Tucson police officers and detectives investigate the area where the body of a woman was found by a truck driver Monday morning near South Wilmot Road and Interstate 10. It is the third time within 10 days that a woman's body has been found in suspicious circumstances.

Benjie Sanders / arizona daily star

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Investigators have yet to identify a woman whose body was found Monday morning lying in the desert near a Southeast Side gas station.

An autopsy will be performed soon to determine if the woman was murdered or if she died from another cause, said Officer Dallas Wilson, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.

It's the third time within 10 days that a woman's remains have been found in suspicious circumstances.

On March 31, the body of a 32-year-old Tucson woman was found naked and hanging from a tree in the San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation, southwest of Tucson.

In a separate instance, a Tucson man was arrested Saturday in connection with the slaying of a woman whose body was found in the middle of a dirt road on the Northwest Side.

The deaths do not appear to be related at this point in the investigations, Wilson said.

In the most recent case, a truck driver found a woman's body at about 8:40 a.m. in the 7700 block of South Wilmot Road, near Interstate 10, and called authorities, Wilson said. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

She had no identification with her, and on Monday afternoon Wilson could not confirm her age or if she was a Tucson resident.

In an earlier slaying, a passer-by found Marisol Padilla, 32, at midday on March 31 suspended with wire in a tree near South Mission and San Xavier roads.

The cause of Padilla's death and the circumstances that led up to it are still under investigation by tribal police and the FBI, which has jurisdiction in homicides on federal lands, said Deborah McCarley, an FBI spokeswoman in Phoenix.

Though Padilla had a gunshot wound, that doesn't appear to be what killed her, McCarley said. Investigators have not identified any suspects or revealed a motive for the slaying, McCarley said.

In another homicide, an irrigation worker found the body of Sheril M. Smith, 38, in the middle of a dirt road on the Northwest Side at about 9:15 p.m. on Friday, said Deputy Dawn Barkman, a Pima County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman.

Smith's body was found with obvious signs of trauma in an area near North Trico and West Hardin roads, Barkman said.

Investigators aren't releasing what caused her death, but Barkman said she was killed at the scene.

The next day, sheriff's deputies arrested Tyrone Cisco, 32, and booked him into the Pima County jail on suspicion of first-degree murder.

Cisco told authorities that he and Smith were cousins, but Smith's family members dispute that claim, Barkman said.

No motive for the killing has been established, Barkman said.