Anaheim Police are investigating the case of a man's body found inside a burning car early this morning as a homicide.
But residents of the 100 block of South
Westchester Drive suspect the tragedy was an accident.
Or was it a suicide?
]
Neighbors heard a series of booms coming from the white sedan before police were called around 3 a.m. The first officer to arrive witnessed one explosion, which sent shattered glass across the roadway.
Anaheim firefighters later put out the car fire, and when the body was discovered inside, arson and homicide investigators were called to the scene. Police only identified the victim as a 21-year-old Cypress College student.
Authorities added his car appeared to have been involved in a collision. Some South Westchester residents tell KTLA Morning News that the car had been involved in an accident Thursday afternoon, and the driver had left. They believe he returned in the early morning hours to try to start the vehicle when the blasts went off, and they theorize the car body damage prevented him for opening the door.
But here's an odd twist: one neighbor told the teevee reporter he could see the chest and arm of the victim still moving inside the burning car but it did not appear to him the fellow was trying to get out.
Adding more fuel to the fire (literally): Anaheim Police revealed within the past hour that a gas can was inside the passenger compartment, which could have accounted for at least one of the explosions.
It also means this could have been a horrible accident or a suicide, which are among the causes Sgt. Bob Dunn, the Anaheim Police spokesman, says are being investigated.
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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.