Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Report Says Gunshots Killed Intruder, 17

An autopsy report concluded that a naked teen-ager who went berserk and tried to enter a Lancaster home hours after friends say he took LSD died from multiple gunshot wounds.

Josue Oswald Morales, 17, was shot twice early Monday morning by Keith Wood, the owner of the home in the 700 block of East Avenue J-9 where the bizarre incident occurred, after he repeatedly tried to enter Wood’s home.

Homicide investigators said Wood will not be charged in Josue’s death. “He was acting in self-defense of his home,” said Sgt. Stuart Reed.

Investigators, however, will turn over their file on the case to the district attorney’s office in Lancaster. “Given the circumstances, we should allow them to look at it.”

The district attorney will be given the file once the coroner’s office has received the results of toxicology tests, Reed said. Those test results are not expected for at least a week.

“Undoubtedly it will show some level of drug ingestion,” Reed said. “It’s too bizarre an incident for there not to be drugs.”

Josue’s brother and girlfriend, who were with him before he was shot, said he had taken LSD, a drug the high school dropout had previously used.

After hanging out in a vacant field for a couple hours behind Wood’s home, Josue went into Wood’s back yard and tried to enter the house. Wood said he told the youth to leave and that he had called police and had a gun.

Josue ignored Wood and kept trying to enter the home through several double-pane windows, one of which he finally dove through, nearly severing one of his legs, homicide investigators said.

Wood fired three shots at Josue, who at one point during the rampage took off his clothes and, saying he was going swimming, dove into Wood’s concrete patio.

Josue died at a Lancaster hospital about an hour after the 1:34 a.m. shooting.