Autopsy to Be Conducted on Head Found in Park

An autopsy will be performed today on the severed head found Sunday in a Santa Ana park, and authorities said they hope the exam will provide clues to the identity of a young woman whose decapitated body was discovered in the same park three days earlier.

Santa Ana police spokeswoman Maureen Thomas said investigators have been unable to determine the woman’s age, race or the exact cause of death, despite a previous autopsy performed on her body on Friday that determined that she had been dead 24 to 36 hours before the body was discovered about 4 p.m. Thursday in Santiago Park, Thomas said.

By mid-week, authorities said, they will have developed a composite sketch of the woman that could aid in identifying her. Thomas said the woman’s fingerprints did not match any of those recorded in the state’s computerized identification system.

“The investigation right now lies in the hands of the coroner to try to identify the body,” Thomas said. “Without positive identification of the victim, it makes it very hard. If we knew the identity of the victim, we can find out where she lived, where she frequented. All those pieces of the puzzle would help us.”

Thomas said it is likely that the head, which was found in the dry bed of Santiago Creek, was highly decomposed. She said the autopsy will determine if it had been mutilated. Thomas said no other parts of the body had been mutilated.

Thomas said there were no visible signs of the cause of death. She said authorities initially thought the woman was Caucasian, but now it appears that she possibly could have been Latino.