The body of a woman in a bikini was found inside a trash bag in the ocean in Florida’s Gulf Coast by spearfishermen.
She has been identified as Heather Rose Strickland, 34, the FBI’s Tampa Field Office said on Friday.
A group of fishermen discovered Strickland’s body wrapped in bedding in a bag 13 miles off the coast of Pinellas County last Saturday. They called the US Coast Guard.
Strickland was last seen on December 5 leaving HCA Florida Largo Hospital.
Her death has been classified as ‘suspicious’ and officials are waiting for a toxicology report on her cause of death.
Strickland is from the North Florida area but had moved to the Clearwater-St Petersburg region of west Florida five years ago, according to the FBI.
Her parents said they were trying to convince her to move back to north Florida to get treatment for her drug addiction and mental illness.
She was going through ‘a tough time’, her father John Strickland told WFLA.
‘We love her very much. She was a kind person,’ he said. ‘She had some problems with mental illness, but she was a kind person, and no person deserves that.’
He thanked the fishermen for spotting her.
‘She never would have been found,’ John said. ‘It was God’s making sure justice comes.’
Heather was a mother. Her parents are seeking justice in the case and have hope in the FBI.
‘They’re putting up poster boards. They went to the media. They’re doing all that they can,’ John said. ‘And they’re already getting clues as we speak on her last known whereabouts and her life circle.’
Heather was described by the FBI as 5 feet 5 inches tall with red hair and ‘a tattoo on the right side of her neck of “B” and “E” written in Old English Script and a Rose tattoo on the outside of her right thigh’.
Anyone with information on her death is urged to contact the FBI’s Tampa Field Office.
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