Similar to 11 Other Cases

Clues Sought in Young Man’s Murder

by Gary Jarlson

While Orange County sheriff’s investigators continued to seek the identity of a young man who was murdered and dumped along the Ortega Highway, Rialto police joined the growing list of agencies with seemingly related and unsolved murders on the books. Lt Andy Romero of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said Thursday that a check of missing persons reports has yielded no leads on the body that was found December 2 five miles east of San Juan Capistrano. Meanwhile, Sgt Jim Lewis of Rialto said that his officers are investigating the murder of a young man whose body was dumped on the northern edge of the San Bernardino County community.

Lewis said the nude body, found along busy Highland Avenue on December 13, was that of a man 16 to 21, 5-foot-7, 140 pounds with an average build, collar-length blond hair and fair complexion. The body had a tattoo of a skull in a hat on the right bicep; the letter F, surrounded by four dots, was tattooed on the left hand, and a single dot tattoo was on the right hand. The cause of death, pending further examinations, was strangulation, Lewis said. The body Orange County deputies are trying to identify is that of a man in his late teens or early 20s, 5-foot-7, 140 pounds with collar-length brown hair and fair complexion. The cause of death was listed as suffocation. These two cases bear striking similarities to 10 others that date back to April 1978.

The bodies of the young men have been found along freeways or heavily traveled roads in Anaheim, Irvine, Carlsbad, Seal Beach, Laguna Hills and western San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Lewis said Thursday that Rialto investigators have met with officers from the other cities where the bodies have been found. Among the similarities in the murders, according to investigators, are the victims’ ages 16 to 23. Nearly all the bodies were nude or only partially clad and, in some instances, there have been homosexual overtones to the killings. Counting the Rialto murder, seven of the 12 victims have been strangled or suffocated. In one other case, suffocation has not been ruled out pending the completion of toxicological tests. According to coroner’s reports, 10 of the murders took place late at night or early in the morning on Saturday or Sunday.