Crime
British National Anne-Marie Drozdz Discovered Murdered in a Bali Villa
BALI – British National Anne-Marie Drozdz has been discovered murdered in a Bali villa. Detectives said 49-year-old Anne-Marie Drozdz was found on the floor of a bedroom in a village near the hillside town of Ubud, a popular tourist destination
There were signs of a forced entry and a graze on the woman’s neck and bruises on her mouth suggested she had been strangled.
Reports from the Indonesian island suggest a construction worker has been arrested in connection with the death.
She is believed to have traveled around the world teaching at international schools and, according to her LinkedIn profile, last worked in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Local police chief Senior Commander Komang Arsana said a housekeeper found Miss Drozdz in the villa in Juniungan village.
Detectives, he said, had taken away a piece of fabric which might have been used to strangle her.
‘We can’t say with any certainty that she was murdered, but it is definitely looking that way,’ said Cmdr Komang.
‘An initial external examination points to murder but we will know for certain after an autopsy has been carried out.’
Miss Drozdz’s body was taken to the Sanglah General Hospital in the Balinese capital, Denpasar, for a post mortem examination.
Coroner Ida Bagus Putu Alit told the Jakarta Globe that the conclusions were that the Briton had been murdered.
‘The forensics team has found a graze on the victim’s neck from stranulation and there were bruises on her mouth.’
Miss Drozdz, a drama graduate from Bristol University, had been in the rented villa since early May, the Jakarta Post reported, pointing out that her body had been found by an American, William Hening, the husband of the villa’s owner.
He had called there to deliver fresh towels to Ms Drozdz when he saw that the door appeared to have been forced open.
He found Miss Drozdz lying on the floor with a black cloth covering her face, said the Post.
As well as what appeared to be strangulation marks on her neck, she was also said to have suffered multiple injuries to her body.
Her death has shocked the quiet neighbourhood of upmarket villas, which are surrounded by a large expanse of rice fields.
Local residents had just celebrated the religious festival of Galungan on Thursday when the news began to spread of her apparent murder.
Ubud is known as Bali’s cultural centre and is rarely the scene of serious crime
It was where Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall went through a ceremonial marriage in 1990 – and it was also where the ‘call girl in the Commons’, Pamela Bordes, went into hiding when she fled Britain in the late 1980s.
A local construction worker was last night reported to have been arrested over the killing.