10/22/2010 // WPB, FL, USA // Personal Injury Lawyers News // Nicole Howley
Costa Mesa, CA— A bizarre discovery, with an even more baffling story, has caused Costa Mesa police officials to launch an investigation into a Southern California woman, who drove around for months with a mummified boy in her vehicle, as reported by Fox News.
On Monday, October 18, 2010, police officials received a complaint about a vehicle that was blocking a driveway in the 2000 block of Tustin Avenue. When they arrived at the scene, officers noticed a pungent smell coming from the 1997 Mercury Marquis. Officers then spotted a leg coming from underneath clothing in the front passenger seat, promoting them break into the vehicle, only after they couldn’t locate the owner of the vehicle.
Inside the vehicle, they found a partially mummified body “seated in a reclined position in the front passenger seat with clothing items covering them.”
“It was evident they had been deceased for some time. The body was found to be in a mummified state,” according to the police report. The vehicle owner, a woman in her 50s, was reportedly afraid to call police.
Costa Mesa authorities say the owner of the vehicle later told police that she let the woman, a homeless Fountain Valley women believed to be in her 50s or 60s, to sleep in her fathers car before she died.
Police believe the deceased woman’s first name is “Signe.”
Officers are still trying to figure out why the owner of the vehicle chose to drive around with a foul-smelling corpse rather than make a report to authorities. Officers say it appears the vehicle owner befriended the homeless woman for altruistic reasons.
The date of the homeless woman’s death was uncertain, but authorities estimate that she could have been in the car from three to 10 months.
Det. Mike Cohen said, “All the more bizarre, Cohen said, was the ‘very calm and very articulate’ delivery of the other woman in describing the episode during police questioning.”
Anyone with information about the identity of the dead woman or information that could help investigators is asked to call Costa Mesa police detectives at (714) 754-5178 or (714) 754-5395.
Legal News Reporter: Nicole Howley
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