Missing woman found dead, hidden in bushes

Volunteer crews Sunday found the body of a 60-year-old deaf woman who disappeared two weeks ago after a trip to the grocery store.

Searchers discovered the body of Elizabeth Rivera around 10 a.m., hidden inside an abandoned truck bed in the brush near Old Galveston Road and Broadway.

“It wasn’t natural causes,” Tim Miller of Texas EquuSearch said, though authorities have not released an official cause of death.

Rivera, who was deaf and walked with a limp, was reported missing on Oct. 29, two days after she was last seen near Junior Street in Houston, according to a search poster.

After surveilling the area where Rivera had been seen leaving the grocery store, about 40 EquuSearch volunteers showed up Sunday to comb nearby brush.

They searched for only about 10 minutes before finding the decomposing remains in an old truck bed behind a discarded mattress, hidden in the bushes.

“I wouldn’t think she would have climbed in there by herself, but again this is up to HPD Homicide to go ahead and do their investigation and gather whatever evidence they can,” Miller said.

“It appears as though she’s been here for a good period of time.”