LOS ANGELES– Los Angeles police have warned hikers using a trail leading to the Hollywood sign to be on their guard, after human body parts were found in the hills below the iconic Tinseltown symbol.
The popular trail is due to re-open Friday after the head of a man was found by two female dog walkers — who initially thought it was a movie prop — earlier in the week. Two hands and two feet have since been found.
A bodyguard of Hollywood star Brad Pitt is among local residents who have been interviewed about the grisly find, but only because the security man lives close to the bottom of the hiking trail.
Two women made the initial discovery Tuesday after noticing one of their dogs playing with an object, which on closer inspection turned out to be the human head, in a bag.
“He was going crazy. …He was digging, digging, digging, barking,” Lauren Kornberg said about the moment her golden retriever, called Indiana Bones, found the head in Bronson Canyon, which leads up into the Hollywood Hills.
The dog emerged with what they thought was a fake head — a not-so-unlikely assumption in Hollywood. “He had shredded the bag and had something in his mouth, which he dropped.
“And it rolled 30 feet down a hill and into a ravine,” she said.
“Even as we got closer, we still couldn’t say for sure whether it was … real, until my mom was literally about a foot away, face to face, and could see bloody hair and eyeballs,” she told the local KPCC radio station.
Her mother “gasped and said, ‘It’s real, oh my God, it’s real’,” she told KPCC.
A park entrance leading to the trail was immediately closed, and on Wednesday police found the hands and feet nearby, said police commander Andrew Smith, adding that about 100 investigators were on the case.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the head — found near what are known locally as the Bat Caves, where the original TV Batman series was filmed — belonged to an Armenian American in his 40s with salt and pepper hair.
Los Angeles has a large Armenian community.
Detectives believe the victim was killed elsewhere and his body parts dumped on the trail, which leads up through a canyon to the Hollywood sign, photographed by millions of tourists every year.
“We don’t have any suspects, we’re going to keep an open mind,” Smith told CNN, adding: “We believe that the murder took place someplace else, and the body parts were deposited here in Griffith Park.”
“We’re looking for additional body parts, we’d like to find the remainder of this poor guy,” he added.
He urged people using the trail when it re-opens Friday to be cautious.
“Right now there is somebody who committed a murder somewhere out there. That’s something everybody should be concerned about. But generally this is a pretty safe area.
“We just ask people to be cautious, maybe hike with friends, don’t go off alone, just a little bit of extra caution now until we find this guy. And we’ve got our robbery homicide guys working on it, so we’ll find this guy.”
The hillsides around the Hollywood sign are criss-crossed with trails used by hikers, horse riders, and tourists seeking to reach the landmark, visible from miles away on the northern rim of the sprawling city.