Police Find Body That ‘Quite a Few’ Saw, Didn’t Report

A body discovered in a garage Thursday and believed to be that of a missing 16-year-old girl had been seen over the last three days by “quite a few” people, none of whom called police, authorities said.

Police discovered the nude body at 1 p.m. as they searched for 16-year-old Marie Asu of Anaheim, missing since Jan. 8. Police had been randomly searching that area and interviewing neighbors since Tuesday, when Asu’s family learned that she might have gone there.

Officers found the body on a cot inside a four-car garage in the 1900 block of East Grove Avenue. The common garage is attached to a row of rental units, and the spot where the body was found is assigned to a vacant unit.

“As we started interviewing people throughout the complex, it appears that there are quite a few people in the area who have seen the body in the last three days and have chosen not to report it to the police, for whatever reason,” Orange Police Lt. Trey Sirks said. “Hopefully, now that we have the body, some of these people will come forward with information.”

Police on Thursday night had not positively identified the body of the girl, who “has a similar physical description as the missing girl,” Sirks said.

Police said she appeared to have been dead for about three days. They would not say if there were obvious injuries, and they have no motive or suspects.

Homicide detectives remained outside the garage for several hours Thursday, awaiting a search warrant from a judge giving them permission to re-enter the garage and search for more clues.

Late Thursday night the warrant arrived, and police and coroners’ officials went inside and began their detailed investigation.

Outside, Asu’s aunt, Kalala Antonio, and a close family friend, Susie Galeai, said they feared the body was that of Asu.

On Tuesday, close friends of Asu told her aunt that the girl, a student at Richland Continuation High School in Orange, might be in that area and might be in trouble or harmed. The two women said they had searched the area carefully on Wednesday but discovered nothing.

“We heard rumors that she might be over here,” Antonio said haltingly as she sat on a curb at the scene, smoking and crying.

Shortly after reporting Asu missing to the Anaheim Police Department earlier this month, relatives and friends had begun their own search.

“We were out there looking for her,” Galeai said. “That’s how us Samoans are. We didn’t want to sit by and wait for the news to come to us.”

The aunt said the girl had been living with her since 1986, after she had a falling out with her parents. She said Asu’s mother lives in Seattle and her father in Santa Ana. She said neither parent had been reached since the teen-ager disappeared three weeks ago.

Antonio said that her niece had run away from home last December but had returned about a week later. She left again on Jan. 8 and had not contacted family members since.

When her niece returned home the first time, Antonio said, she told Antonio that she had been staying in the East Grove Avenue area.

“It was hard, it was hard to raise her,” said Antonio, who described the troubled teen-ager as sometimes “confused and anxious.”

“I wouldn’t want her to end her life like this,” she said.

Sirks, asked why the body hadn’t been reported by any of those who had seen it, said: “‘We have no idea, but we’d like to know why. It might just be the general makeup of the neighborhood. This is a rough neighborhood. It’s obvious that there is gang activity. You can see it everywhere you go.”