A man has faced court accused of murdering a woman whose body was found in Melbourne’s Chinatown on Wednesday.

Christopher Allen Bell, 32, from Phillip Island, is charged with killing the woman named as Natalina Angok, 32, of Geelong, whose body was found at the corner of a dead-end laneway.

Bell sat in the dock of Melbourne magistrates court on Thursday with a lowered head as his lawyer, Steven Pica, said the accused, a schizophrenic, had been unmedicated for a long time.

He had been released from a mental inpatient facility “only a week ago”, after staying for a week, the court was told.

Magistrate Cathy Lamble said Bell was a “diagnosed schizophrenic” who needed to take the antipsychotic drug Seroquel.

“His mental health needs should be assessed as soon as possible,” she said.

He was remanded to appear in the same court on Friday for a filing hearing.

An autopsy was conducted overnight to determine Angok’s cause of death. The results are yet to be made public.

She was found at the intersection of Little Bourke Street and Celestial Avenue just after 6.30am on Wednesday.

Detectives quickly declared her death suspicious after a passerby found her lifeless.