MISSOULA – Authorities have released the name of the woman who was found dead under suspicious circumstances.
Missoula County Sheriff TJ McDermott identified the woman as 46-year-old Michelle L. Andrews of Missoula County.
Andrews was found deceased off the 1100 block of East Broadway near Interstate 90 in a maintenance tunnel Sunday night.
Around 6:55 p.m. Sunday, MPD received a call of a body discovered in an access tunnel under the interstate.
When police arrived, they discovered the body of a 46-year-old woman, a Missoula County resident.
Her name has yet to be released.
MPD says they are continuing to investigate a cause of death but that the circumstances surrounding the death are suspicious.
Because of the proximity to campus and the nature of the incident, the University of Montana issued a push notification and UMPD has increased their presence.
The body was found down the road from the Missoula College campus, so the University went ahead and issued a Campus Safety alert earlier Monday.
UM is required to issue such an alert due to the Clery Act, which puts federal regulations on campus security and how they report crimes and security information to the public.
MPD had alerted UMPD of the body’s discovery and the university then determined that it would be best to alert students and faculty.
The two different law enforcement agencies have a great working relationship which makes situations like these easier for UM to deal with.
UMPD, which maintains a working relationship with MPD and vice versa, has an officer working closely with MPD.
“The University of Montana police department has a great relationship with our local partners specifically Missoula Police Department but also Missoula County Sheriff’s office and Montana Highway Patrol,” UM communications director Paula Short said. “We are all constantly sharing information and in fact we have a detective from our campus police that is embedded with Missoula Police and so they are really able to talk about details of cases and work across jurisdictions and they do that in a very seamless way.”
UM also says that they issue these kind of alerts not just for the safety of their community but also to encourage anyone with information to contact them or MPD.
Sheriff McDermott says the cause and manner of Andrews death are still pending.
