State highway workers were shocked this week when they approached a car found abandoned on the side of a stretch of interstate. Inside they found the bullet-ridden body of a Mississippi woman.

The victim, a woman from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, was found dead in a vehicle that was parked along the southbound side of Interstate 59 Tuesday evening near the Lumberton exit.

Pearl River County Coroner Derek Turnage identified the woman as 39-year-old Heather Jones of Hattiesburg.

He said Jones was found sitting in the passenger side of the vehicle that evening just before 7 by Mississippi Department of Transportation workers who had parked near the vehicle. One of the workers became curious about the vehicle, and when that worker investigated Jones was found inside.

Investigators learned the vehicle had been parked in the on-ramp of the interstate nearly all day because a Lumberton Police officer recalled passing the vehicle earlier that day, but thought nothing of it, Turnage said.

The case is being investigated as a homicide by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations. Turnage said her cause of death was due to multiple gunshot wounds.