Day Laborer Is Sought in Slaying

An arrest warrant was issued Tuesday for an Anaheim day laborer who is suspected in the Friday slaying of a cleaning woman in the Laguna Hills apartment building where she worked and lived.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is seeking Arnulfo Gonzalez Rivera, 25, who investigators said was putting up drywall in an apartment near the one where Irma Jimenez, 39, was found slain.

A maintenance worker found Jimenez’s body about 2 p.m. in a room she had been cleaning, Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino said. The maintenance worker had been trying to reach Jimenez on a walkie-talkie.

Amormino said the cause of death would not be released until an arrest was made.

Authorities doubt that Rivera knew Jimenez, who lived with her three children in the 24500 block of Los Alisos Boulevard. Authorities also have ruled out robbery as a motive.

Rivera, a native of Sinaloa, Mexico, left his job site Friday without telling his supervisor and was later seen running from the complex, Amormino said.

He never returned to work and didn’t show up for a ride back to Ball Road and Beach Boulevard in Anaheim, where he was picked up with other day laborers Friday morning, Amormino said. Authorities believe he may have returned to Mexico.