Woman found dead under ‘suspicious’ circumstances near Vanderbilt Mansion

Who is he – and why is no one looking for him?

More than two weeks later, the body of an unidentified white woman was found dead on the grounds of the historic Vanderbilt Mansion In Hyde Park, New York State Police released a photo to help solve the mystery of what they described as a “suspicious” death.

A hiker discovered the dead woman, believed to be in her 50s or 60s, on Dec. 6 on the east bank of the Hudson River just south of Bard Rock on the sprawling property about 90 miles north of Manhattan. The Dutchess County Medical Examiner said, According to the National Park Service,

“The body was not on National Park Service land, and state investigators do not believe the death occurred on park land,” the agency said.

She stood 5 feet, 5 inches tall, weighed about 112 pounds and had brown eyes and brown hair. State police said no marks or tattoos were visible on the woman’s body.

Both the State Police in Rhinebeck and the Hyde Park Police Department are investigating.

Anyone with information regarding a missing elderly woman in the Hyde Park area is asked to contact Detective Filippini at 845-677-7300 and reference case #NY2400970235.

The lush 211-acre historic site features gardens, greenhouses, fields, a game pavilion and guest cottages and a 54-room Beaux Arts home. It was one of several properties owned by Frederick William Vanderbilt and his wife Louise Holmes Anthony, a descendant of the prominent Vanderbilt family. As per NPS,

The Vanderbilt Mansion is one of the oldest Hudson River estates in the area.

For nearly two centuries, the Vanderbilt Mansion – which was designed and built between 1896 and 1899 – was home to the crème de la crème of New Yorkers.

The house and grounds represent “the domestic ideal of the elite class in late nineteenth-century America.” “It provides a glimpse into estate life, the social stratification of the period, and the world of the American millionaire during the era that historians refer to as the Gilded Age,” its website states.