Erica Melissa Alonso, a Laguna Hills woman who had been missing since February, was positively identified through fingerprint comparison by local coroner officials late Wednesday night, officials said Thursday.

Alonso’s body was found late Monday night by a group of Caltrans biologists researching endangered Arroyo frogs in a rugged area about one mile east of the US Forest Service fire station on the Ortega Highway in San Juan Capistrano.

She had not been seen since the early-morning hours on Feb. 15 after she attended Sutra nightclub in Costa Mesa. She attended the dance club with her boyfriend who was originally questioned, but later released.

Her car was found March 25 in an Aliso Viejo neighborhood, more than 20 miles from where her body was later found.

But an autopsy performed Wednesday did not reveal a cause of death.



“I don’t think we ever get tired of talking about her,” Isaac Alonso, Jr., said of his daughter Wednesday. “She always made her presence felt, that’s for sure.”

Staff writers Meghann M. Cuniff and Louis Casiano, Jr. contributed to this report.



