OJAI : Drawing to Be Used to Identify Remains

An employee of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department will try to identify the woman whose bones were found on an Ojai roadside last week by attempting to draw a picture of the woman’s face, authorities said.

Barbara Hunt, who works with the sheriff’s Bureau of Identification, took a course with the FBI last year, Deputy Coroner Jim Wingate said.

“When she gets through, we’ll see if we can identify her,” Wingate said.

The Ventura County coroner’s office has been unsuccessful in trying to find dental records to identify the skeletal remains of a woman they believe drowned in a flood 21 years ago.

The bones and teeth found on an Oak View roadside might belong to Jeanetta LaBelle, who was 39 when on Jan. 25, 1969, she was believed to have drowned in a flood, Deputy Coroner Mitch Breese said.

But to confirm that identity, a dental comparison needs to be made between five uncovered teeth and old X-rays.

One area dentist who had treated LaBelle lost the records, Wingate said.

While helping a driver who had plunged off California 33 last week, rescue crews found a skull about 60 feet down a steep hillside on the southeast corner of the highway’s intersection with Creek Road.

Other county officials searching the area later found leg, finger and rib bones along with the five teeth.

In 1969, records indicate, one woman drowned in the San Antonio Creek in Oak View and the floods killed another 11 people in Ventura County, said Francis Rugin, a librarian for the Ventura County Museum of History and Art.