Body of Missing Teenager Is Found

An 18-year-old Downey woman reported missing after failing to return home from work was found dead Friday morning near the Orange Freeway north of Brea.

Brea police searched for Ornella Mallari by tracking her cellular phone signal, which led them to her body. She was found in a secluded dirt lot near a freeway entrance on North Brea Boulevard.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the case as a homicide.

“The body was in plain view,” said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the department. The killer “made no effort to conceal it.”

Amormino said it was unclear how Mallari had been killed and that there were no apparent gunshot or stab wounds. An autopsy is scheduled for today. He said the autopsy also will determine whether the teenager was sexually assaulted.

Tire tracks were found near the body, as well as “ample physical evidence” that Amormino declined to identify.

Mallari was seen about 11:30 p.m. Thursday leaving her job at the Burger King restaurant at Paramount Boulevard and Imperial Highway in Downey. But she never completed the half-mile walk home, and her parents reported her missing.

“Somewhere between her home and her employer, someone abducted her,” Amormino said. “We’re not sure if she was driven to this location and killed and dumped here, or if she was killed at another location and driven here.”

Co-workers, who learned of the news when they came to work Friday, were stunned.

“It’s a tragedy and it’s a shock. We’re saddened by it,” said Adul Alauad, a manager at the Burger King. “She was a very nice person. Everybody got along with her. We send our condolences to her family.”

Orange County officials are asking anyone who saw the victim Thursday night to call the Orange County Sheriff’s Department at (714) 628-7170. She was described as a 5-foot-4, 120-pound Latina, with short brown hair and wearing a black jacket, blue polo shirt and black pants, walking east on Imperial Highway in Downey.