Homicide detectives are trying to identify the body of a Hispanic man found late Saturday afternoon, stabbed to death in a river bed near Pyramid Lake.
“This is a homicide,” Det. John O’Brien with the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s Homicide Bureau told The Signal Monday.
“It was the stabbing of a male Hispanic who we have not yet identified,” he said, noting only that the victim appeared to be in his 30’s.
“We don’t have anything so far,” he said.
The victim’s body was found Saturday near Frenchman’s Flat on the Golden State Highway Old Road around 5:40 p.m. in an area identified by O’Brien as near the Piru Creek Campground.
There was no ID or vehicle found with the body.
Paramedics with the Los Angeles County Fire Department who responded to reports of the body being found there pronounced the man dead at 6:20 p.m. Saturday, Brian Elias, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner said Monday.
“He was down in the river bed area,” Elias said. “We’re not sure if he was in the water or not, but in the river bed.
“It’s being treated as a homicide,” he said, noting an official cause of manner of death would be revealed after an autopsy is done on the body.
Homicide detectives trying to identify the victim are also trying to pin down a motive.
“There could have been an altercation, but we just don’t know at this point,” Obrien said.
Complicating matters for investigators, he said, was having found no fingerprints on record that match those of the victim.
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