HOLLYWOOD, California (Isabelle Zehnder reporting) -- (Updated) The head found by dog-walkers not far from the world-famous “Hollywood” sign has been identified as Hervey Medellin, a 66-year-old from Los Angeles.
Medellin's hands and feet were later found during a massive police search.
Medellin is a former Mexicana Airlines employee who lived in the area for some time. His body was identified by police searching missing persons reports and speaking with friends.
On Jan. 6, Medellin's livein boyfriend reported him missing. Police have not named the boyfriend a suspect. They did search his apartment and towed a car away from the property to search it for forensic clues.
Medellin's head was discovered Tuesday when one of two female dog-walkers let one of the dogs off its leash. While sheepherding the dog found a plastic bag and began playing with it. When the dog shook the bag the head fell out.
One would think that the woman making the discovery would have been distraught and overtaken with fear and grief for the victim and his friends and family. Instead ...
Initial reports by CBS News indicates photos of the woman who found the head reportedly posing with it were being shopped around to tabloid internet outlets. The offers came from a Hollywood photo agency that usually deals in celebrity paparazzi pictures, and it was unclear from whom and how it acquired them. The asking price was $5,000 - no takers yet, CBS News reports.
Newser reports the dogwalker was smiling in at least one of the photos. She didn't have her phone with her so she asked a guy on the trail to borrow his and used it to take the photos. Police say that while selling the photos isn't a crime, they may speak with the phone's owner, The Los Angeles Times reports.
Jerrie Dean, another Examiner.com missing persons' news writer, wrote the following Saturday:
Note: Kornberg, the dog walker has been rumored to have taken photos of Hervey's head and is shopping around for a buyer, but she has contacted the Gawker who released this information and told them it is not her, but it may be a pair of hikers with a mobile phone.
"I believe they snapped the photo. I had nine dogs on a leash and they were bouncing around like crazy."
Click here to watch her tell the story.
Regardless of who is in the photo, this shows there are individuals willing to do just about anything for money. Very sad for Medellin's family and friends, and disrespectful to Medellin who suffered enough at the hands of a monster.
Medellin lived in a nearby apartment. Investigators are searching for suspects and served a search warrant on a Hollywood apartment in the area a day earlier. It wasn’t immediately clear if it was Medellin’s apartment complex.
“They did serve a warrant last night. They are following clues, and the case is progressing. Guys are working around the clock to find out who did it and find the rest of the body,” Police Commander Andrew Smith said. He didn’t elaborate why the warrant was served or if detectives found anything.
“We don’t want to give out too much information because the investigation is ongoing,” Andrew Smith said.
Medellin’s head was found Tuesday at Bronson Canyon Park. Police and searchers found the hands and feet during a two-day search that ended on Thursday. The park reopened Friday.
Police don’t believe there are any more body parts in the park, though they urge the public to notify them immediately if they find anything they believe is related to the victim’s death, Smith said.
More than 120 police officers, firefighters and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies searched 7 acres of the park after the head was discovered in a plastic grocery bag. The hands and feet were found nearby. Police believe the victim was killed somewhere else and that his remains were dumped just inside the park. The park attracts hundreds of hikers and dog walkers on most days.
It was reported that whoever dumped the head in the park went through some effort to conceal it, and had it not been found by the dog it might have never been found, Smith said.
Though the park is rustic it is close to film studios and other Hollywood attractions.
Police said they believe the body parts were left there no more than a day or two before the head was found because they had barely decomposed and had not been attacked by coyotes that roam the part at night.
It was reported that authorities don’t believe there’s a connection between this case and the case in Tucson, Arizona where police found a torso on January 6. They said if the two were related the remains would have been more badly decomposed.
It is uncertain if police have considered the possibility that the head and other body parts may have been frozen, as we’ve seen in other cases. This could give the appearance of body parts that were not badly decomposed.
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