TELFORD, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Authorities in Bucks County have opened a homicide investigation after a woman was found dead in her apartment last weekend. Those who knew the victim said she stopped showing up to work and responding to them about a week earlier.
Police found 23-year-old Maria Popol unresponsive in her apartment on Main Street in Telford the morning of March 15. An autopsy followed, and the coroner’s office ruled the manner of death a homicide, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement on Thursday.
Popol’s family members told NBC10 that they last heard from her on March 6. She was supposed to show up to work the next day at Don Leo’s restaurant in Telford.
“I received some text messages saying she was gonna be late and then she was moving, that’s why she was gonna be late,” owner Margie Dominguez said.
Dominguez indicated that Popol did not seem to be doing well recently.
“Sometimes she had signs she wasn’t sleeping well. We could tell that she wasn’t probably having a good time where she was,” she said.
Popol moved to the U.S. from Guatemala two years ago, her family said. She was in New Jersey at first, then moved to Telford with her boyfriend.
The family is now raising money to pay for her body to be transported to Guatemala.
Authorities have not identified a suspect or shed light on the exact circumstances surrounding her death.
Anyone with information about Popol’s death is asked to call Bucks County detectives at 215-348-6354 or Telford Borough detectives at 215-723-6700.