Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Body Found in Desert Is Identified : Crime: Sheriff’s deputies say Ruth Carolina Barneond, 19, died from stab wounds. She had last been seen Feb. 5.

A body found last week in a remote high-desert town has been identified as Ruth Carolina Barneond, 19, a student and waitress who disappeared in early February after visiting friends a few blocks from her Palmdale home, authorities said Wednesday.

“That is the woman,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Angie McLaughlin. “She died of multiple stab wounds.”

Homicide detectives are investigating the case, McLaughlin said.

At the time of Barneond’s disappearance, deputies suspected foul play because her unlocked car was found in an unassigned space in her apartment lot, with the keys still in the ignition and valuable property left inside.

Shortly after her disappearance, Sheriff’s Department officials sought the public’s help in locating Barneond, saying that the situation might be related to the fact that some of her acquaintances were believed to have been involved in a 1994 murder in Mexico. Barneond was not a suspect or witness to those slayings, however, according to investigator Rick Graves, who added that her abduction might be completely unrelated to the incident in Mexico.

Graves could not be reached for comment Wednesday regarding the discovery of the woman’s body.

The body was found last Thursday by a man walking his dog in the remote Antelope Valley town of Neenach. He spotted the fully clothed woman’s body, face down.

Using dental records, Los Angeles County coroner’s investigators identified the remains as those of Barneond, said Scott Carrier, a coroner’s spokesman.

Barneond was last seen leaving a friend’s apartment at 2 a.m. Feb. 5 in the 38600 block of 10th Street East in Palmdale. Deputies said she was preparing to drive her 1994 black Ford Escort to her apartment.

The next day, family members found the car parked in a suspicious manner and called deputies.

The teen-ager, a 1994 graduate of Highland High School, lived with her 2-year-old son and her mother. She had been working as a waitress and attending Antelope Valley College in Lancaster.

Xinmin Zhu, an Antelope Valley College philosophy instructor who taught Barneond last semester, said he and the woman’s classmates were shocked to hear about her disappearance and her death.

“She was always a very pleasant person,” the instructor recalled. “She always smiled. She didn’t seem to have problems with any of the other students.”

Barneond did not talk about her personal life, but Zhu said she was planning to go to a university after finishing her basic courses at Antelope Valley. She was punctual about getting to class and turning in her assignments, he said.

“She was quiet,” Zhu said. “But it seemed to me that she was a serious student because she hardly ever skipped any of my classes.”