Jan. 20, 2012 - Los Angeles Police Department Cmdr. Andrew Smith says law enforcement has no theory on why a man’s head, hands and feet were severed from his body and hidden in brushy areas beneath the Hollywood Sign in Bronson Canyon Park. However, they do believe that the dismemberment occurred elsewhere, according to CNN.
“Right now, we’re keeping an open mind...on why this poor person was dismembered and deposited up there,” Cmdr. Smith said.
The police may not have a theory they are admitting at present about the victim and his demise, but law enforcement knows who the victim in the case was, at least.
Victim ID’d
According to CNN, the Bronson Canyon Park head found on Tuesday by a golden retriever named Ollie--and the hands and feet found on Wednesday by law enforcement personnel--belonged to 66-year-old Hervey Medellin.
KATV reported that the LAPD initially kept the victim’s identity a secret until his next of kin could be notified and a search warrant could be served Thursday for his residence at a nearby Hollywood apartment.
Police Theory
“Guys are working around the clock to find out who did it and to find the rest of the body,” Smith said.
But over in Tucson, Arizona the Pima County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) had a theory they shared with LAPD about a possible connection between a torso they found two weeks ago and the head, hands and feet the LAPD found this week.
KVOA reported that the PCSO gave LAPD a ring to see if a connection could exist between the two body part finds, but neither agency held out much hope that they did after learning of the time discovery differences.
Gregory Hess, the Pima County medical examiner, said that the California remains that were found this week should “be pretty well decomposed by now if they are the same individual.” LAPD had the same thought as well. But Hess said that according to California law enforcement there’s “not too much decomposition on the remains they found.”
Calif. body part case
While the LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith was initially quick to discount the possibility of a serial killer at work in Hollywood--or that the Tucson, Ariz. torso found was connected to his men’s findings this week in Bronson Canyon--he must still leave no stone unturned to learn the truth. And he can’t have a closed mind about the crime possibilities at the onset of a case if he wants to solve it.
DNA testing is being conducted to determine if the two body part findings in the two states are connected in some way, according to KVOA, and that is an important action, as just because one body part is showing less decomposition as another does not preclude the possibility that the less decomposed part was kept in a refrigerated state while the other was not (think Jeffrey Dahmer).
Additionally, if the corpse pieces are connected through DNA, the fact that parts were found in two different states would indicate the killer is on the move. Someone who can murder a person and then go on to distribute their body parts cavalierly, in two separate states, is quite capable of killing more than one person. And all you really need to qualify someone as a serial killer is serial killing.
Profile
LAPD Cmdr. Smith and Pima County SO officials aren’t trying to overlook the possibility of both body part finds being connected to one another by saying they don’t see a potential relation. It’s just that in the law enforcement field you rarely see a killer putting himself at greater risk to transport his victim’s body parts from state-to-state.
Killers seek to limit detection and to distance themselves from their crimes. Hauling body parts around in their vehicle from one state to another does just the opposite; and it goes against their self-preservation effort, for the most part.
Jeffrey Dahmer and Edmund Emil Kemper III used their vehicles to haul around their victim’s body and its parts, of course, and they were serial killers, with Kemper making California his hunting ground. But so far we only have one body, unless Pima learns their victim isn’t related to California’s Medellin. Then there would be two.
If the parts found in Arizona and California do turn out to be connected through DNA confirmation; then police will be faced with the chicken and the egg question: Which came first, really?
Did the killer travel from California, where Medellin resided, to Arizona, where he may have resided or had to go, and discard the torso two weeks ago, only burying the other parts at Bronson Canyon this past Sunday, as police are saying the decomposition shows?
Or, did the killer end Medellin’s life during a trip to Arizona, leaving part of him there and the remaining parts in a refrigerated state in LA until this past Sunday, when he hiked the trails beneath the Hollywood Sign and Brad Pitt’s home?
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