Countywide

Sheriff’s homicide detectives are investigating the discovery of two bodies over the weekend, one of a San Diego insurance salesman who was beaten and the other of an unidentified young woman, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

A ranger Saturday night found the body of Wayne Ronald Pasquill, 38, in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, said Lt. Bill Baxter, a sheriff’s homicide detective.

State park rangers called the California Highway Patrol, thinking that Pasquill was the victim of a hit-and-run accident because the body was found near county highway S2, Baxter said.

But a coroner’s report issued Monday said Pasquill died of a beating to the head, complicated by exposure, meaning Pasquill was alive when he was dropped off in the desert, Baxter said.

In another incident Sunday night, a Pine Valley resident found the nude body of a woman who had been beaten and strangled, officials said. The woman, who was probably in her 20s, was found two miles north of Interstate 8 and 300 feet west of Sunrise Highway, Baxter said.