A 47-year-old woman found Saturday morning in an Orchard Mesa drainage ditch drowned, the Mesa County Coroner’s Office ruled Sunday.
Colleen Maxwell of Grand Junction was discovered near her vehicle, a gray Ford F-150 truck, in the 200 block of 27 1/2 Road, according to the coroner’s office.
Alcohol contributed to Maxwell’s accidental death, according to Robert Kurtzman, a forensic pathologist for the coroner’s office.
Investigators from the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department and the Colorado State Patrol responded to the scene around 6:30 a.m. after a newspaper carrier for The Daily Sentinel discovered the body.
The carrier, who did not want to be identified, said the woman’s body was face-down in the water.
He asked the resident of a home nearby to call 911.
The woman’s truck appeared to have been backed into the ditch, which is near the Intermountain Veterans Memorial Park on Orchard Mesa.
