California IN BRIEF : MALIBU : Body Identified; Another Found

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on Friday identified a woman who was shot in the head and dumped off a rural road between Agoura Hills and Malibu earlier this week.

Hours later, the body of a man was found nearby, but the two deaths did not appear to be related, deputies said.

Leyla Dawn Hatipoglu, 30, of West Los Angeles was found Thursday morning after detectives followed a trail of blood leading from her white Jeep Cherokee down an embankment off Kanan Dume Road, Deputy Gabe Ramirez said.

Deputies saw the vehicle about 5:40 a.m., parked on the side of the road about two miles south of Mulholland Highway, Ramirez said. Her body was discovered in the brush. She had been shot once in the head.

Detectives also found bloody clothing and a piece of bloody carpet in two trash cans at a turnout one mile south of where the vehicle was parked, Ramirez said. It was not known if they were connected to the woman’s death, he said.

On Friday, a California Highway Patrol officer responding to a traffic accident noticed the body of a man in the creek bed about a mile from the tunnel on Malibu Canyon Road, Sheriff’s Deputy George Ducolumbier said.

The dead man has not been identified; the cause of death was not immediately determined.