Decomposed Body of Woman Found in Hollow Column : Mystery: Victim is discovered inside brick structure after staff and tenants of mobile home park notice foul odor.

The badly decomposed body of a young woman was discovered Wednesday morning inside a hollow brick column in the recreation room of a mobile home park.

Police were called to Park Royale on Rampart Street at 11:20 a.m. after office staff and tenants noticed a foul odor, Sgt. Barry Weinstein said.

“The odor definitely alerted people that something was going on,” Weinstein said.

A maintenance worker discovered the body, which was head down in the hollow brick column that is accessible only through the attic crawl space of the building. The body had been there for at least a week, police said.

“If someone was crawling though the attic and fell into the column, they would end up exactly in the position she was in,” Weinstein said. “We just don’t know how she got in there. Either she fell in there or she was pushed.”

The woman, who has not yet been identified, appeared to be in her mid-20s, Weinstein said.

Firefighters had to demolish the brick column to extricate the body. Several stunned neighbors watched the grisly process.

Police said they don’t know if the woman lived in the mobile home park, which has more than 200 homes.

“Rumors are flying all over the place that she lived here and that someone who lived here had been reported missing a few weeks ago,” said one neighbor.

Other neighbors said they had noticed a strange stench for several days.

“When we were walking over to the pool the other day, we noticed a definite odor,” said Mary Cross, who watched firefighters remove the body.

“Everyone is kind of nervous thinking about it. It’s kind of eerie thinking that a body could be up there for so long.”

Resident Linda Roden said people started noticing a smell as long as two weeks ago.

“My son does his homework in the recreation room and he had mentioned to me that there was this strange odor, but he didn’t know where it was coming from,” she said.

Roden, who has lived at the park for three years, said the episode has unnerved many people in the quiet community located less than a mile south of Anaheim Stadium.

“This is something that is very unusual,” Roden said. “There have never been odd things like this happening here. It’s always been very quiet.”