Hollywood’s Severed Head Identified

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We are used to stories coming out of Hollywood of mysterious murders and severed body parts. This time it’s the real deal. Police have identified the head, discovered by hikers on Tuesday the 17^th, and the hands, and feet, which were later discovered, as 66-year-old Harvey Medellin, a former Mexicana Airlines employee. Police have released no other information on the identity of this man or why and how he was murdered.

The head was discovered by a woman and her daughter walking through the park and trails near the famous Hollywood sign. Her initial reaction was amusement, as she thought the head was a prop:

“Our assumption was that there was always people filming up there, and it was a prop,” said Lauren Kornberg, who was walking her dog at the time. “We walked down the ravine and got closer and realized it was a freshly severed human head.”

  

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Her dog had discovered the head within a plastic bag. Following the horrific discovery, local police conducted the largest body search done in quite some time: 120 investigators combed the Bronson Canyon area, near Griffith Park, including officers, coroner’s investigators, helicopters, SWAT teams, all-terrain vehicles, and mountain climbers, said Los Angeles Police Commander Andrew Smith.

Investigators even called in “Indiana Bones.” This 8-year-old German shepherd is a rare dog who, chosen from among pups being primed for bomb squad, was imprinted instead on the specific smell of human decomposition. She was difficult to get on this case since there are so few dogs like her. Within 20 minutes, she had discovered more of the victim’s remains in a hole: two severed feet and a hand were buried within. A team of criminologists, anthropologists and coroner’s investigators searched the area and found the other severed hand within 100 yards of the hole. The torso has not been located. The police surmise that the body parts were probably buried together but were later exhumed by foraging animals. “You could say it was a determined effort to hide them,” said Officer Smith.

The body parts coincidentally were near the home of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who had taken their troop of children on many hikes through these paths. Police questioned their body guard if he noticed anything unusual, but gained no leads.

The park has been reopened to the public, but law enforcers urge recreational visitors to avoid walking the trails alone. The police still have no suspects on the case, nor even a theory of what happened, and have placed no arrests.