Man Arrested in Connection With Body Found Monday

A 40-year-old Panorama City man was arrested early Tuesday on suspicion of killing a man whose body was found along a rural road in the Santa Monica Mountains on Monday, according to authorities.

Jeffrey Fecht, who had been under police surveillance, was pulled over at 3:30 a.m. in the 7700 block of Ventura Canyon Avenue by Los Angeles police officers, authorities said.

Fecht was turned over to the Sheriff’s Department, which has jurisdiction over the unincorporated mountain area south of Calabasas where the victim’s body was found.

Fecht was being held at the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff’s station in lieu of $1 million bail, said Sheriff’s Deputy Cruz Solis. “Detectives feel there is enough evidence to file charges,” Solis said.

The body of the victim--described only as an adult male--was found by a hiker Monday before noon just off Mulholland Highway about a mile north of Kanan Road. Investigators would say only that the victim appeared to have suffered trauma.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office Tuesday had a tentative identification of the victim based on documentation found on the body, said Scott Carrier, a spokesman for the agency, but the identification had to be confirmed through fingerprints.

The cause of death had yet to be determined, Carrier said.