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Mystery still surrounds body
found in Del Aire on Easter
Woman discovered dead in car was from El Segundo. Officials are
silent on the case, but her fiance says he's a suspect in the
investigation.
May 12, 2006
By Larry Altman, Daily Breeze
Life is almost back to normal on 124th Street in Del Aire nearly a
month after residents made the grisly discovery of a dead woman in a
car.
For a while, some residents kept their children indoors, wondering
about drug and gang activity, and whether their relatively
crime-free neighborhood west of Hawthorne had changed.
"We wake up Easter Sunday and there's a body there," said one
resident who declined to identify herself. "(Detectives) haven't
said, 'Lock your doors.' We've come to the conclusion they've
figured it out."
If investigators do know what happened to the woman found lying in
the back seat of a parked Honda Accord, they aren't saying.
Sheriff's detectives ordered the Coroner's Office not to release any
information about the woman for 90 days. That means no name and no
information about what killed her.
The move is increasingly being used by Sheriff's Department homicide
detectives to keep control of information given to the public. A
similar tactic was used in the April 2005 slaying of a Lawndale
woman in Manhattan Beach, and in the July 2004 case of Julia "Deede"
Keller of El Segundo. Her former husband is facing trial in her
slaying.
The Daily Breeze has learned the woman found April 16 was Suzanne
Marie Tovar, a 37-year-old mother who lived with her son, fiance and
his son in an El Segundo apartment. Someone reported her missing to
El Segundo police a few days before her body was found.
Sheriff's homicide Lt. Larry Lincoln said this week that there was
nothing new to report on the case. He said Tovar's death cannot be
formally classified as a homicide because the Coroner's Office has
not finished toxicological tests. An official cause of death has not
been determined, he said.
Tovar's body was discovered at 11:25 a.m. in the 5400 block of West
124th Street, an unincorporated neighborhood about 3 miles from her
home. Tovar lay face down with a foot sticking out the window.
Dana Gerety said her daughter's friend told her a woman was asleep
in a car outside her house.
"I went out there and pounded on the window and went in the house
and called 911," Gerety said.
Residents said they had seen the car in the neighborhood before.
It was parked there for four days, but no one noticed a body in it
or anything unusual until Easter morning.
"It was kind of spooky," said another neighbor, also wanting to
remain anonymous.
A man who answered the door May 5 at Tovar's Loma Vista Street
apartment identified himself as her fiance. David Goldbach, who was
home watching television with Tovar's son and his own son, said he
did not want to talk about his fiancee's death until detectives told
him he could.
Goldbach said he did not know what happened to Tovar. He nodded
"yes" and smiled when asked if he was considered a suspect in the
case, and said that's also why he could not agree to an interview.
Goldbach said he might hire a private detective because the
investigation was proceeding slowly. Sheriff's detectives, he said,
have provided him with little information about the case.
He said he and Tovar were supposed to marry in three months.
"It's tragic," he said.
Goldbach did not return two follow-up telephone calls.
Tovar reportedly has family living in the South Bay. A sister
arrived at the scene shortly after Tovar's body was found, residents
said. Attempts to identify her were unsuccessful.
Sheriff's Department jail records show Irwindale police arrested
Tovar on July 22, 2002, in a misdemeanor theft case. She was issued
a citation and released, Irwindale police Sgt. Mario Camacho said.
It was unclear if the case was prosecuted. Camacho said he could not
locate details of the case.
Del Aire residents, meanwhile, wait for a resolution.
"Most people go through their whole life not seeing anything like
that. It's freaky," Gerety said. "Out of normal curiosity, people
want to know what happened. It's weird that they're not saying
anything." |