Body found in trunk of car in Mountain View; homicide investigation underway

Homicide detectives are investigating the death of a 42-year-old man whose body was discovered Sunday morning in the trunk of a car in Mountain View, San Diego police said.

Sanitation workers discovered the car and body a little after 7 a.m. Sunday while cleaning an alley between South 45th Street and West Street just south of Ocean View Boulevard, San Diego police homicide Lt. Jud Campbell said in a news release.

Patrol officers arrived on scene first and found the body wrapped in a blanket in the trunk of a blue 2019 Honda Insight sedan parked in the alley, Campbell said. Homicide detectives took over the investigation based on the suspicious nature of the death.

“It appears the most likely scenario is that the person died elsewhere, but the body was transported and left in the alley inside the vehicle,” Campbell said in the news release.

Investigators have identified the man, but Campbell did not release his name. The county Medical Examiner’s Office will perform an autopsy to determine how he died.

Sunday’s gruesome discovery marks the second time in three years that at least one body has been discovered in the trunk of a car in southeastern San Diego. In August 2019, police found three bodies in the trunk of a BMW in Bay Terraces, about four miles from where the man was found Sunday.

An investigation later determined the three people who died in the BMW were Chinese migrants who’d been smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Anyone with information about the man found dead Sunday in Mountain View was asked to call the San Diego police homicide unit at (619) 531-2293 or San Diego County Crime Stoppers’ anonymous tip line at (888) 580-8477.