LAPD detectives have found human remains in Northern California, which they believe are those of missing model Adea Shabani.
Captain William Hayes provided reporters Tuesday with a timeline of events highlighting Shabani’s disappearance from her apartment in Hollywood, reports of her being in the company of Christopher Spotz and Spotz’s claim that the two had an argument in the Santa Clarita Valley.
“Sometime during the week of Feb. 25, Spotz released a statement that he had been traveling north to Northern California with Miss Shabani,” Hayes said.
“At some point in time, they had an argument and that the argument occurred somewhere in the area of Santa Clarita and that he let her out of the vehicle and had not seen her since,” he said.
When detectives were unable to verify Spotz’s claims, detectives with the LAPD’s Robbery & Homicide Team took over the investigation.
That probe led them to the home of Spotz’s father in Wheatland, a northern California town not far from Sacramento.
They learned that Spotz and a separate woman, Spotz’s fiance, met there and drove to Fort Morgan, Colo.
On March 10, detectives assembled 100 volunteers to search an area called Lake of the Woods in Nicolaus, CA.
Detectives also went to Colorado to talk to Spotz and examine his pickup truck, but they were unable to locate him or the vehicle.
LAPD issued a warrant for the vehicle to be stopped and, consequently, deputies with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Station located Spotz and the truck near the intersection of freeways I-10 and I-15.
Spotz took off, and officers with the California Highway Patrol gave chase until the pursued truck exited at Green River Road in Riverside County.
Spotz killed himself shortly after the pursuit ended, according to officials.
LAPD divers searched the water at Lake of the Woods, he said, with no luck initially.
Over that weekend, however, detectives acting on new information that convinced them to search an area called the Spenceville Wildlife Area in Nevada County.
On Monday, detectives found a shallow grave along a shoreline, which contained human remains; on Tuesday, they recovered those remains.
“We believe that those remains are the body of Adea Shabani,” Hayes said.
“We cannot say that conclusively because the condition of the remains prohibits a positive identification,” he said. “We also believe Christopher Spotz was somehow involved in her death and we believe this to be a homicide.”
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