Body of Kidnaped Oceanside Girl Is Discovered in Canyon

The remains of 7-year-old Leticia Hernandez, whose kidnaping 15 months ago launched a nationwide search, were found in a remote canyon in northern San Diego County, authorities said Monday.

A property caretaker discovered the girl’s badly decomposed body Saturday near a rural county road between the Pala Indian Reservation and Riverside County line. She may have been dead for as long as a year, authorities said.

“The remains have been positively identified through dental records as those of Leticia Hernandez,” said Sgt. Bill Krunglevich of the Oceanside Police Department. “The (county) medical examiner’s office indicates that the time of death occurred between three and 12 months ago,” he said.

Authorities did not disclose a cause of death, exactly where the body was found or whether there are suspects, saying only that there is an ongoing investigation by Oceanside police and the FBI.

A spokesman for the medical examiner’s office, who asked not to be identified, said the investigation “is being handled as a homicide” unless an examination of the remains proves otherwise.

“It’s extremely difficult to pinpoint a time of death,” said the spokesman, adding, “It’s really hard with skeletal remains.” The spokesman gave no information on whether the body bore any obvious signs of trauma, such as wounds.

The area where the body was found is sparsely populated, with the only signs of life a few widely scattered ranches.

Leticia’s disappearance Dec. 16, 1989, as she played outside her family’s modest Oceanside apartment sparked a massive hunt as police checked thousands of leads and 18 supposed sightings along Interstate 10 from California to Florida.

The crime got national television exposure with segments on “Crime Stoppers,” “Unsolved Mysteries” and “America’s Most Wanted,” but the last purported sighting was May 22. As late as last week police said glumly that there were no promising leads.

“It’s a case everyone had hoped would end in a different way,” Krunglevich said. “It’s not over, now it begins a different phase.”

For the family, only pain is in their immediate future.

On Monday, family members grieved openly at the Hernandez home, a ground-floor apartment in an Oceanside barrio populated mostly by immigrants from Mexico and their relatives.

Police had told the family late Sunday night that Leticia’s body had been found.

The girl’s mother, also named Leticia, 33, sat stunned on a couch in the two-bedroom apartment where photographs of the missing youngster adorn almost every wall. “I’m sad, very sad,” she said.

“I lost my only sister,” lamented the dead girl’s older sister, Maria Hortelano, 17. Leticia also leaves five brothers and a father who is a farm worker in the Sacramento area.

Although the body was found about 22 miles from the child’s home, authorities are not willing to regard the reported out-of-state sightings as bogus.

“None of the sightings have been discounted as not having occurred,” Krunglevich said.

FBI Agent Ron Orrantia, who visited the canyon site where investigators searched for clues, said: “The FBI is still actively involved in the investigation because there are quite a few areas that are unclear”--such as whether Leticia was taken out of the state.