Four shocked friends of murder victim Audrey Palmer yesterday told of their heartache at hearing the news of her horrific death — 19 years after it happened.

Ms Godwin — named as Audrey Palmer by American Police but known as Audrey Godwin when she grew up in Bermuda — was last week finally identified as the victim of a brutal 1990 murder in Washington, D.C., when she was 26.

For the past two decades, Ms Palmer's close friends on the Island thought she had simply drifted out of contact having moved to New York to live with her sister in the mid 1980s.

Yesterday, Paula Simons, Kathy Bean-Lewis, Terrylynne Doyle and Suerann Ible spoke to The Royal Gazette to paint a picture of their 'Sista Girl', a fun-loving and popular young mother known for her trademark smile with a gap between her teeth.

They say the Audrey Palmer they recall was a far cry from the woman who had no loved ones to identify her body when it was found beaten, stabbed and strangled in a dumpster in a parking lot, on August 12, 1990.

What happened to Ms Palmer between the time she left Bermuda and her death remains a mystery as Washington Police, who recently reopened the case, hunt her killer.

Ms Simons explained how she learned of Ms Palmer's death by reading this newspaper on Monday.

"Audrey was a teenage friend and I always wondered and asked about her whenever I saw her mom or family. They always said she was doing okay," she said.

"When I saw the paper at a glimpse I realised that it was my dear friend Audrey. I didn't read the story until I got to work because I did not want the reality of what the headlines were saying to be true. It was heartbreaking to sit and read that story.

"I have been in tears, because I always felt that something must be wrong, because we never heard from her after she left Bermuda about 20 years ago to live in the US.

"I think it is terrible that she had to die like that and especially alone. No one should have to die like that."

A mother of two daughters, Ms Palmer and has two brothers and two sisters.

Her mother, Norma Godwin, who lives in Hamilton, declined to speak to this newspaper, saying the family would like to grieve in private.

However, Ms Palmer's four friends said it was important to let people know what Ms Godwin was like to them as a friend, as opposed to the image from media reports earlier this week.

Ms Ible said: "You can't get around how her life ended. We as her friends could not let this story be her final headrest. We all have our funny memories of her."

Ms Bean-Lewis continued: "She was a very fun-loving girl during her time in Bermuda. She was generous, she had almost like a mischievous laugh.

"I visited her once when she left Bermuda. She was the same old Audrey. She was high-energy, immaculate about her appearance – a very sharp girl."

Nineteen years ago, fingerprint tests failed to identify the victim found in the dumpster, and the case went cold, with no missing person report filed on Ms Palmer.

But forensic experts recently used state-of-the-art technology to match the fingerprints with some of Ms Palmer's taken when she was arrested in Brooklyn in 1989.

Her friends can only speculate as to why she was arrested in Brooklyn and how she ended up in Washington on her own.

Bermuda Police yesterday said they had made initial contact with authorities in Washington over the case.