Police say evidence at the residential pool linked the 70-year-old victim’s death to a physical confrontation shortly before she was found.

HOOVER, Ala. — A 30-year-old Alabama woman has been charged with murder after a 70-year-old acquaintance was found unresponsive in a community swimming pool, where investigators say evidence showed a physical struggle occurred shortly before the older woman died.

Hoover police identified the defendant as Anastasia Tsefia Sudarsana of Hoover. The victim was later identified by the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office as Terry Lynn Walker-Zuniga, 70, also of Hoover. Police have said the women knew each other, but authorities have not publicly explained the nature or length of their relationship. They also have not announced a motive or released a full account of what investigators believe happened before the emergency call that brought officers to the pool.

The case began shortly after 9:30 p.m. Sept. 3, when the Hoover Police Department received a 911 call about an unresponsive person in a community pool in the 2200 block of Little Valley Road. The department said officers responded at 9:32 p.m. First responders attempted life-saving measures after arriving, but Walker-Zuniga could not be revived. The Jefferson County Coroner’s Office later reported that she was pronounced dead at 10:06 p.m. Police initially had only the circumstances at the pool and the condition in which she was found, but detectives were called to examine the scene.

What investigators found caused the case to move from an emergency response into a homicide investigation. Hoover police said evidence showed that a physical struggle had occurred shortly before Walker-Zuniga’s death. The department has not publicly described that evidence in detail, and it has not released a complete minute-by-minute sequence of the confrontation. The coroner’s office later said Walker-Zuniga sustained injuries during a reported assault. Those statements establish why police treated the death as suspicious, but officials have stopped short of publicly explaining exactly how the injuries occurred or precisely how they contributed to her death.

Detectives also located a person of interest near the area, according to police. Investigators identified that person as Sudarsana and determined that she was an acquaintance of Walker-Zuniga. Authorities have not publicly said how Sudarsana came to be near the pool, whether anyone else was present during the reported struggle or who placed the 911 call. Police also have not released any statement they say Sudarsana made to investigators. The department’s public account has remained focused on the physical evidence, the relationship between the two women as acquaintances and the sequence that led detectives to present the case to prosecutors.

After reviewing the evidence gathered during the initial investigation, Hoover police presented the case to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office in Birmingham. A murder warrant was then issued for Sudarsana. Police announced the arrest on Sept. 4 and said she was being held without bond before her transfer to the Jefferson County Jail. Subsequent local reports continued to list her as being held without bond. The filing of a murder charge is an accusation, not a finding of guilt, and the publicly released material does not show that the allegations have been adjudicated.

The identity of Walker-Zuniga was not immediately released because authorities were notifying her family. On Sept. 9, the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office publicly identified her as a Hoover resident and confirmed that she had sustained injuries during a reported assault. That disclosure added an important piece to the police account because it connected the physical struggle described by investigators with injuries documented by the coroner’s office. Even so, officials still did not release the final medical conclusion explaining the exact mechanism of death.

The official cause and manner of Walker-Zuniga’s death have remained among the central unanswered questions in the case. Hoover police said those findings would be issued by the Jefferson County Coroner/Medical Examiner’s Office when its investigation was complete. The distinction is significant because detectives can investigate a death as a homicide and prosecutors can pursue a murder charge while the medical examiner continues evaluating the medical evidence. The public record released so far therefore establishes that police allege a fatal criminal encounter but does not provide a final forensic explanation of Walker-Zuniga’s death.

Authorities also have not explained what may have led to the reported confrontation. Police have used the term “acquaintance” to describe the connection between Walker-Zuniga and Sudarsana, but they have not said whether the two lived near one another, how frequently they interacted or why they were together around the pool that night. No official statement reviewed for this report identifies an argument, dispute or other event as the motive. Those gaps leave important parts of the case unresolved and make it necessary to distinguish between what investigators have publicly alleged and what remains unknown.

The location itself is a key part of the known timeline. Officers were not dispatched to a roadway, private residence or commercial property but to a shared community swimming pool on Little Valley Road. The first call was framed as a report of an unresponsive person, and emergency personnel attempted to save Walker-Zuniga. Only after detectives examined the circumstances did authorities announce that evidence pointed to a struggle immediately before her death. That progression explains why early information about the incident was limited and why the police description became more serious as the investigation developed.

Public information about the case remains substantially narrower than the murder charge might suggest. Authorities have not released a detailed evidentiary inventory, a full account of the reported struggle, a motive or a final autopsy conclusion. They also have not publicly described whether surveillance video, witness statements or other forms of evidence were recovered. Those matters could become important as the criminal case proceeds, but none should be assumed from the fact that a warrant was issued. For now, the central police allegation is that a physical confrontation occurred immediately before Walker-Zuniga died and that investigators gathered enough evidence to seek a murder warrant against Sudarsana.

As of the latest publicly available reporting reviewed for this article, Sudarsana remained charged with murder in Walker-Zuniga’s death, and Hoover police continued to investigate the case. No later authoritative report located through Oct. 20 announced a final cause and manner of death, a publicly established motive or a resolution of the charge. The criminal allegation against Sudarsana remains pending unless and until it is resolved in court.

Author note: Last updated October 20, 2026.