Updated | Police say young woman died of fractured skull

Updated at 11:06am, 25 July.

The young woman found dead in Paceviile yesterday afternoon died of a fractured skull, the autopsy has established. The police said the autopsy conducted this morning indicate that the young woman sustained the fractures in a fall.

The police however did not reveal the identity of the young woman.

The death of a young woman whose decomposed body was discovered yesterday evening in an alleyway near Villa Rosa, St George's Bay, may have been caused by an accident, police sources revealed late last night. Injuries to the cranial area indicate the woman may have fallen into the Villa Rosa valley, but police are awaiting DNA results to determine whether the body is that of missing teeanger Polina Rahman.

While not excluding any other possible leads, officers told this newspaper that from initial investigations it appeared that the girl may have died as a result of falling from an adjacent wall.

"Although no foul play is suspected, there are still a couple of unanswered questions since Rahman's friend said thay had last met next to the Love monument in St Julian's, and she was found dead at Villa Rosa," a police source told MaltaToday.

The grim discovery was made at around 5:50pm, and the body was found to be in an advanced state of decomposition. Police yesterday were unable to officially confirm whether it was indeed the body of Polina Rahman, the 17-year-old Russian student who disappeared last Tuesday, on what was effectively her first night in Malta.

Polina Rahman - missing since last Tuesday.

Owing to the state of decomposition alone, it was immediately ruled out that it could have been the body of Agnes Revesz, 18 from Hungary, who was reported missing in Qawra on Monday this week.

Police officials had earlier informed this newspaper that they were 'inclined to believe' it was Polina Rahman. Before the body was found, an investigating officer had told this newspaper that the case was considered "very serious" and that the police were "fearing the worst".

The body was found in an area known as the Villa Rosa valley, where the former Villa Rosa complex stood at St George's Bay - not far from where Rahman was last seen late on Tuesday night.

Medical experts told this newspaper that the state of decomposition was precisely what one would expect if the death took place eight days earlier, given the temperature and humidity of the past week.

MaltaToday is informed that Polina Rahman's parents, who flew to Malta after news of their daughter's disappearance reached them in Russia, were yesterday called by the Police to identify whether the body was Rahman's.