Autopsy: Woman found dead in nature preserve was strangled

MIDLOTHIAN, Ill. (AP) - A suburban Chicago woman whose whose body was discovered Wednesday in a nature preserve where she vanished two days earlier died from strangulation, an autopsy found.

The Cook County medical examiner's office announced Thursday that an autopsy determined that that Vanessa Ceja-Ramirez, 22, died of asphyxiation due to a ligature strangulation. The Harvey woman's death was ruled a homicide.

Ceja-Ramirez's body was found Wednesday afternoon at the Midlothian Meadows Forest Preserve. She went missing there on Monday after she decided to return to a car midway through a walk in the nature preserve with her mother and friend, police have said.

When Ceja-Ramirez's mother and the friend returned to the car, she wasn't there and she could not be located or contacted, police said.

Police asked that anyone with information in Ceja-Ramirez's death to call Cook County Sheriff's Office at 708-865-4896.