A 51-year-old woman who went to Los Iros beach with her hus­band on Christ­mas Eve was found dead in the wa­ter.

Po­lice are await­ing an au­top­sy to de­ter­mine ex­act­ly how Melis­sa Sa­roop died.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, around 9.30 am Sa­roop and her hus­band were at the beach lo­cat­ed just off Pa­lo Seco.

She was in waist-high wa­ter while her hus­band was sit­ting on a rock.

Po­lice were told that she walked out to the shal­low with the wa­ter reach­ing her an­kle and then laid down in the wa­ter.

Po­lice said Sa­roop was sub­se­quent­ly seen ly­ing face down.

Oth­er bathers told the po­lice that Sa­roop nev­er called out for help or ap­peared to be in dif­fi­cul­ty.

They on­ly re­alised some­thing was wrong when she did not move from that po­si­tion.

Po­lice said she was al­ready dead when she was pulled out of the wa­ter.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.