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A state prison inmate was alleged Tuesday to be the killer of a 19-year-old woman whose decomposing body was found in an ice chest stashed in a stolen car in an unincorporated area near Whittier.
Anthony Moreno, 38, is accused of fatally shooting Dawn McEveety of Huntington Beach.
Sheriff’s investigators said McEveety was killed at a home in the 11900 block of 183rd Street in Artesia on Nov. 24.
Deputies discovered the remains five days later inside a 1991 Toyota Celica Hatchback in the 8600 block of Bradwell Avenue when they responded to an “abandoned vehicle” report.
The deputies immediately smelled the strong odor of decomposition. They opened the vehicle and found the body entombed in an ice chest in the rear cargo area.
Moreno was arrested on an unrelated charge sometime after the shooting and sent to prison, authorities said.
Sheriff’s officials said Moreno is expected to be transferred to Los Angeles to be arraigned on charges of murder and possession of a firearm.
The District Attorney’s Office could not immediately confirm those charges.
Investigators believe other suspects may have helped Moreno dispose of McEveety’s body and urged anyone with information to call the Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500 or Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-TIPS (8477).
Maureen McEveety-Sepa, the woman’s mother, told ABC7 at the time that the discovery of her daughter’s body was “a parent’s worst nightmare.”
“We were always worried that something like this might happen when she got with the wrong crowd,” she said.
Her daughter, adopted when she was 16 months old after being born drug- addicted, had not lived with her parents for the past 18 months and rarely returned phone calls, McEveety-Sepa said of the young woman, who went by the name Molly.
She was a wonderful child, but began using drugs and spending time with the wrong people when she hit her teen years, McEveety-Sepa told ABC7, adding that her daughter also had a stint in rehab, but then began using again.
McEveety-Sepa said she last spoke to her daughter two months before her body was found. The young woman was in jail for an alleged drug offense.
–City News Service
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