crime

A Woman’s Body Was Found in a Pond Outside Kensington Palace

Kensington Palace. Photo: De Agostini via Getty Images

London’s Metropolitan Police discovered a woman’s body in a pond outside Kensington Palace, Prince William and Kate Middleton’s official residence, last week. William and Kate were on family vacation with the queen at Balmoral Castle in Scotland at the time, and it’s reportedly unclear if any other royals who live at Kensington were there when the body was found.

A Met spokesperson told Sky News that officers “were called to Kensington Gardens W2 at 7:09 a.m. on Saturday, 29 August, to a report of the concern for the safety of a woman” in Round Pond. “The woman was pronounced dead at the scene,” according to the spokesperson, and a cause of death has not been determined. Still, police do not consider the death “suspicious” and are currently treating it as “unexplained” while the investigation continues.

According to the Independent, however, police initially made a mistake in identifying the body, reportedly notifying the family of Endellion Lycett Green — the granddaughter of the late poet laureate John Betjeman — that she had died. Lycett Green had been missing for roughly a week but was subsequently found “alive, safe, and well,” her brother, John Lycett Green, told friends, per the Daily Mail.

“Thank you all for the support and love you showed for Delli and her family,” he said. “Sorry to all of you that, like us, were grieving for the wonder that was Delli.” Police have not yet identified the woman pulled from Round Pond.

Aside from housing the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Kensington Palace is also home to Princess Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, who moved in shortly before their windy royal wedding in 2018; the Duke and Duchess of Kent; and the Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. William and Kate have reportedly just moved back to their Kensington Palace apartment with their children after spending quarantine at Anmer Hall in Norfolk.

A Body Was Found in a Kensington Palace Pond