Body identified as civilian Tinker official - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Body identified as civilian Tinker official

OKLAHOMA CITY — Police began questioning acquaintances of a civilian official at Tinker Air Force Base on Wednesday after her body was found on the shore of a West Oklahoma City lake.

A church group discovered Denise F. Stice about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at a park on the south side of Lake Overholser west of the dam, Sgt. Paco Balderrama said.

The state medical examiner said Stice, 48, died of a gunshot wound to the head.

Investigators have no suspects in the slaying, but are interviewing people close to the woman, Balderrama said.

“We’re not ruling anybody out at this point,” Balderrama said. “We don’t know what happened to her, if she was kidnapped or what.”

Stice’s husband reported her missing Tuesday afternoon when she failed to show up for work, Balderrama said.

A formal missing-person report wasn’t filed because police immediately identified the victim based on the description the husband gave police.

It did not appear the body had been at the lake for more than a few hours. It also appeared the body was dumped there to conceal evidence about the killing, Balderrama said.

The victim’s car was found in Oklahoma City a short time after her body was discovered Tuesday, but police won’t say where it was located or if anything was missing from the vehicle.

Stice served as director of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker.

She was a liaison between the Air Force and federal, state and local government agencies and related industry, Tinker Air Force Base spokesman Ralph Monson said.

“There is a great sense of loss at the base,” Monson said. “Certainly, she will be missed.”

Stice also was responsible for establishing policy for the base’s small businesses, as well as working in the community, said Col. Mark Correll, a base spokesman.

Stice had been a civil servant since 1983 and had been at Tinker Air Force Base since 1999.