Tulare County sheriff’s detectives are investigating after scattered skeletal remains turned up along a Highway 99 embankment in Earlimart on Tuesday afternoon, prompting the Sheriff’s Office Homicide Unit to take over the case. Deputies were called around 2 p.m. to a report of possible human remains near Highway 99 and Washington Avenue, and no information has been released about who the person was or how long the remains had been there.
According to gvwire.com, deputies responding to the call found the remains scattered along the embankment of northbound Highway 99, just south of Washington Avenue. The discovery is being investigated as a possible homicide, per the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office, and the case was quickly handed to the agency’s Homicide Unit for further investigation, according to KMPH Fox 26.
No Identity, No Timeline Yet
Authorities have not said who the remains belong to or how long they may have been along the embankment before being discovered, according to the same gvwire.com account. That leaves the case in an early, open-ended stage, with investigators still working to establish basic facts about the person found.
The remains were reported discovered on Tuesday in Tulare County, a detail KMPH Fox 26 included in its initial report on the case. Anyone with information has been asked to contact Detective McCaskill or Sergeant McLean at 559-802-9400, or to submit anonymous tips by calling or texting 559-725-4194.
A Separate Earlimart Case Earlier This Year
Tuesday’s discovery comes months after an earlier Earlimart death investigation. In that case, a body was found near Avenue 56 and Highway 59 in Tulare County on April 16, and homicide detectives took over while continuing to investigate how the person died, according to abc30.com.
An investigation into Ruben Chavez’s death eventually led to arrests. Detectives identified 26-year-old Alexander Torres and 32-year-old Ramon Delgado, both of Earlimart, as the primary suspects following what the Sheriff’s Office described as a lengthy investigation, and the two men were arrested in connection with Chavez’s death in May, according to gvwire.com’s coverage. Both men were taken into custody and booked into the Tulare County Jail, abc30.com reported at the time. The evidence does not establish any connection between that case and the skeletal remains found this week, and authorities have not indicated the two investigations are related.
