Girl found dead in Los Angeles-area flood channel remains unidentified as second body surfaces nearby

Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators are working to identify a young girl whose body was pulled from a concrete flood-control channel in Carson, California, this week, after a golf course patron spotted her floating in the water. A day later and roughly seven miles away, deputies recovered the body of an unidentified man from the same channel, a discovery that briefly raised fears the two deaths were linked before investigators said Thursday they had found no connection between them.

The girl's body was recovered just after noon on Sept. 1 near the Dominguez Channel Bike Path in the 20000 block of South Avalon Boulevard, close to the Victoria Golf Course, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Carson Station, which has jurisdiction over the area. The man's body turned up the following morning about 8:30 a.m. near East Sepulveda Boulevard, in an industrial stretch of the channel ringed by rail yards and a refinery, after a worker reported an unresponsive person in the water.

What investigators know so far

The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner has not been able to identify either victim. In a report filed under an "unidentified persons search," the office described the girl as roughly 6 to 13 years old, standing between 4 feet 4 inches and 4 feet 8 inches tall and weighing between 59 and 85 pounds, with brown eyes and dark brown or black hair. Her race and precise age remain unknown, and the report noted the remains were in a "severe state of decomposition," making it impossible for officials to say how long she had been in the water or to immediately determine a cause of death. An autopsy is pending, and detectives have not disclosed whether foul play is suspected.

The man found the next day was described by sheriff's officials as Black and likely in his 50s to 60s, with no obvious signs of trauma and an apparent time of death within roughly 24 hours of discovery — a sharp contrast to the girl's badly decomposed remains that investigators say points away from a shared cause. Homicide Bureau detectives are treating the two cases as separate investigations for now, though both remain open pending toxicology and autopsy results from the medical examiner.

Sheriff's officials said the distance between the two sites — the man was found roughly seven miles south of the golf course where the girl turned up, in an industrial corridor — combined with the different apparent time frames of death, gave investigators no early reason to treat the cases as related. Detectives nonetheless said they would keep an open mind as forensic work continues, noting that flood channels can carry a body some distance from where it entered the water, which complicates efforts to pin down exactly where either victim died.

A flood channel that cuts through the South Bay

The Dominguez Channel is a roughly 16-mile concrete flood-control waterway that begins near Hawthorne and cuts through Gardena, Alondra Park, Torrance and Carson before draining into the harbor at San Pedro Bay. Like much of Los Angeles County's engineered flood-control system, it is fenced in places but easily accessible in others, running past golf courses, rail yards and industrial parks — the kind of infrastructure that has, over the decades, occasionally yielded human remains far from where a person was last seen alive.

Sheriff's officials said Thursday that detectives are cross-referencing the girl's description against open missing-persons reports from across the region and beyond, while the department's Homicide Bureau has commissioned a forensic composite sketch in hopes that a resemblance might jog a relative's or neighbor's memory. The county medical examiner's unidentified persons database, which the public can search directly, is expected to be updated with the case as more forensic details are confirmed. Investigators are also reviewing surveillance footage from businesses along both stretches of the channel and have asked the department's Homeless Outreach Services Team to check whether either victim had contact with outreach workers in the area.

A city on edge, and a search for family

The discoveries have unsettled a working-class city of roughly 92,000 people sandwiched between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. At a news conference Thursday morning outside the Carson Sheriff's Station, Homicide Bureau Lt. Daniel Vizcarra told reporters investigators had come up empty so far in trying to connect the two cases. "No connection has been established between the two incidents," Vizcarra said, according to multiple outlets present, including a report from City News Service.

Carson Mayor Pro Tempore Cedric Hicks Sr., who joined sheriff's officials at the briefing, sought to reassure residents even as the case for the unidentified girl remains unresolved.

"We're working all avenues, all ways of identifying who these individuals are. We want to make sure that the city of Carson residents know that we are safe, the region is safe, and the area is safe," Hicks said, according to NBC Los Angeles.

For now, the identity of the girl is the more urgent question weighing on investigators and the community. Cases involving unidentified children are typically cross-checked against national databases of missing minors, and sheriff's officials said they are pursuing every lead, however small, as they try to determine who she was and how she came to be in the channel. The department has not said whether it has requested assistance from any outside forensic agencies, and it has not released a cause or manner of death for either victim pending the medical examiner's findings.

The bike path where the girl's body was spotted runs alongside the golf course, and it was a golfer who first noticed her floating in the water and called 911 around midday Tuesday. Sheriff's officials have not said whether additional witnesses have since come forward, and they have declined to speculate publicly on how the girl came to be in the channel.

What happens next

Autopsies for both the girl and the man are pending, and forensic testing of the kind typically used in unidentified-remains cases — DNA analysis, dental comparison and toxicology — can take weeks to return results. Investigators are asking anyone with information, including families who may have lost contact with a child matching the girl's description, to contact the Sheriff's Information Bureau or the department's Homicide Bureau directly at 323-890-5500, or to leave an anonymous tip with L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.

The City of Carson, which contracts with the sheriff's department for local policing, is referring residents' questions to the Carson Station as the investigation continues. Detectives have not set a timetable for when they expect to identify either victim, and as of Friday morning neither the girl nor the man found near East Sepulveda Boulevard had been named. Sheriff's officials said both cases would remain open, and active, until they are resolved.