Chapel Hill, N.C. — Chapel Hill police are trying to identify a woman whose body they found Wednesday morning near the University of North Carolina.

The body was discovered at the intersection of Hillcrest Road and Hillcrest Circle at about 5 a.m.

Officers spent most of the day going door-to-door, asking people living in the Davie Circle area if they heard or saw anything out of the ordinary. Police found the woman after getting a report from David Circle of shots being heard.

Artie Dixon said she could see the site where the woman was found from her front window.

“It's making me feel really stunned. I haven't been able to concentrate on much today,” she said.

Dixon's neighbors, Whit Rummel and Christen Campbell, said the discovery stunned them, too.

“It just feels like the world has gone mad. That's how it feels. I wish we knew who that girl was and I wish we could send our sympathies to the family,” Campbell said.

UNC officials sent an emergency alert reminding students to take safety precautions and to immediately report any suspicious activity. The warning alarmed some students who thought a gunman was on campus.

“I was actually surprised they sent it over the alert because it seemed like it was an immediate threat to campus,” Erika Littman said.

Town police who had issued the request for information said the department's intentions were not to cause panic, but to generate leads.

The victim is a Caucasian woman with blond hair, 18 to 25 years old, approximately 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing about 120 pounds.

She was wearing a navy blue short-sleeve shirt with a red circle and a white symbol in the center, a gold-colored necklace with a locket, and gray sweat pants. Investigators said she was also wearing blue, gray and white Converse Starbury tennis shoes.

“We received a couple of phone calls from students that felt the description fit somebody they knew, but we've exhausted all those leads at this point, and her ID has not been revealed,” Chapel Hill police Lt. Kevin Gunter said.

Police said the woman had been shot multiple times in the head.

Anyone with information about the victim's identity or her death is asked to call the Chapel Hill Police Department at 919-968-2760.