Transient Stabbed to Death, Autopsy Shows

A man whose body was found Friday next to the entrance of a railroad tunnel near Chatsworth Park was apparently stabbed to death and then his body may have been hit by a train, Los Angeles police said.

The body of the unidentified man believed to be in his 20s was found about 2 a.m. by two hikers in the hills surrounding the park at the western end of Devonshire Street.

Lt. Harvie Eubank said that there was no identification and that the victim appeared to be a transient. The man had several wounds, indicating that he might have been hit by a train and thrown into a wall at the entrance to a tunnel that takes the Southern Pacific Railway tracks through the hills, Eubank said.

However, a preliminary autopsy determined that the man had several wounds in the upper body that appeared to be from a knife, Eubank said. The death was being investigated as a homicide.

He said the autopsy had not determined if the man’s other injuries occurred during a fight or if his body had been left on the tracks and hit by a train. Eubank said detectives were investigating the possibility that the body was left on the tracks in an effort to disguise that the man had been slain.