Carrie Elizabeth Romney, the sister-in-law of former Republican presidential candidate and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, has been found dead beside a shopping mall’s parking garage in the Valencia neighborhood of Santa Clarita, California.
Her body was discovered by a passerby on Friday evening, with homicide investigators called to the scene in the Town Center Drive area at around 9 pm.
A preliminary assessment suggested Romney, 64, may have jumped or fallen from the five-storey garage in question, reports ABC News. Her car was reportedly discovered parked at the garage, which is also near the city’s Hyatt Regency Hotel.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has listed her cause of death as “deferred” while toxicology results are currently pending.
The local sheriff’s department has said it is conducting a death investigation and is awaiting the medical examiner’s findings.
“We don’t know if it was suicide or accidental,” LA County Sheriff’s spokesperson Lt Daniel Vizcarra said of the incident. “There is not enough information to go by yet on what the coroner has given us so far.”
The deceased is understood to have been married to the politician’s older brother, George Scott Romney, 81, a prominent attorney and the father of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel.
The couple separated in May this year after eight years of marriage, according to The Daily Mail. “Scott” Romney reportedly filed for divorce on June 10 citing irreconcilable differences, bringing to an end his third marriage.
He and Carrie were married on November 26 2016 and had no children together.
They appear to have preferred to keep their relationship private: neither maintained a social media presence or gave media interviews post-2012 and they were never photographed in public together, the Mail reports.
“Our family is heartbroken by the loss of Carrie, who brought warmth and love to all our lives. We ask for privacy during this difficult time,” Mitt Romney said in a brief statement on behalf of his family.
The politician served as the governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and ran unsuccessfully as the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2012, hoping to deny Democrat Barack Obama a second term in the White House.
He was elected U.S. senator for Utah in 2018 and became known as an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, voting for his impeachment twice, but left office at the end of his term this January.
