Suspect helped teenager’s father to search for slain friend

UNITED STATES: A 16-year-old who was part of a search party looking for a missing high school sports star led the group that discovered the boy’s body – but investigators suspect he was the person who fatally stabbed his longtime friend and left his body in bushes near a riverbed, Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives said yesterday.

Jeremy Sanchez, 17, was found dead on Thursday in a riverbed in South El Monte, about 20km from downtown Los Angeles, investigators said.

The teen’s father assembled a group of the boy’s close friends to search for him after he didn’t show up for school on Thursday. The suspect and another friend found Sanchez’s body later that day.

‘‘The person who killed him is the one who said, ‘Look, there he is’,’’ sheriff’s homicide Lieutenant John Corina said.

Investigators believe that the teenage suspect, whose name has not been released because of his age, stabbed Sanchez multiple times and left his body in the wooded area.

Detectives are still trying to pin down a motive for the killing but said the two were ‘‘very good friends’’.

Sanchez’s Amigon, said in a post on GoFundMe that Sanchez loved playing sports. He was on his high school’s varsity football team and on the wrestling team.

‘‘We have no words to describe the grief that their family is experiencing right now,’’ she wrote.

Edward Zuniga, the superintendent of the El Monte Union High School District, said Sanchez was a popular student athlete and that school officials were still in shock over his death.

The school district was offering grief counselling to other students, he said.

‘‘Jeremy was a very respectful kid, very outgoing, and always had a smile on his face,’’ his wrestling coach, Ray Castellanos, said after visiting a makeshift memorial set up at the riverbed where he was killed.

‘‘I’m devastated. It’s not supposed to be this way.’’

The suspect was arrested early yesterday , when detectives grew wary of his story after hearing conflicting statements during interviews, Corina said. ‘‘Some things didn’t add up.’’

Corina said it was disturbing and out of the ordinary for the suspect to be involved in the search for the friend he allegedly killed.

PHOTO: AP Wrestling coach Ray Castellanos, right, and assistant coach Monique Cabrera mourn at the site where their South El Monte High School athlete Jeremy Sanchez, 17, was fatally stabbed, allegedly by a teenage friend.