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A 78-year-old woman who was apparently murdered inside her modest Vallejo home has had the town on edge wondering what could have happened to someone who is described as the “kindest, gentlest person you’d ever want to meet.”

Linda Tyrrell lived alone on the 200 block of University Avenue. According to a neighbor and close friend who prefers to just use his first name, Kurt, it appears that an intruder or intruders broke into her dining room window and killed her.

“it’s inexplicable,” he told me, adding that Tyrrell only had a small circle of family and friends. She could be seen daily at the Marina chatting with a few of them, Kurt said. He and his wife always spent holidays with her, he added.

It appears that the suspect or suspects did burglarize her home, though there was nothing in there of much value, Kurt said.

Ms. Tyrrell’s death was allegedly very violent. I didn’t press Kurt because he is grieving, but when I asked if she had been killed in her bathtub, he paused for a moment and then said somberly, “Well, she was found there.”

“Nobody had a bad thing to say about her,” he continued, perhaps unburdened to tell someone how much Tyrrell was loved by all. “She deserved more than this. She was an anchor in this neighborhood.”

Kurt and his wife are currently cleaning out Tyrrell’s house. He says that the Vallejo detective assigned to the case has been doing extraordinary work and is following every lead.

The Vallejo Police posted on their Facebook page about the crime, saying that they responded to a report of a “suspicious death” on August 13. “The official ruling on the woman’s death is pending the final outcome of an autopsy report,” said the post.

The Vallejo Police Officer’s Association has also mentioned this case. On August 23, in response to the VPD tweeting about another homicide, they tweeted, “Have they provided any updates to the suspicious death from the 13th that is also a murder? A woman murdered in her own home on the east side of town. Selective transparency?

Indeed, though the police are no doubt keeping things under wraps so as not to interrupt the investigation, the lack of details being released has caused some to worry that there might be a predator or predators that Vallejoans need to know about.

“People in the neighborhood need to know about this,” said a source who wanted to remain anonymous. “Vallejo needs to know about this. ”

Vallejo Police Department PIO Brittany Jackson was not available for comment.