Police find car of woman found dead in Nev. desert

PAHRUMP, Nev. - Authorities say they've recovered the rental car of a 27-year-old California woman who was found dead in the Nevada desert.

Nye County Detective Joe McGill says a police helicopter searching for the 2014 Hyundai Accent spotted it Saturday about three miles away from where Margay Edwards' body was found Sept. 25 near a dirt track outside of Pahrump.

Clark County coroner's officials haven't released a cause of death but authorities have said the case is being investigated as a homicide.

McGill says the car was abandoned and stuck in a ravine, and two cellphones were found inside, although it's unclear whether they belonged to Edwards.

Nye County Sheriff Tony De Meo told CBS affiliate KCOY Monday afternoon that the vehicle "revealed a lot of information."

The sheriff also told the station that Edwards was interviewed by one of his deputies after she was found sitting in the car on the side of the road near Pahrump on Sept. 13, nearly two weeks before her body was found.

De Meo would not reveal whether Edwards was sleeping in the car.

"...She was lucid, she was okay, she explained why she was there and there was no further reason for us to have any further contact," De Meo said.

The sheriff also said other people reported seeing Edwards in her car in the same area on Sept. 14.

Edwards was from Los Osos, Calif. Her family says she visited them in Los Osos before she drove to Nevada on the weekend of Sept. 13.

Her father, Jeff Edwards, told the station Edwards has stayed before at the home of a couple she knew who lived in Pahrump.

The Nye County Sheriff's Department says the couple - who they declined to identify - has been cooperating with authorities.

Authorities haven't said whether investigators have suspects or people of interest in the case.