Countywide : Man’s Body Found in Truck Wreckage

The body of a man who had been missing nearly five weeks was removed on Tuesday from the wreckage of a truck that had tumbled 400 feet down a ravine in the foothills near Ventura.

The body of Joseph Portao, 71, of Thousand Oaks was found pinned beneath the dashboard of a white pickup after nearby residents reported seeing the truck at the bottom of the ravine, said Ventura County Deputy Coroner James Wingate.

Portao had been reported missing March 17 by his wife Silvia, Wingate said. Portao was despondent over financial problems, Wingate said.

The coroner’s office scheduled an autopsy for today, Wingate said.

“The body was in such a state of decomposition, there was no way to determine what killed him,” said Sgt. Carl Handy of the Ventura Police Department.

Police believe that the truck veered off a little-used road at the top of Kalorama Street, plunged down a steep incline, rolled over and landed upside down, Handy said.

Ventura resident Dita Wolanow said she and her husband William spotted the truck Monday from a hill across the ravine as they were showing friends around their 55 acres at the top of North Crimea Street.

Police determined on Monday that the man was dead but decided that it would be too dangerous to retrieve the body in the darkness. Early Tuesday morning, members of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department search-and-rescue team rappelled down the side of the hill, threaded their way through scrubby underbrush and worked for almost five hours to free the body, Handy said.