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Kauai police have identified the body of a woman found in waters off the Na Pali Coast as 39-year-old Ramona van Schendel of the Netherlands.
Police said foul play is not suspected in her death.
Police said personal watercraft riders found the woman’s body Wednesday floating about 20 feet from a rocky shoreline below the Kalalau Trail.
“We are grateful to our community for their care and concern,” Kauai Police Chief Darryl Perry said in a news release. “We received numerous calls, emails and tips in response to our request for assistance, which helped us to identify this woman and notify her family. I join the rest of our Kaua‘i community in sending her loved ones our deepest aloha.”
The woman’s body was taken by personal watercraft to lifeguards at Kee Beach, where she was presumed dead.
“Police believe the woman was hiking along the Kalalau Trail when she fell down a cliff, in an area known as Space Rock, roughly three miles from the Kee Beach trailhead,” the Kauai Police Department said in a news release.
An autopsy determined the cause of death as blunt force trauma consistent with a fall from a height.
Detectives and Department of Land and Natural Resources officers hiked the trail Friday and discovered the spot where they think van Schendel lost her footing. Her belongings, including her identification, were also found there.
Investigators said van Schendel had a permit to camp in Kalalau Valley.
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