FOLEY, Ala. — Seeking to allay the public’s fears of yet another homicide in the city, Police Chief David Wilson held a news conference Tuesday morning regarding a decomposing female body found at 408 W. Section Ave.

The house is the residence of Judy Pam Barney, 55, but Wilson said the victim had not been positively identified as of Tuesday morning. Foley police are awaiting the results of an autopsy, he said.

Foley police went to the house on West Section Avenue at approximately 4 p.m. Monday when they got a call to check on Barney’s welfare, according to Wilson. That call came from someone who does yard work for Barney, who couldn’t get her to the door.

The body police discovered inside the house showed what Wilson described as “definite decomposition.” He said the body could be identified as female but a positive identification couldn’t be made at that point.

Wilson also said police are not releasing information at this time regarding the last time Barney was seen.

He did say evidence of illegal drug activity had been discovered at the residence. Also, police have evidence that a lot of vehicle traffic came and went at the house, Wilson said.

At another point in the press conference Wilson said, according to neighbors, people from all walks of life and black and white came and went at the residence on West Section Avenue where, it appears, Barney lived by herself.

“This is not a case of an increase in random killing,” Wilson said, a reference to the city’s first homicide of the year occurring two days prior.

Indeed, less than 24 hours earlier Wilson held a press conference at the same location - Foley Municipal Courtroom - regarding the shooting death on June 15 of Theresa Ann Welsh by her husband, David H. Mumford, who is in the Baldwin County Corrections Center charged with her murder.

The main reason for the Tuesday press conference was to calm fears, Wilson said, noting the two incidents are “separate acts of violence.”

Domestic and drug-related deaths are, unfortunately, a fact in modern society, Wilson said.

“These two areas plague every city,” he said.

The kind of activity that apparently went on at the residence is the kind of activity FPD wants reported, the chief said.

“Neighbors weren’t all that surprised, if it was her, that she was deceased, what with all the activity,” Wilson said of Barney.

FPD is asking anyone with information concerning Barney’s whereabouts or next of kin to call 251-943-4431, extension 264.

FPD investigators were at the Alabama Department of Forensic Science in Mobile on Tuesday. Word on whether or not the body found in the house was Barney could be known before the day was out, Wilson said.