Body of stabbing victim is found off highway

Woman, 21, had been on a missing persons list from 2012-14.

A woman whose body was discovered Sunday near Angeles Crest Highway north of La Cañada Flintridge has been identified as 21-year-old Raylynn Josephine-Deanne Hernandez, a coroner’s spokesman confirmed Wednesday.

Hernandez’s name and date of birth match a missing persons report issued by the San Bernardino Police Department in 2012.

The report indicates that Hernandez, then 16, had last been seen on May 25, 2012. She was described as having brown eyes, dyed red hair, star tattoos on her left wrist and the name “Leyla” with two hearts tattooed on her right forearm.

Lt. Mike Madden, a spokesman for the San Bernardino Police Department, said the missing persons report was last issued on Sept. 8, 2013.

“On Dec. 30, 2014, we were notified by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department that she’d been located and, by that point, she had been declared an emancipated minor,” Madden said Wednesday. “We removed her from the missing persons system. That was our last communication.”

According to a release issued Sunday by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a hiker near Angeles Crest Highway saw Hernandez’s body about 1:30 p.m. that day.

Investigators said the body showed stab wounds and had apparently been dumped off a hillside just off the road.

Los Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter confirmed Wednesday the body was that of Hernandez. An autopsy indicating the official cause of death was pending.

sara.cardine@latimes.com Cardine writes for Times Community News.