A body was discovered Thursday morning along the Glenn Anderson (105) Freeway in unincorporated Willowbrook near Watts, authorities said, prompting an investigation into how the person died and who they were. The person was pronounced dead at the scene, and as of Thursday afternoon, their name, age and gender had not been released.
According to MyNewsLA.com, the California Highway Patrol was alerted around 8:25 a.m. to human remains near the freeway around Compton Avenue and East Imperial Highway. A CHP officer said one person was pronounced dead at the scene. The Los Angeles Fire Department and the Los Angeles County Fire Department responded to the scene, according to CHP.
The cause of death remains under investigation, and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office was summoned to collect the body, the same report notes. No further details about the circumstances of the death, including whether a vehicle was involved, have been released in connection with Thursday's discovery.
A Stretch of Freeway With a Grim History
The 105 Freeway through Willowbrook has been the site of fatal incidents before. In November 2020, a man was struck and killed while running in the freeway's lanes, according to a separate MyNewsLA.com report. Years earlier, in August 2008, a man was killed while apparently trying to cross the same stretch, then known as the Century Freeway, as reported by the Daily News.
Separately, prior coverage from ABC7 Los Angeles described a hit-and-run collision that left a man dead under a 105 Freeway overpass in Willowbrook, and CBS Los Angeles reported that in that incident, a pedestrian was first struck by one car that sped off before being run over by a second car, which also fled. Those reports describe an earlier, separate incident from Thursday's discovery.
Identification Still Pending
Identification Still Pending As of Thursday, investigators had not released the identity of the person found along the freeway, and the cause of death had not been determined. Elsewhere in Los Angeles County, a man found at a Norwalk 105 Freeway off-ramp earlier this year was identified by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner as Juan Navarrete, according to the La Mirada Lamplighter. No timeline for identification in Thursday's case has been given.
