U.S. expert on Venezuela found dead of apparent suicide in Caracas

<a href=www.sun-sentinel.com>Reuters Posted March 24 2003, 2:10 PM EST

CARACAS, Venezuela - A U.S. academic and expert on Venezuelan affairs was found dead under a road overpass in Caracas Monday and police said they were investigating her apparent suicide.

Janet Kelly, 56, who had lived and worked in Venezuela for more than 20 years, was a respected political analyst in the oil-rich country. Her articles appeared regularly in Venezuelan newspapers and her views were often quoted by foreign media covering the political conflict between leftist President Hugo Chavez and his foes.

Kelly's body was found on a road beneath an elevated highway in Caracas' eastern Altamira district Monday, police said. Her car was parked on the highway above and a note was found in her clothes giving her name, Venezuelan identity card number and the telephone numbers of her home and her son.

``It's presumed to be a suicide,'' Police chief inspector Ali Magdaleno Reyes told Reuters.

Philadelphia-born Kelly was a politics professor at Venezuela's IESA business school in Caracas and had recently bought the Spanish-speaking country's only English-language daily newspaper, The Daily Journal.