Decomposed Body Found Off Highway

A passing motorist who stopped on the side of a mountain road to smoke a cigarette found a decomposed body Monday afternoon just off California 150 near Thomas Aquinas College, authorities said.

The body was found about 2 p.m. on the north side of the highway, about a mile north of the campus, said Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Will Hammer. Deputies could not determine if it was a man or a woman.

The unidentified motorist asked a telephone company employee who was working in the area to call authorities. The motorist spotted the body about 10 feet over a cliff beneath a large turnout on the side of the road.

The body was clothed and apparently had been there for several weeks. No physical evidence was found in the immediate area.

The sheriff’s search-and-rescue team rappelled down the cliff and retrieved the body, which was in the open and not covered by brush, Hammer said.

Detectives planned to shoot several photographs of the area and expected that an autopsy scheduled for today will reveal the gender and identity.

The case was being handled as a homicide, said Mitch Breese, the county’s chief deputy medical examiner.