Family wishes for answers

Dave Wood, a prosperous headhunter for electronic firms, sat on his pastel-hued porch in the hills high above Santa Barbara and recalled the day 15 months ago when he gazed into a digital photo of mummified remains, trying to discern the features of his younger sister’s face.

A man in a junk-strewn patch of desert outside Lancaster had been searching for aluminum cans when he discovered the body of a woman in October 2007. The Los Angeles County Coroner contacted Dave Wood to ask if the body might be his sister, Sue Wood.

Wood drove to the coroner’s office, where he was shown photos of the remains.

It was indeed his sister, he told them.

No one had any idea why her body turned up in the desert. The cause of death is officially listed as “undetermined,” but homicide is suspected, police said.

“All indications were that it was a body dump,” Wood said. “It was the fulfillment of my worst fears.”

Since 2007, no leads have developed, police said. No one but Sue’s family has expressed interest in her death.

“I understand that there was initially some public interest in the body’s discovery because a wealthy woman in Orange County had gone missing and they thought it might be her,” Wood said.

But Sue “loved and was loved,” he said.

The last two decades of Sue’s life had strained relations between her and her family -- Wood and five sisters.

By the time Sue was 51, she had slowly drifted away, testing the depth and benefit of her brother’s love.

She was homeless at the end, despite her siblings’ efforts to wire her money, pay for hotels and, ultimately, know her whereabouts at all.

Her condition, Wood believes, makes her all but anonymous in death.

“Once a person is determined homeless, I don’t think anyone in the public pays attention,” Wood said.

Yet her brother recalls their bond, strong since the first days.

When Sue was born, Wood, 3 years old at the time, persuaded his parents to put Sue’s crib into his room.

As time passed, he said, he became the father figure in her life. And Sue wore her pride for her brother on her sleeve.

“She would brag on me like I was a little kid,” he said.

As Wood found success in the business world, his sister pursued simple pleasures with a boyfriend. She found a job as a cashier at a grocery store, and the couple vacationed in Yosemite. When she was 26, her boyfriend wanted to get married; she did not. The couple split.

“I think it sent her off the deep end,” Wood said.

Sue lost her job and resettled in Las Vegas. With the help of a mental health caseworker and a $750 disability check, she lived independently for more than a decade.

“People began to speak in innuendo about her, though,” Wood said. “They’d say she’s ‘more difficult,’ ‘damages doors,’ ‘a handful,’ ‘belligerent,’ ‘a my-way-or-the-highway sort of person.’ ”

In January 2007, she moved with a girlfriend to Lancaster, but the relationship didn’t last. She traveled to Los Angeles and bounced between homeless shelters.

“If someone showed you a picture of yourself homeless in 20 years, you would not believe it, but it happens just like that,” Wood said.

Over time, Sue lost even the ability to hold on to identification, a requirement for most shelters.

“All she had were some pictures from the trips to Yosemite when she was younger and scraps of paper with names and phone numbers,” Wood said.

He and his sisters tried to fill the void with financial aid. But calls to the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health asking for help with housing went unanswered.

At times, the middle-of-the-night calls from Sue became unbearable, and Wood asked for a two- to three-month break. A sister filled in as the primary caretaker.

Then the calls from Sue ended altogether. A sister filed a missing persons report in her hometown, Walnut Creek. It was forwarded to Lancaster police, but they failed to forward it to Los Angeles authorities.

In October 2007, her body was discovered.

Anyone with information about the circumstances surrounding Sue Wood’s death is asked to call sheriff’s detectives Ken Perry and Dan McElderry at (323) 890-5500.

--

garrett.therolf@latimes.com