Update 6:37 p.m.:
Police have determined that the death of a woman whose body was found in a room at a downtown Anchorage motel early Sunday was a suicide.
"The scene in general was initially suspicious until APD's Crime Scene Team and detectives were able to further investigate and confirm the death was a suicide," Anchorage Police Department spokesperson Jennifer Castro wrote in an e-mail Sunday night. "The female was from out of state and police are working to notify next of kin."
Original story:
Anchorage police are investigating what is being described as a "suspicious" death after a woman's body was found in a downtown motel room Sunday.
A motel maintenance worker at the Econo Inn found the body in a room, Anchorage Police Department patrol sergeant Richard Steiding said on Sunday.
Police were called at 11:23 a.m., APD spokesperson Jennifer Castro wrote in an e-mail.
"When officers arrived they found that there was a deceased female in the room, on the bed," Steiding said.
The Econo Inn is located on the corner of East Fifth Avenue and Gambell Street on the eastern edge of downtown Anchorage.
Police would not say why exactly the death is considered suspicious.
"Evidence so far at the scene suggests that her death was likely not self-inflicted," Castro wrote in an e-mail.
Detectives and the APD mobile crime scene team spent Sunday afternoon processing the scene.
As of Sunday night, the deceased woman's name had not been released. Police said they were trying to locate and notify her next-of-kin.