LAPD takes over case involving dead woman found in Burbank car

After initially reporting the case as a suspicious death, police now say a woman found dead in a car in a Burbank driveway Friday night was the victim of a crime.

The woman, who police say was in her 30s but who has yet to be identified, was declared dead at 7:31 p.m. by Burbank authorities while still in the passenger’s seat of a black Kia in the 500 block of North Sparks Street.

Burbank Police Sgt. Darin Ryburn said that the woman died near Tujunga, in the city of Los Angeles, and that the case had been turned over to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Los Angeles County Coroner’s officials came to the residence around 2:30 p.m. Saturday to take the body and collect evidence.

Det. Pat Barron, homicide coordinator with the LAPD, said the owner of the Kia, a man believed to be in his 40s, lived in the house with two other people. Barron declined to identify the man.

The man was driving with the woman near La Tuna Canyon off the Foothill (210) Freeway on Friday when she died, Barron said the man told police.

He then drove his car back, with her body inside, to his Burbank residence. When the woman didn’t return home Friday, her boyfriend — whom police also did not identify — came to the man’s house, Barron said.

When her boyfriend discovered she was dead, he called Burbank authorities, Barron said. Barron said the driver has cooperated with police and led them to the area where he believed the incident occurred.

“He drove us out there and said, ‘this is where I believe what happened, happened,’” Barron said.

A man who would only identify himself as a local business owner said Friday night after the woman’s body was discovered that he knew the family. He said he believed the woman had died of a drug overdose.

Anyone with information is being asked to call the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division Homicide Bureau at (818) 834-3115.