UPDATE, DEC. 7, 5:10 P.M.: When sheriff's deputies found a dead John Kristopher Altamirano in his white pickup parked in front of his Laguna Niguel residence Monday afternoon, the 34-year-old had cuts and bruises on his face as if he'd been in a fight.
However, the injuries did not appear serious enough to have killed him, so sheriff's investigators are awaiting a toxicology report from the coroner's division that will hopefully shed light on how Altamirano died.
Meanwhile, a 46-year-old man who was renting Altamirano's garage as living quarters remains in custody on an outstanding warrant for an unrelated drug possession rap. He has not been booked or charged in the death as originally reported, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
Investigators do believe the pair had been fighting in the street that same day, however. Altamirano apparently walked over to his truck afterward. Kenneth Lamb walked away and eventually wound up at a busstop at Pacific Park Drive and La Paz Road, where deputies picked him up. As you can see from his injuries at left, he also got bloodied up in the fight. You should see the other guy, indeed.
Authorities do not believe Lamb knew Altamirano died, so it sounds as if this case will be removed from this year's homicide count.
Will advise.
UPDATE, DEC. 6, 8:58 A.M.: Some more details have emerged from the homicide investigation involving a man found dead in a white truck parked in a Laguna Niguel residential neighborhood Monday afternoon. Equally troubling is the death wish toward California's governor delivered by a “Top Commenter” to the Orange County Register story on the deceased.
The commenter with a star by his name is identified as Mark De Arman. His one-liner posted 10 hours ago under the Register report on the dead body is apparently the type that earns someone “Top Commenter” status at the Santa Ana daily: “I hope the victim is Jerry Brown.”
Hey, wasn't someone not too long ago spraying death threats against Brown on Orange County walls? Wonder if authorities ever monitor stuff like this and put two-and-two together?
Oh well, the new details from a KABC-TV Eyewitness News report are that the victim was 34 but his name is still being withheld pending notification of next of kin. He'd been renting the residence in the 27000 block of Avenida Armijo near where his body was found the past few months.
A neighbor passing by saw the dead man's legs sticking out of the Dodge Ram across from the home. Witnesses heard a loud argument and a gun blast before the discovery, although the sheriff's department has not yet officially released a cause of death.
The unidentified man who was detained Monday fits the description of the person who had been arguing with the deceased, according to deputies.
ORIGINAL POST, DEC. 5, 6:22 P.M.: A witness apparently fingered that man,who also has not been named yet, leaving the area where the dead man was found about 1:40 p.m. today: in the 27000 block of Avenida Armijo.
The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. A cause of death has not yet been released.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.