as 34-year-old Heather Rose Strickland.
Strickland’s body was found wrapped in bedding and a plastic trash bag, floating 13 miles off the coast of Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay, around 12:40pm on Saturday.
A group of spearfisherman made the gruesome discovery after they cut open the bag and saw the red-headed, green-eyed girl’s body. The fisherman, however, could only make out that it was a human corpse that had some type of bra strap or bikini strap attached to it.
Strickland, who also went by the name Cherry Rose Strickland, was last seen on December 5 leaving HCA Florida Largo Hospital located on 14th Street Southwest. It is not clear why she was in the hospital or if any of her loved ones were looking for her.
Five days later, her body was found.
Heather Rose Strickland’s body was found wrapped in bedding and a plastic trash bag, floating 13 miles off the coast of Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay, around 12:40pm on Saturday
Strickland went to Cape Coral High School and is pictured here on September 2015
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who took over the investigation since the body was found in federal waters, are now calling her death ‘suspicious,’ WFLA News reported.
It is not clear how Strickland’s remains wound up in the ocean, but authorities are awaiting the toxicology report to determine her cause of death.
She was originally from North Florida, has been living in the Clearwater-St. Petersburg area for the last few years, the FBI said.
Strickland, who was also a mother, posted an assortment of photos of her children on her Facebook page over the years. In a December 7, 2012 post, she is shown holding a picture of her newborn with a man named Peter Cruz.
On March 2021, she is pictured with her arm’s around an unidentified man in a post that says: ‘Its funny how people sit an talk bad to others on fb but thats ok im a great mom and love myself as well thats all that matters.’
On February 17, Strickland is shown in a sultry pose that appeared to be her last post before the news of her death.
Strickland stood around 5 feet 5 inches tall and had two tattoos: one on the right side of her neck of the letters ‘B’ and ‘E’ written in Old English Script. The second tattoo is a rose located on the outside of her right thigh.
A map showing the exact location where Strickland was found
On February 17, Strickland posted this image, which would be her last photo before her death
This Facebook post was an earlier photo of Strickland taken on July 27, 2016
A photo of Strickland from March 2021 that shows her with an unidentified male (not pictured). In the post, she wrote: ‘Its funny how people sit an talk bad to others on fb but thats ok im a great mom and love myself as well thats all that matters’
The red-headed Strickland is seen in a picture from February 16 standing alongside a car
The Coast Guard and the St. Petersburg Police Department were on site to recover the woman’s body, who at that point was a Jane Doe.
Captain Dylan Hubbard was at a nearby marina when his crew heard the distress call coming from the vessel trying to reach the U.S. Coast Guard after finding the body.
Hubbard said they called the vessel when they heard the call come in, but were not expecting the captain’s response.
‘He said, “You see that plastic trash bag in front of our boat? That’s a dead body,'” Hubbard recalled the captain telling him.
‘They’re on a small boat, it’s up close and personal, you don’t forget that picture,’ he said about the discovery of the body.
But Hubbard added that he hopes this incident at least gives the person’s family some closure.
The FBI said the 34-year-old was originally from north Florida before spending the last five years here in the Tampa Bay area.
The FBI is asking for anyone with information about her death to contact FBI Tampa Field Office at 813-253-1000 or send a tip to tips.fbi.gov.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk