Body found in trunk of burned Mustang

April 29, 2007

Body found in trunk of burned Mustang

A team of investigators are attempting to determine the identity and cause of death of a body found in the trunk of a burning car on the edge of Fountain Creek about 11 miles north of Pueblo Saturday morning.

Sheriff's Lt. Don Leach and firefighters with the Pueblo County Emergency Response Team responded to a report of a burning abandoned car about a mile north of the new Pinon Bridge on an east bank of Fountain Creek just before 11 a.m.

Crime investigator picking up evidence. Burned Mustang in the background
An investigator with the Colorado Bureau
of Investigation collects items found near
the charred remains of the 2000 Mustang

PHOTO/JOHN JAQUES

After the fire was extinguished, Leach and the firefighters found the body in the trunk of the gutted 2000 Ford Mustang. Investigators with the sheriff's department and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation were called to the scene.

Charlene Graham, bureau chief for law enforcement with the Pueblo County Sheriff's Department, said late Saturday that an autopsy is planned for today to attempt to determine cause of death and to identify the body.

"We do have a missing person in the city who matches the license plate on this car," Graham said.

Because footprints were found on the edge of Fountain Creek, Graham said investigators believed someone may have walked away from the scene. A helicopter from the Colorado Springs Police Department was called in to survey the scene from the air. Leach accompanied the helicopter pilot and took photos of the area from the air.

The air search failed to identify the source of the footprints.

About a dozen members of the sheriff's tactical team swept the area on foot in search of anything out of the ordinary, Graham said.

Before it was burned, the Mustang apparently was driven from Overton Road through an unlocked gate, across a pasture and down a bank to the edge of Fountain Creek, where it was found, Graham and other investigators said.

According to a Pueblo Police Department report, the charred Mustang was registered to a 45-year-old Pueblo man who was reported missing on Friday by a woman who identified herself as his girlfriend. The woman said she had last seen him at about 3 p.m. on April 22, when he left his home.

In the report, she said she was worried about him because he had not contacted her or his mother for several days.

Graham said the woman has been notified her boyfriend's car had been found, but asked that the name of the man be withheld until the identity of the body found in the truck of the car has been determined.

"We don't know what we have," Graham said. "We have a car fire and a body found in the trunk. That's all we know right now."

By JUAN ESPINOSA
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

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