The body of a woman was caught in the nets of a fishing boat off the coast of Massachusetts last week, and officials now believe she was buried at sea.
The fishing vessel caught the wrapped body with its nets about 40 miles off the coast on Thursday night, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office said Tuesday in a statement to NBC News.
The crew returned to the Boston Fish Pier on Friday morning and was met by the U.S. Coast Guard and Massachusetts State Police, who took custody of the remains, the Boston Globe reported.
The chief medical examiner found that the woman was in the 60-year-age range and had “numerous cancerous tumors,” according to the district attorney’s office.
The body had been embalmed and there are no indications of foul play, which “appeared consistent with a burial at sea,” the office said.
Officials did not share any details on the circumstances of the woman’s apparent burial.
“We consider this matter non-suspicious and closed,” the district attorney’s office said.
The woman is unlikely to be identified, a spokesperson for the office said.
