Authorities in Riverside are trying to determine how long a body found decomposing in the trunk of a woman’s Lexus had been there before she found it during a shopping trip to Wal-Mart.

The woman reportedly knew the man whose body she found in her trunk.

The incident was “very unusual,” Riverside Police Sgt. Dave Amador told NBC Los Angeles. “One of a kind.”

Although bodies are found in trunks, he said, it’s unique for someone to “say they know them and didn’t know they were in there.”


After returning to her car at the Wal-Mart in the 5200 block of Van Buren Boulevard on Saturday, the woman noticed a smell coming from her trunk, police say. So she opened it.

It was not immediately clear how the man -- identified as 33-year-old Miguel Angel Perez -- died, but police said the woman was not considered a suspect. Police said Perez was not a member of her family but did not elaborate on how the two knew each other.

“It is someone that she knows, and that’s all that we know at this time,” Lt. Jaybee Brennan told KTLA. “We’re trying to determine … where this happened.”

The woman, who was not identified, is from Pomona, which is where authorities believe Perez may have died.


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