A murder hunt has begun after the body of a former Oxfordshire woman was found in a shed behind her home.

Police were today searching for Carol Evans's lodger in connection with her death.

The body of the 40-year-old woman was found in the brick shed at her home in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. She had suffered head injuries.

She had been reported missing on April 2 by her mother Joyce Dee, of Laburnum Grove, Didcot.

Mrs Dee, 58, said she became worried when their weekend telephone conversations stopped after January 24.

"I had not heard from Carol for three months," she said. "I had wondered if she might have taken an overdose or something like that."

Mrs Dee said her daughter's remains had to be identified by dental records. She described her daughter as a very independent-minded person who often had difficulty with relationships.

Carol, an only child, lived in Newlands Avenue, Didcot, and attended Mereland Infants School.

As a talented child, she later became a weekly border at a Gloucestershire school but became unhappy when she was 12 and moved back to St Frideswides School, Didcot.

After leaving school at 15 she took a number of jobs including working as a porter at Didcot Station and in the canteen at Great Western Society's Railway Centre.

At 18, she married a colleague at the former Didcot fruit and vegetable canning factory. The couple moved to a council flat at Kibble Close, Didcot, but the marriage lasted barely a year.

She later married an ice-cream salesman and the pair lived in Hagbourne Road and Foxhall Manor Park mobile home park.

"It was an up and down marriage," said Mrs Dee.

Mrs Dee said her daughter was always close to her father, Brian, although as mother and daughter they became closer when he died in 1999, aged 60.

In 1999 Carol decided to make a fresh start and moved to Peterborough with her then partner. The couple later split up.