Mitt Romney’s Sister-In-Law Found Dead Behind Southern California Parking Garage

Former senator and governor Mitt Romney’s sister-in-law was found dead on Friday evening next to a parking garage in the Town Center area of Santa Clarita, a suburb located just north of Los Angeles, local officials announced Monday.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that it has opened an investigation into the death of 64-year-old Carrie Romney of Valencia. Romney’s body was discovered behind a parking garage near the city’s Hyatt Regency Hotel just after 9 p.m. local time on Friday.

Her death was listed as “deferred” while toxicology reports were pending, the Los Angeles County medical examiner told ABC News.

Preliminary information indicated that Romney may have fallen or jumped off the garage, sources familiar with the probe said. The investigation remains ongoing as investigators are waiting for an official cause of death from the medical examiner.

Authorities do not currently suspect foul play to be a factor in Romney’s death, according to a report from KTLA. Deferred cases can sometimes take months before a cause of death is determined, the medical examiner’s office explained to the outlet.

After serving two terms as governor of Massachusetts, Romney ran for president twice. He managed to secure the Republican nomination in 2012 before ultimately losing to then-President Barack Obama in the general election.

He returned to politics in 2018, when he ran for U.S. Senate in Utah. He ended up serving just one term in the upper chamber before retiring last year.

Carrie had been married to the ex-presidential candidate’s older brother, George Romney, 81, a prominent attorney and father of former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel. The former senator’s brother, who goes by Scott, had filed for divorce on June 10 after eight years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences, according to a report from the Daily Mail.

In the filing, Scott Romney stated that most of their assets had been obtained separately before the marriage. He further noted that Carrie was receiving spousal support, which he opposed, and had requested that she revert back to using her maiden name, Carrie Elizabeth Dimas, the outlet reported.

The 81-year-old currently works as an attorney at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn in Michigan and serves on several boards, including Compuware Corporation, the New York Post reported.