YORK COUNTY — York County's first homicide victim in years died of knife wounds, but who did it and why remains a mystery.

A 59-year-old woman found slain in her home last week died from knife wounds, according to a preliminary autopsy report, the York County Sheriff's Office said Monday.

A spokesman for the sheriff said Friday that Darlene Cotner suffered "injuries consistent with a homicide" but did not elaborate.

Cotner, of the 500 block of Old Taylor Road in the upper part of the county, is York's first homicide victim in more than three years. Who did it and why remains a mystery.

There were no signs of forced entry, and it did not appear that the victim had been sexually assaulted, said Capt. J.E. Richardson of the Sheriff's Department. The victim's daughter, Raschelle Shull, said nothing appeared to have been taken from the house.

Shull said she and a former boyfriend, who had remained a family friend, lived there with her mother.

Cotner was a dispatcher for Steele's Garage and worked from home. She took calls for the towing service after-hours.

Normally, she would check in with the day staff about 7:30 a.m. and let them know what had happened during the night before they took over the phone line again, her daughter said.

But Thursday, Cotner didn't check in as usual, and an anxious co-worker of Cotner's woke Shull by loudly banging on the door. Shull found her mother's body about 8 a.m.

Shull said she had worked a late shift at a Williamsburg convenience store the night before, gotten home about midnight and gone to sleep without checking on her mother.

She said her roommate also had been out the night before, but she didn't know where. She declined to identify him and said he declined to talk to a reporter.

"We can't imagine who it would be," she said of her mother's killer.

Investigators have interviewed several people and collected evidence from the house, Richardson said.