UPDATE, DEC. 15, 5:05 P.M.: The sleeping man who was shot to death near Heritage Park has been identified as 55-year-old Rudy Trujillo of Santa Ana, according to police.
ORIGINAL POST, DEC. 14, 1:55 P.M.: The Santa Ana Police Department is turning to the public for leads in the death of a transient man who was apparently shot to death as he slept in a sleeping bag near Heritage Park.
Cops got the call about 3:30 p.m. Sunday of a possibly deceased man in a grassy, fenced-in area outside the park and near a drainage ditch in the 4800 block of West Camile. “When officers arrived, they found a man lying on ground in his sleeping bag,” reads a SAPD advisory. “The decedent had gunshot wounds to his upper body and it appeared might have been shot as he slept.”
He was identified only as a 55 year-old Hispanic and local transient who had been living at the park for an extended period of time. Detectives ask that anyone with information contact the department's Homicide Section at 714.245.8390. Anonymous tips can be left with Orange County Crime Stoppers at 855.847.6227 (855-TIP-OCCS), via occrimestoppers.org or by texting to 274637 (C-R-I-M-E-S) from a cell phone. (All text messages should begin with the letters “OCCS”.)
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.