Police have responded to rumours of murder in Dawson City by assuring residents a recent death in the former territorial capital was likely accidental.

"While a definitive cause of death has not yet been determined, preliminary results suggest foul play is not believed to be cause of death,” RCMP spokesman Sgt. Don Rogers said Thursday.

"There has been a number of rumours in regards to this death that we would like to put to rest ... and it's important for the community to know that they are safe.”

Jeannie King was found dead outside an unoccupied house at Fifth Avenue and York Street last Saturday.

Since then, the town of 1,300 has been swirling with speculation over what or who killed the 56-year-old woman.

Her death was reported by another Dawson resident who was out walking when he spotted King's body on the empty property at 1135 Fifth Ave.

According to Klondike Sun staff member José Bonhomme, the man who found King reported seeing a significant amount of blood on her body.

"It looks like there was a laceration on the back of the head, so it looks like it could have been the result of falling,” Yukon coroner Sharon Hanley told the Star Thursday, reading from a preliminary autopsy report.

She noted it was extremely cold in the hours before King was found, with temperatures dropping to -35 degrees.

"For a town this size to be confronted with a person dying under any circumstance is difficult,” former mayor John Steins said Thursday, "but in this case, where a person appears to have succumbed to the natural elements is particularly disturbing.

"If you are incapacitated in some sort of a fall, may the gods be with you.”

Police believe King left a party in the early-morning hours of Jan 2, but never made it home, according to an RCMP press release issued Monday.

Alcohol consumption and frigid temperatures were identified as possible factors in the woman's death, the release stated.