Body of Man Found Downtown Identified as Carson Resident

“John Doe No. 171,” the body which had lain for several days near one of Los Angeles’ busiest intersections, was a 63-year-old man who had wandered away from a Carson convalescent home at least a week before his death, authorities said Friday.

Coroner’s spokesman Bill Gold said the body was identified as that of Jose Marina, also known as Jose Goudon, from three small tattoos on the left arm.

The decomposing body was found Monday at the foot of an unused flagpole at the county’s Central Heating and Refrigeration Plant at Temple Street and Broadway.

Los Angeles Police said that the body was within sight of hundreds of pedestrians who pass the building daily but that it was ignored, apparently because people thought he was just another sleeping derelict.

Marina-Goudon apparently died last weekend. An autopsy showed that he was a victim of a heart attack, Gold said.

A staff member of the View Heights Convalescent Home, where Marina-Goudon had lived, identified the man from a photo of the distinctive tattoos--a cross, a skull and dagger and a nude woman, Gold said.

The home had filed a missing persons report on the man, but a staffer at the facility said she was not authorized to give any information and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department could not immediately find the report.

Police said the man had been seen panhandling around the Temple Street-Broadway area.