Missing Girl’s Body Found; Officers Say She Was Strangled

A partially decomposed body found Sunday in the Carbon Canyon area of the Chino Hills was identified Monday as that of 14-year-old Wendy Rachelle Osborn of Placentia, who disappeared on her way to school two weeks ago, San Bernardino County authorities said.

“The cause of death is strangulation,” Placentia Police Sgt. Ken Gardner said.

James Bryant, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, and Placentia investigators said Monday that they were investigating similarities between the Osborn child’s death and the kidnap-murder of a 7-year-old South Pasadena girl in December.

The full results of an autopsy begun Monday afternoon on Wendy Osborn were not immediately available, and the San Bernardino County Coroner’s office declined comment on the cause of death. Before the autopsy, Chief Deputy Coroner Phil Alexander had said the slightly built teen-ager’s body had no visible signs of trauma to explain how she died.

Positive identification was made Monday by a comparison of fingerprints taken from Wendy as part of a Girl Scout project, Alexander said.

The teen-ager’s body was fully clothed when it was discovered Sunday afternoon on a rugged ridgeline by horseback riders, San Bernardino County Sheriff Floyd Tidwell said Monday. She had been dead “at least a day, possibly several days,” he said.

Tidwell said some evidence has been recovered from the area, but he declined to elaborate. On Monday, about 30 sheriff’s deputies on foot and on horseback continued to comb the rugged terrain for clues.

Near Country Club

The body was found near the Western Hills Country Club on a hill overlooking a construction site for several custom-home view lots, west of Carbon Canyon Road and about two miles northeast of the Orange County line.

Placentia police viewed the body at the scene Sunday and brought back a piece of clothing to be identified by family members, who were at Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton, where special prayer meetings have been held for Wendy’s safe return, the Rev. Ben Merold said.

“The family is doing very well, I think,” Merold said. “There are several relatives there, and that always helps. I think they have expected the worst for the last several days.”

Richard P. Vouga, principal at Tuffree Junior High School where Wendy was an eighth-grader, said it was not generally known on campus Monday that Wendy’s body had been found.

“Since we’ve known she’s missing, all the homeroom teachers have talked with the students about common-sense reaction and safety that we normally associate with talking to primary students,” Vouga said. “We don’t know what it’s going to be like” when students learn of her death, he said. “We’ll deal with it when it comes.”

Investigators said Monday that they had not ruled out a connection with the kidnaping and murder of 7-year-old Phoebe Ho of South Pasadena, whose fully-clothedbody was discovered Dec. 19 in a weed-covered field in the Glen Avon area of Riverside County. An arrest warrant has been issued in that case for James Warren Bland, 51, a parolee with a history of sex crimes who was last known to be living in the Alhambra area.

An autopsy showed that the South Pasadena girl, who also disappeared while walking to school on Dec. 11, had been sexually molested and strangled. But it was not immediately known whether Wendy Osborn had been sexually assaulted.

Wendy Osborn was last seen by her parents on Jan. 20, when she left home shortly after 8 a.m. to walk to school. She never arrived at Tuffree Junior High, less than two miles away, and her parents--Jack and Carolyn Osborn--reported her missing at 6:30 p.m. that evening.

Same Clothing

When the body was discovered, it was clad in the same clothes--a pink shirt with black markings, pink pants and high-top shoes--Wendy was wearing the morning she disappeared, according to Bryant, the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department spokesman.

Bryant added that the department has formed a task force to determine Wendy’s whereabouts during the two-week period she was missing. Detectives will be in contact with police in Pasadena and Placentia, as well as the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department to determine whether there is a connection between this case and the kidnap-murder of Phoebe Ho, he said.

Riverside County authorities said Monday that there has been no sign of a third missing girl, 7-year-old April Ann Cooper, who was last seen Dec. 13, playing in the Woodchuck Campground near Lake Elsinore.

Meanwhile, at a command post set up in the hilly area near where Wendy’s body was found, Sgt. Bill Arthur of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said investigators were attempting to locate residents or workmen who may have seen any suspicious vehicles or persons in the area.

Few Live There

But few people live in the homes, most of which are still under construction. Moreover, the ridgeline where the body was found is visible from only one or two houses on adjacent hilltops in the rugged terrain, Arthur said.

The body was found about 100 yards up a steep, brush-covered slope that rises from an equestrian trail winding behind Berkley Drive, not far from Carbon Canyon Road, which connects northeastern Orange County with the Chino area.

“Horse traffic had gone up the same trail that she would have walked up or been carried up,” Arthur said. “All we could find were horse hoof” tracks.

“We haven’t found anything that would lead us to anybody . . . ,” he said.

Contributing to this story were Times Staff Writers Steve Emmons, Maria L. La Ganga and Louis Sahagun.