Missing Powell woman found dead in Italy

Asso­ci­ated Press

ROME — The body of a Pow­ell woman miss­ing in Tus­cany for three days was found Wednes­day beside a busy road­way in what appears to be a hit-and-run acci­dent, Ital­ian police said.

Cara­binieri Col. Anto­nio Frassinetto told a news con­fer­ence that the body of Alli­son Owens, 23, of Pow­ell, was found in a canal beside the heav­ily traf­ficked road in San Gio­vanni Valdarno.

Tests have been ordered to deter­mine the cause of death, but inves­ti­ga­tors believe she had been jog­ging. Owens may have been using an iPod and not heard a car approach­ing, Frassinetto said.

Owens was a guide for a tour com­pany. She was last seen alive Sun­day after­noon, and more than 100 police using dogs searched for her after friends reported her missing.

Ital­ian media reported that her mother arrived Wednes­day and met with investigators.

Stacy Lilly, a close friend of the fam­ily in Colum­bus, said Owens’ mother, Cindy Owens, arrived in Italy on Wednes­day and was in shock over the news while try­ing to con­firm the details of her daughter’s death with Ital­ian authorities.

Lilly, 38, said Alli­son Owens had been in her wed­ding and was “like my sis­ter.” She said friends and fam­ily were in disbelief.

“She was the most amaz­ing, life-loving per­son I have ever met,” Lilly said. “She had a love of life, she embraced life with open arms.”

Owens decided to become a tour guide in Europe after tour­ing Switzer­land with her mother in 2010, a trip that was a grad­u­a­tion gift after the younger woman earned a degree in com­mu­ni­ca­tions from South­ern Methodist Uni­ver­sity, Lilly said.

“She just fell in love with the out­doors and with adven­ture,” she said. When Owens died, she was on her next-to-last tour of the sea­son and was then due to return to Ohio, Lilly said.

Posted by AP News on Oct 5 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.