Badly Beaten Woman ID’d as Drifter From East Coast

A woman who was sexually assaulted, severely beaten and left for dead in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains was identified Wednesday as a 20-year-old drifter who had been missing from Massachusetts since last year, officials said.

Authorities found the woman’s name through a national missing-persons database Wednesday, two days after she was discovered face down in a pool of blood about 10 feet from Trabuco Creek Road near the entrance to the Cleveland National Forest.

“We don’t know a whole lot about her, but for 20 years old, it’s a tale of a tragic life,” said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

The woman was reported missing by her legal guardian in September 2003 in Massachusetts, Amormino said. She is a transient who was last known to be in Northern California in December 2003, he said.

The woman, whose name is being withheld by authorities because she is a sex-crime victim, was discovered Monday morning by two mountain bikers. She was semiconscious and so badly beaten that investigators could not immediately determine her race or age, police said. She remained in critical condition Wednesday with major head trauma, officials said.

After Monday’s arrest of Raul Salvador Marin, 31, a Rancho Santa Margarita house painter, police accused him Wednesday of eight felony counts, including attempted murder, assault with intent to commit sexual offense, attempted rape, sexual penetration by a foreign object by force, and kidnapping.