Body Found Near College Had Been Shot
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SANTA PAULA — A badly decomposed body found in the hills above Santa Paula was identified Tuesday as a man who died from a gunshot wound, authorities said.
The man’s identity has not been confirmed, but coroner’s officials said they found items on the body that included a name, so detectives were trying to contact a family in Mexico to see if it is their son.
The man appeared to be in his mid- to late 40s, said Craig Stevens, Ventura County’s chief deputy medical examiner.
Stevens would not describe the wound but said the man had been dead for several weeks.
A motorist who stopped Monday afternoon on the side of the road near Thomas Aquinas College to smoke a cigarette spotted the body about 10 feet over a cliff, authorities said. The area is on California 150, about a mile from the campus.
The case was being handled as a homicide.
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