TIRUVANNAMALAI: Sathanur police have registered a case and are inquiring into the death of an 80-year-old foreign woman found dead in a farmhouse last Sunday.

The octogenarian reportedly of Irish descent was living alone in a house in Nedungavadi in Sathanur dam police station limits. She was provided grocery from Tiruvannamalai every Sunday by a man identified as Hari. The locals called her Meenakshi Ammal because of her fair complexion. When Hari came to her house last Sunday, he found her dogs barking continuously. Suspecting something amiss, he went inside the house and was shocked to find the decomposed body of the old woman.

Police said Hari contacted the victim’s distant relative Edward in Ireland, who reportedly had asked the locals to bury the body as nobody from his family would be able to come to India. Police said they did not know the deceased’s real name as she herself had told locals that her name was Meenakshi Ammal. “Her passport was yet to be found,” police said.