Body Found in Hills Identified as That of Girl, 14, Missing for Two Weeks

A partially decomposed body found 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, authorities said.

San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokesman James Bryant confirmed strangulation as the cause of death. But autopsy results were incomplete.

The positive identification was made by a comparison of fingerprints, Alexander said.

The teen-ager’s body was fully clothed when it was discovered Sunday afternoon on a rugged ridge line by horseback riders, Sheriff Floyd Tidwell said, adding that she had been dead “at least a day, possibly several days.”

Tidwell said some evidence was recovered from the area, but he declined to elaborate.

The body was found on a hillside near the Western Hills Country Club, about two miles northeast of the Orange and San Bernardino county line.

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 strangled body 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 whose last known address was in Alhambra.