CA CA - Santa Clarita, Remains in Area of Tick Fire (Unrelated to Fire), PMI >1 year, Oct'19

[inmyhumbleopinion]

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

#UP61334
Date Body Found October 26, 2019
ME/C Case Number 2019-08046

Sex Unsure
Race/Ethnicity White/Caucasian, Hispanic Latino, Asian, Uncertain
Estimated Age Group Adult
Height Cannot Estimate
Weight Cannot Estimate

Location Canyon Country, California 91387
County Los Angeles County

Circumstances of Recovery Burned skeleton found on hillside after Tick Fire.

Condition of Remains Not recognizable - Partial skeletal parts only

Noted the exclusions:

ETA:
Matthew’s WS thread: CA - CA - Matthew Weaver, 21, Santa Monica Mountains, 10 Aug 2018

Steve: CA - CA - Steven Bronson, 31, Long Beach, 27 June 2018

Will: CA - CA - William Cierzan, 58, Santa Clarita Valley, 26 Jan 2017 #3

Elaine: CA - CA - Elaine Park, 20, Glendale, 28 Jan 2017

 

[cryscrys]

So Bryce Laspisa wasn't excluded? Hmmm

 

[inmyhumbleopinion]

So Bryce Laspisa wasn't excluded? Hmmm

I noticed that also. As of now, he apparently has not been.

ETA: Just checked Bryce’s NamUs profile. He currently has one UID exclusion:

Link to Bryce’s NamUs page:
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Bumping case up, still on NamUs.
Are there any additional exclusions since the 4 listed above in November 2019?
@inmyhumbleopinion
(Hope you don't mind being tagged.)

 

[inmyhumbleopinion]

Bumping case up, still on NamUs.
Are there any additional exclusions since the 4 listed above in November 2019?
@inmyhumbleopinion
(Hope you don't mind being tagged.)

Same 4 as before … sorry.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Same 4 as before … sorry.
View attachment 321230

Ahh they need to rule-out BL. (Unless they have and it just hasn't been made public for some reason. You'd think they'd keeping receiving emails and calls to ask, though...)

 

[noseynancy]

here are 2 other guys near that area that went missing Dennis Paul Dobrovolny The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) and Donald Carter The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) wonder if they were ever ruled out?

 

[funkychicken]

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

By bringing people, information, forensic science and technology together, NamUs helps resolve cases.

www.namus.gov

Burned skeleton found on a hillside after the Tick Fire. October 26, 2019

 

[Red Clover]

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

By bringing people, information, forensic science and technology together, NamUs helps resolve cases.

www.namus.gov

Burned skeleton found on a hillside after the Tick Fire. October 26, 2019

That's not a whole lot to go on, huh?

 

[funkychicken]

That's not a whole lot to go on, huh?

Sadly, no

 

[Red Clover]

Human Skeleton Found in Tick Burn Area - SCVNews.com

Human skeletal remains were discovered in Canyon Country near an area affected by the Tick Fire Saturday, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials.

scvnews.com

The remains were found near the intersection of Sand Canyon Road and Thompson Ranch Drive, per officials.
“The only thing we have is that a public works employee was working in the area and stumbled upon this,” said Deputy Morgan Arteaga of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau.
The discovered body is not believed to be the result of the Tick Fire, according to Arteaga.
“The human remains are not burned as of this time, they were just remains found in a burned area,” said Arteaga, at approximately 3:10 p.m. on Saturday.
As investigators worked on the scene they said the public works employee had discovered a human skeleton that they believe to have been in the area for more than a year, according to Lt. Derrick Alfred, LASD Homicide Bureau.
“We don’t have any reason to believe that this is a victim of this fire or previous fires,” said Alfred. “It looks like the body may have been concealed up here or was here in the vegetation and after the fire, the body was revealed and found by the public.”​

 

[Red Clover]

California Fire Map: Kincade Fire and Others Blaze Through the State

There are reported to be nine active burning fires covering more than 30,000 acres of California.

www.newsweek.com

The Tick Fire in Los Angeles County has spread to around 4,000 acres and 5 percent has been contained so far, according to an official notification by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. There have been no reported fatalities or injuries so far. There are around 10,000 structures under threat, with the amount of damage and destruction still to be determined, according to a post on the official Twitter account of the Los Angeles City Fire Department.

 

[Red Clover]

What caused the Tick fire? Investigators focus on site of explosions

Containment of the fire grew from 25 percent Saturday morning to 55 percent in the evening.

www.dailynews.com

Homicide detectives, meanwhile, were examining why human remains were found in a burn area near Sand Canyon Road and Thompson Ranch Drive in Santa Clarita, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. They later determined there was no connection to the fire.

It appears the remains have been there at least one year, according to investigators. They found large bones, including a skull and leg bones. “It looks like it probably was an adult,” said Sheriff’s Department Deputy Morgan Arteaga.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Bumping up. At least there are some exclusions, so they have an identifier. I wonder if they have been able to isolate DNA, at least determine if they are a male or female?

 

[DS2021]

 

[iulia]

The NamUs page for this Doe is down at the moment.

 

[iulia]

He was identified as Oscar Fuentes, 20 yo. Unfortunately, his death was a homicide (gunshot wound to the head) by MS-13, because Fuentes "abandoned MS-13 and was addicted to methamphetamine". His death was one among other brutal murders perpetrated by some members of the gang, and they have been charged and convicted for some of them. They will be sentenced in July 2026.

https://me.lacounty.gov/case-detail/?caseNumber=2019-08046

MS-13 gangsters used mountains around L.A. as killing grounds, prosecutors say

Members of the MS-13 gang used the Angeles National Forest and other isolated mountain areas as the locale for a series of grisly killings, prosecutors argued at a racketeering trial in downtown Los Angeles.

www.latimes.com

[...]
Oscar Fuentes, a skinny 19-year-old member of MS-13, had broken two rules, Siddall said: He’d gotten strung out on methamphetamine and he was missing clique meetings.
On Jan. 13, 2019, Fuentes was spotted at Whitsett Park, the heart of the Fulton clique’s territory. Martinez sent a Facebook message to the juvenile with whom he’d allegedly killed Hernandez a month earlier.

“You have a little present here,” Martinez wrote.

After the juvenile didn’t respond, Martinez, Chavez and two others picked up Fuentes from the park and drove him to a remote area near Santa Clarita, Siddall said. Chavez handed a revolver to a prospect who shot Fuentes in the head, according to the prosecutor.

MS-13 gang members convicted of killing man dumped in SCV

A federal jury Monday convicted five members of MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, for their role in a string of murders, including a man whose body was found in the Angeles […]

signalscv.com

[...]
Fuentes’ skeleton was found Oct. 26, 2019, by a public works employee who had come across it while surveying the area scarred by the Tick Fire, which broke out a few days earlier.

Investigators said at the time that the bodily remains were in an “odd place for … somebody to just walk up there and die.”

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Was Oscar listed as a known missing person?
Sincere condolences to his family.

 

[iulia]

Was Oscar listed as a known missing person?
Sincere condolences to his family.

I think this is him:

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

By bringing people, information, forensic science and technology together, NamUs helps resolve cases.

www.namus.gov

 

[The4TierBridge]

This article from 2021 makes reference to the remains being identified as Oscar Fuentes as well, but he was only entered into NamUs as missing in April 2025. The unidentified remains were actively listed in the LA County catalog until recently and Oscar Fuentes was only added to the normal case search in the past few days.

New murders and more MS-13 members added to sprawling case against gang's clique

Federal prosecutors expanded a case against the MS-13 gang, securing an indictment that charges nine new defendants and implicates the gang in four murders.

www.latimes.com