EDINBURG - A maintenance worker discovered a woman's body early Wednesday afternoon by the side of a dusty, barren road near this city.

Officials found the body of the middle-aged Hispanic woman wrapped in a blanket, Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said. She is believed to be about 35-40 years old.

The maintenance worker discovered the body about 1:45 p.m. while he was cleaning ditches and spreading caliche along Wallace Road, about a mile north of Monte Cristo Road.

"I didn't see much," Liberado Ollevidez said.

When he pulled the blanket from the woman's face and realized she was dead, "I just called my supervisor," he said. The woman's barefoot body was covered with a light-brown comforter, and she was clothed in a red tank top and blue sweatpants.

There were no gunshot or stab wounds or other visible signs of foul play, Treviño said. The woman's body appeared to have been there no longer than 24 hours. She was not carrying any identification - her clothing had no pockets.

The case is being handled as a homicide, the sheriff said. An autopsy is pending, and officials expect to have preliminary results by noon today.

"That should give us some sort of guidance," Treviño said.

Investigators continued to comb through the area late Wednesday afternoon searching for evidence.

Last summer investigators found the body of another woman - also wrapped in a blanket - near the same site, the sheriff said. The undocumented Honduran immigrant had died of a heart attack, and a human smuggler wrapped her corpse and abandoned it there.

The smuggler contacted the woman's family in the United States to tell them she had perished along the Rio Grande.

"The circumstances are similar," Treviño said. "But we're not going to speculate."

Wednesday's homicide investigation is the 13th this year for the sheriff's office.

Last month deputies discovered the body of a man and one of his employees gunned down outside a rural home along Moore Field Road, near Mile 8 1/2 Road.

The double homicide remains unsolved.