Slain Girl, 9, Not Abducted

Santa Ana police said Tuesday they believe that 9-year-old Patricia Lopez walked or was driven voluntarily from Monte Vista Elementary School to the flood control channel where she was later beaten to death.

“Her first encounter with the suspect more than likely occurred in the immediate vicinity of the murder site,” said Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Chavez.

He said police have discounted the theory that she was abducted because witnesses saw her walking alone in the bed of the Santa Ana River minutes before she was killed.

Investigators also have largely discounted the theory that her slaying may have stemmed from a gang-related shooting of her brother, 19-year-old Hector Lopez, last February, Chavez said.

He said witnesses have given investigators a description of a suspect: a male Latino in his 30s, 5 feet 9 inches tall, stocky, with a thick mustache.

The girl’s body was found Friday by children playing near the channel.

Patricia, a third-grader at Monte Vista in Santa Ana, was seen leaving the school at about 2 p.m. last Wednesday. She was supposed to have met her mother, as usual, at the corner of Center Street and McFadden Avenue on her way home.

Her body was discovered in a drainpipe near the Fairview Street Bridge two days later.

Authorities 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.