A MOTHER who went missing from her east Durham home last week has been found dead.

Julia Graham, 40, who lived with her mother and teenage daughter, went missing from her home in Kipling Avenue, Blackhall Colliery, near Peterlee, on Thursday afternoon.

She was known to have personal problems and police say that she had disappeared before.

Due to freezing overnight temperatures, police were anxious to find her.

They carried out intensive searches of the area around her home with the help of an Air Force helicopter and a North-East air support unit plane.

Her body was found by a passer-by on Saturday morning, in a wooded area not far from her home.

Detective Inspector Sue Knaggs, of Easington district command, said: "It looks like she has fallen asleep and died during the night.

"We will not know the cause of death until the post mortem examination is carried out, but it is not being treated as suspicious."