Police Discount Abduction : Schoolgirl Seen at Her Murder Site

Police Tuesday discounted the theory that Patricia Lopez, 9, was abducted, saying witnesses saw her walking alone in the Santa Ana River channel minutes before she was killed.

Police now believe she walked or was driven voluntarily from Santa Ana’s Monte Vista Elementary School to the dry flood-control channel “because we have nothing showing us” that she was abducted, Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Chavez said. “Her first encounter with the suspect more than likely occurred in the immediate vicinity of the murder site.”

The girl’s body was found Friday by children playing near the channel. She had been beaten to death. The same witnesses also gave a description of a man police are trying to identify: a male Latino in his 30s, 5 feet, 9 inches tall, stocky, with a thick mustache, Chavez said.

Investigators have also largely discounted the theory that the slaying may have stemmed from February’s gang-related shooting of her brother, Hector Lopez, 19, Chavez said. Lopez, who was not seriously wounded, later testified at the preliminary hearing of the man accused in the assault.

Patricia, a third-grader, was seen leaving her school about 2 p.m. on June 3, Chavez said. She was supposed to meet her mother, as she did every school day, at the corner of Center Street and McFadden Avenue on her way home. But her mother, Modesta Lopez, arrived at the corner about five minutes later than usual and did not see Patricia.

Seen at 4 p.m.

No one has reported seeing Patricia after 2 p.m. until 4 p.m., when “a couple of witnesses” saw her walking in the river channel, Chavez said. Her body was found two days later in a drainpipe near the Fairview Street Bridge.

Chavez would not say whether the witnesses saw a suspect and Patricia together in the river channel, or if they saw each one walking alone.

Officials have not released the results of an autopsy. Santa Ana police have said, however, that Patricia was killed at about 4 p.m. with a blunt instrument and that there were no signs of sexual molestation.

Investigators are also trying to find the owner of a gray pickup truck with a camper shell that witnesses said was parked near the river about the time Lopez was killed. “They may have seen something that they’re not even aware of,” Chavez said.

Police do not know if Patricia had ever before walked to the river on her own from the school--nearly two miles away. But she may have been familiar with the area because she had previously attended Hazard Elementary School on the other side of the river from Monte Vista, Chavez said.

A funeral Mass will be said for Patricia today at 10 a.m. at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, 5021 West 16th St., Santa Ana.