Indiana woman died from gunshot wound

VW independent/submitted information

PAULDING COUNTY — An Indiana woman whose body was found on an abandoned property on the Ohio-Indiana State Line was shot to death, according to an autopsy conducted in the case.

Preliminary results of the autopsy, which was conducted by the Lucas County Coroner’s Office, showed Wilma A. Schwartz of Fort Wayne, Indiana, was killed by a single gunshot to the head. Paulding County Coroner Dr. Joseph Kuhn released the results on Wednesday.

Schwartz’s body was found lying in the grass at a vacant property at 10488 Paulding County Road 1, located between Antwerp and Payne in western Paulding County, late Monday morning. Workers who had come to the property to demolish an old garage found the body and called 9-1-1.

The body had no identification on it, but authorities were later able to identify it as Schwartz, who had been missing since March 9.

Meanwhile, a second body was found in Paulding County on Wednesday, when a mushroom hunter came across a man’s body while walking in Rochester Cemetery, near the intersection of U.S. 127 and Paulding County Road 424. Dr. Kuhn said it appeared that body had been there for several weeks. An autopsy is also being conducted on that body to try and determine the cause of death, as well as assist in identifying the body.

In addition to information on Schwartz and the unidentified man, law enforcement agencies were also seeking the whereabouts of Schwartz’s car, a red Pontiac Sunfire. The vehicle was later found about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in the parking lot of a business in Huntington County, Indiana.

Anyone with information regarding either of these two cases should contact the sheriff’s office at 419.399.3791, leave information via Facebook at “Paulding County Sheriff’s Office,” view the sheriff’s website at www.pauldingohsheriff.com and leave an email for the sheriff, or leave an anonymous tip on the website by scrolling to the bottom of any page and clicking on “send us an anonymous tip.”