Girl’s Body Found Near Channel : Police: A Cypress teen-ager is found dead near a flood control channel not far from her home. Someone may have tried to hide her remains under pine needles, officials said.

Bertha Velasquez had a bad feeling when her 16-year-old daughter told her she was going out to the beach with friends Sunday night.

“I told her not to go, not to go,” Velasquez said. “And she said: ‘Trust me, trust me. Nothing is going to happen.’ Then she left, and she never came back.”

The body of the daughter, Zuleima Valdez, was discovered Monday under a pile of pine needles near the Coyote Creek flood-control channel in Lakewood, about four blocks from the family’s mobile home, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said.

Investigators are handling the case as a possible homicide, deputies said.

In an interview Tuesday, Velasquez said she last saw Zuleima about 9 p.m. Sunday, when her daughter told her she was going to meet a boy at the beach.

“I said, ‘You don’t have a car, how can you?’ ” Velasquez said through an interpreter.

Zuleima said she would get a ride with friends, Velasquez said.

Zuleima then left, but Velasquez said she does not know whether her daughter was accompanied by friends.

When Zuleima had not returned by 1 a.m., Velasquez said, she called police.

The next day, Velasquez said, she found the boy Zuleima was supposedly going to the beach to meet. He lives in the same mobile home park.

The boy, whom Velasquez would not identify, said he had been at the beach Sunday but had come home alone.

“I asked him to please help me find my daughter,” Velasquez said.

Friends and neighbors at the Lincoln Center Mobile Home Park helped search for the missing girl, without success.

Then, about 5:45 p.m. Monday, Zuleima’s fully clothed body was found by two teen-agers riding bicycles near the flood-control channel, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Wahla said.

There were no visible signs of trauma, Wahla said, with an autopsy scheduled for later this week.

The body was found in a hollow area about 50 feet from the paved path and was partly buried beneath pine needles, leading sheriff’s investigators to suspect that someone tried to hide the body, Wahla said. Pine needles from evergreen trees rimming Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Cypress are lightly scattered over the area.

Velasquez said she doubts that her daughter ever made it to the beach.

“They didn’t have to commit this crime, this miserable, rotten crime,” she said, bursting into tears. “I have no forgiveness for them. Whoever it was, she trusted them. She was a child, an innocent child.

“She had no malice,” Velasquez said. “She liked life. I don’t know why they cut (it) short.”

Friends and neighbors gathered at the family’s mobile home Tuesday to offer sympathy.

“She liked going to the beach,” said Chris Strows, 17, a neighbor, friend and schoolmate of Zuleima’s. Chris said he last saw Zuleima on Sunday afternoon, when she told him that she planned to watch friends play basketball at a local court, another of her favorite pastimes.

“She was a very nice, intelligent kid . . . very sensible,” said Walter Casey, assistant manager of the mobile home park where the family has lived for two years.

Jack D. Weber, the principal at Cypress High School, where Zuleima was a freshman, described the girl as an average- to above-average student who was quiet and well behaved and had a good attendance record.

“We’re barely coping,” Weber said. “There is a lot of sentiment and sorrow at her loss.”

Zuleima had moved with her family from New York to Cypress just before she started eighth grade at Lexington Junior High School, Principal Pat Savage said.

“She made friends easily,” Savage recalled. “She was not the kind of girl who was shy.”

Weber announced the news of Zuleima’s death over the high school’s public address system and said counseling would be available for students. The flags in front of the school were lowered to half-staff, and an informal memorial service was scheduled for today.

Group counseling sessions held throughout Tuesday drew many of Zuleima’s friends as well as students who barely knew her, Weber said.

“She seemed real nice, real pure,” said junior Veronica Gutierrez, 17, who took physical education classes with Zuleima.

Senior Marisela Rodriguez, 18, described Zuleima as a quiet girl “who seemed real innocent.”

Residents near the area where the body was found--about 200 yards north of Carson Street in Lakewood, at the Centralia Street overpass of Coyote Creek, just over the Los Angeles County border--did not report any unusual occurrences Sunday night or early Monday.

“I sure hope they catch who did it,” said resident Janet Fischer, who rides her bicycle to work each day along the flood-control channel. “I use that trail every day, and I don’t like the idea of a bunch of murdering punks out there.”

Eugene Allen, 26, a resident of a street that backs up to the channel, said the paved trail area is dangerous at night.

“There is always something going on,” he said.

The channel heads southwest out of Cypress and connects to a trail along the San Gabriel River that ends at Seal Beach. To the northeast, the Coyote Creek channel ends at Imperial Highway, near Santa Fe Springs.

Times correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.