Yuba City Police Investigating After Woman Found Dead Inside Home

YUBA CITY (CBS13) - Homicide detectives are investigating a suspicious death after an elderly woman was found deceased inside her Yuba City home on Wednesday morning.

"I think it's tragic and terrifying actually," neighbor Anna Bernardino said. "She was a very kind woman."

Yuba City police officers were called out at about 10:40 a.m. after family members went to check on the woman and found her dead inside her home in the 500 block of Park Avenue near B Street, a few blocks from Yuba City High School.

A police spokesman said the body showed signs of trauma and there were other suspicious circumstances inside the home. A neighbor said three homes were blocked off with police tape.

"She was very nice. I don't know who would do such a thing to her, if it is a murder," said Bernardino.

As the investigation into Bernardino's elderly neighbor stretched into the night, the questions swirling the death intensified.

Bernardino and others who knew the woman fear the worst. The woman in her 90s was found dead by a family member who hadn't heard from her for days.

One neighbor told CBS13 they saw bloody footprints near the home.

"She's a nice lady. I don't know her by name, but she is a really nice person," neighbor Michael Alexander said.

Although investigators marked areas where they found blood, and were at the home for hours, they stayed tight-lipped about the death. They only called it suspicious.

"I used to spend my summers with her, and both me and my brother would go to her house; and make like puzzles and bake with her," Bernardino said.

Bernardino, who says she used to go to the woman's home as a little girl, was hit hard by grief and left wondering when she died, how and if there was anything anyone could've done.

"If it was a break in, we don't know how it could happen, we didn't hear anything," said Bernardino.

Although neighbors told CBS13 the woman's name, police wouldn't confirm her identity or how old she was.