Bodies of six people found at remote crossroads in Mojave desert in California
Deputies found the bodies of six people at a remote dirt crossroads in the Mojave desert in southern California, in a scene described as so grisly that TV stations blurred some of the images captured by their helicopter overhead.
San Bernardino county sheriff’s deputies responding to a request for a wellness check reached the remote area off Highway 395 outside the community of El Mirage around 8.15pm and found five of the bodies. The sixth was found on Wednesday morning, a sheriff’s spokesperson, Mara Rodriguez, said.
Authorities were still gathering evidence to determine what happened, and Rodriguez said they could not say even how the people died or whether they had been shot. The area, about 50 miles (80km) north-east of Los Angeles and about 20 miles north-west of Victorville, is so remote that the San Bernardino sheriff’s department called in help from the California highway patrol’s aviation division to find the scene, Rodriguez said.
“It’ll be several hours still before we are ready for any body to be removed from the scene,” she said, adding that the coroner’s investigators will be called in then.
TV crews arriving at the scene on Tuesday night reported seeing two vehicles there. Overhead footage from TV stations showed a dark blue SUV with a passenger window blown out and another door open, with part of the image blurred.
The footage showed several yellow markers near the dirt crossroads, in scrubby desert land that stretched for miles. Yellow tape blocked access from the nearest paved road.
Members of the department’s specialized investigations division were brought in to conduct a homicide investigation, according to an email from a sheriff ’s spokesperson, Gloria Huerta.