{"id":3883,"date":"2014-03-10T18:08:40","date_gmt":"2014-03-11T01:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=3883"},"modified":"2014-03-10T18:08:40","modified_gmt":"2014-03-11T01:08:40","slug":"los-angeles-police-charge-man-in-mysterious-case-of-severed-head-found-near-hollywood-sign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/03\/10\/los-angeles-police-charge-man-in-mysterious-case-of-severed-head-found-near-hollywood-sign\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles police charge man in mysterious case of severed head found near Hollywood sign"},"content":{"rendered":"

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LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles County prosecutors have charged a man with murdering his live-in boyfriend and dumping his severed head, hands and feet near the Hollywood sign two years ago.<\/p>\n

Police announced the arrest of Gabriel Campos-Martinez, 38, on suspicion of killing Hervey Coronado Medellin, 66, of Los Angeles. Campos-Martinez was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday with the help of local authorities and was being held on $1 million bail pending an extradition hearing.<\/p>\n

Campos-Martinez was charged Monday with one felony count of murder with malice aforethought in the slaying of Medellin, who had been dating Campos-Martinez and was living with him at the time of his disappearance, Deputy District Attorney Bobby Grace said. It wasn’t clear if Campos-Martinez was represented by an attorney.<\/p>\n

A felony complaint alleges Medellin was killed on or around Dec. 27, 2011. A coroner’s report found that he had died of asphyxiation and ruled it a homicide.<\/p>\n

Two women discovered Medellin’s head while walking dogs on a trail in Griffith Park on Jan. 17, 2012. One of the dogs, which was off its leash, had started to play with a plastic bag. When the dog shook the bag, the head fell out.<\/p>\n

Campos-Martinez had filed a missing persons report at Hollywood station the day prior to the gruesome Griffith Park discovery.<\/p>\n

Medellin was a retired Mexicana Airlines ticket counter worker who had been living on a pension when he disappeared. His close friends had grown concerned after being unable to reach him for days and requested Los Angeles police conduct a welfare check at his apartment. After officers stopped by on Jan. 16, 2012, Campos-Martinez made the missing persons report, Grace said.<\/p>\n

The two men met in March 2011 and moved into an apartment together roughly six months before Medellin went missing, Grace said.<\/p>\n

Campos-Martinez moved to San Antonio later in 2012 to work for a catering company but remained in touch with detectives investigating the case, Grace said.<\/p>\n

Campos-Martinez’s inconsistent comments and suspicious statements turned the investigation’s focus onto him.<\/p>\n

“The suspect had the most information and the last contact with the victim,” Grace said. “So the investigation centred on him.”<\/p>\n

More than 120 police officers, firefighters and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies took part in a two-day search of 7 acres of the park after Medellin’s head was discovered. A cadaver dog helped investigators find more body parts, including hands and feet, near the same area where the severed head was discovered.<\/p>\n

If convicted, Campos-Martinez faces 25 years to life in prison.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Tami Abdollah can be reached at\u00a0<\/span>http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/latams<\/a><\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press Writer Juan Carlos Llorca contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u00a0 LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles County prosecutors have charged a man with murdering his live-in boyfriend and dumping …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":3899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[898,897,352],"class_list":["post-3883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-w","tag-head","tag-severed","tag-us","mauthors-tami-abdollah","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}