Sentul police chief Ahmad Sukarno Zahari said police were first alerted at about 11.35am on Dec 18 by a passerby who spotted the body in a river near Rivercity Condominium on Jalan Ipoh.

When the police arrived shortly before noon, the body was no longer there and was believed to have been carried by the currents towards Sungai Gombak.

Officers from the Chow Kit police station later located the body in the river near Sunway Putra Mall, he said in a statement. They sent the body to the forensic department at Hospital Kuala Lumpur for a post-mortem.

Sukarno said an initial investigation found that the woman, aged 36, was a resident of Chow Kit and had left home on Dec 17 and did not return.

“She had no known health issues, but suffered from depression following her boyfriend’s imprisonment on drug-related charges,” he said, adding that the case was being investigated as sudden death.