Bulgarian Authorities Investigating Killing Of TV Reporter

SOFIA -- A Bulgarian TV reporter has been found dead in a northern border city and authorities say they are investigating into whether it was a random crime or was connected to her reporting work, reports RFE/RL.

The body of Viktoria Marinova was found in a park in the city of Ruse, officials said on October 7.

Iliyan Enchev, the deputy regional chief of the Interior Ministry in Ruse, told a news conference that a person walking in a park in Ruse, a Danube River city on the border with Romania, notified police of a female corpse on October 6.

He said her body could not be immediately identified, because there was no identification on the body, and her mobile phone was also missing. Some of her personal items were scattered near the walkway, and her body was found lying several meters away from one of her shoes, he said.

A local prosecutor, Georgi Georgiev, told reporters that her mobile phone, her car keys, her eyeglasses, and some of her clothing were missing.

Marinova died "of combined trauma to her head and asphyxiation," he said.

Georgiev said investigators were looking into several theories, whether it was a random crime or if the attack was connected to her work. He declined to answer reporters' question about whether there was signs she had been sexually assaulted.

A colleague at her employer, the private TV station TVN, confirmed Marinova's death to RFE/RL, but declined to say anything more pending an official statement from the station.