Detectives Probe Link in Three Area Murders

The discovery of what appears to be stab wounds on the body of a 15-year-old boy murdered and dumped in an Agoura trash bin has led Los Angeles County sheriff’s homicide detectives to step up their search for a killer who may have murdered three youths in the Las Virgenes area. An autopsy was still being conducted shortly before noon today on the body of Donald Ray Hyden, whose nude form was discovered Monday by a workman helping build a church school in the Liberty Canyon area.

The Hollywood youth had last been seen by a friend in Hollywood on Sunday evening, detectives say. Until the autopsy is finished, a team of four detectives assigned to the case won’t know the exact cause of death, although investigators admitted it appeared that Hyden had been stabbed to death and possibly sexually molested before his body was dumped in a trash bin on Liberty Canyon Road about 100 yards north of the Ventura Freeway. As investigators probed the Agoura murders, meanwhile, the dismembered body of a young man was discovered today in Long Beach dumpster.

Parts of the body of a teen-ager or in his 20s were found in three separate trash bags by a service station attendant this morning. Sheriff’s investigators said they will look for a connection between the latest slaying and the three Agoura discoveries. Sheriff’s Lt. Stanley Beckman said there were similarities between Hyden’s murder and two other recent slayings. On May 28, the nude body of 13-year-old Thomas Glen Lundgren of Reseda was discovered off Mulholland Highway about a mile west of Las Virgenes Road.

He had been stabbed several times and was sexually mutilated, investigators said. citizen, Marcus Grabs, was discovered in the Tapia Park area north of Malibu. Results of an autopsy indicated he had been stabbed to death, but tests to determine whether he had been sexually assaulted proved inconclusive.