Community clean-up area near Germantown’s Wister Station becomes crime scene

On Saturday, a group of Germantown neighbors gathered near the Wister regional-rail station to reclaim an area along Rufe Street.

Through clean-up and art-hanging efforts, their aim was to “make it more welcoming,” according to an attendee. It didn’t take two days for the block to make crime-story headlines, though.

According to NewsWorks content partner NBC10, the body of a woman in her late teens to early 20s “was found wrapped in sheets along a curb near a wooded area on the 5100 block of Rufe St.” around dinnertime on Monday.

On Tuesday morning, a police spokeswoman told NewsWorks that the 5-foot tall victim could have been up to 35 years old, but it’s too early in the investigation to say with any certainty as they have not yet identified her.

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A passerby noticed the woman wrapped in a single bedsheet in a grass-covered lot off Rufe St., police said.

There were no visible injuries to the victim, but an autopsy was being conducted to determine what caused her death.

Homicide detectives were on the scene Monday night.

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