London: Detectives investigating the disappearance of the businesswoman Carole Waugh have found a body in a lock-up garage in south-west London, police said on Friday.
Officers discovered the woman’s body on Thursday evening in Lime Court, New Malden, as a result of police enquiries, Scotland Yard said. No formal identification has been made, but a postmortem examination will take place later on Friday.
Waugh, who used to worked in the oil industry in Libya, has not been seen since mid-April when she spent the weekend with her family in Durham.
She last contacted them on her arrival home in London.
Detectives from the homicide and serious crime command took over the missing persons investigation two weeks ago, after Waugh’s bank accounts became the target of significant fraudulent activity.
They revealed that several individuals women and men had posed as Waugh to defraud her of hundreds of thousands of pounds. One man had impersonated her brother Chris Waugh in order to try to sell her Marylebone flat.
A number of personal items have also gone missing from her flat.
Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane, who is leading the investigation said: “We now believe Carole has not been seen alive since 16 April. Since that time significant plundering of her estate has taken place to the value of hundreds of thousands of pounds.”
He said personal items, including Cartier jewellery, had gone missing from her flat. Police have released images of a Cartier ring, a white gold bracelet, a yellow gold bracelet and a yellow gold necklace.
“Carole wore the jewellery regularly,” McFarlane said. “I appeal to anyone who may have been offered such jewellery or has any knowledge of its whereabouts to contact us with information.”
It emerged last week that one line of police inquiry was into suspicions that Waugh led a double life. While her family believed she was a successful businesswoman who had worked in Libya, officers were investigating evidence that she worked as an escort in London.
