Opinion ID: 2600593
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Tahisha's body is discovered

Text: On Saturday afternoon, April 24, Ramiro Perez completed his work shift at Fort Irwin, and obtained a ride home with a friend at approximately 3:00 p.m. After they left Fort Irwin, Perez said he needed to relieve himself. The driver stopped her vehicle on Fort Irwin Road, and Perez walked away from the car and over a hill so that he would not be visible to his friend. When he walked over the hill, Perez saw a body later identified as Tahisha's at the bottom of the slope, about 15 feet away. It appeared that she had been thrown over the hill and had rolled to the bottom. Perez reported his discovery to the police. In response to Perez's report, law enforcement officers fanned out along Fort Irwin Road. After traveling approximately one mile down that road from its intersection with Interstate Highway 15 without locating anything, Deputy Sheriff Robert Durbin of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department drove back and decided to check near a mine excavation site that borders the road approximately one tenth of a mile from the intersection. Durbin parked in a pullout area next to the site and walked into the excavation, which had hills and gullies. At 5:50 p.m., Durbin looked down from an embankment and observed a small body in the pit of the mine. The body was clothed in a dress that was up over the torso, had no underclothing, and had white socks and a single tennis shoe. When Durbin returned to his patrol vehicle, he found the other tennis shoe on the ground in front of his car. Tahisha's body was not visible from the road; it was necessary to walk over a hill and look down into the pit of the mine to see her. Detective Franey was familiar with the excavation and the surrounding desert, and testified that the area was used for four-wheeling, motorcycle riding, and target shooting. On the day Tahisha's body was found, a group of 14 campers was nearby and had driven approximately seven vehicles on the dirt stretch of Fort Irwin Road that borders the excavation. The pullout area on Fort Irwin Road where Durbin parked was used to load trucks with material from the mine, could be used as a turnaround for vehicles, and appeared to Franey to be well traveled, with many tire tracks. While Franey was present at the scene, numerous drivers attempted to drive down the dirt road, but were turned back because of the police investigation. The material on the ground was of a type that would reveal footsteps, but was of a nature that generally would not retain details permitting identification of a shoe print. The only shoe print that could be identified was from Perez's shoe. The police photographed the tire tracks adjacent to the mine and checked the tire treads of all vehicles at the apartment complex that were outside or in garages that had open doors, as well as the tire treads of police vehicles. The police were able to identify tire tracks of the vehicle in which Perez had ridden, and could see where the sheriff's car had driven over that vehicle's tire tracks, but were unable to distinguish any other particular vehicle's tire tracks in the numerous tire tracks that had been made over one another. In the course of examining tire treads at the apartment complex, the police asked defendant for permission to inspect his vehicles' tires, and defendant agreed. According to Detective Franey, this contact with defendant occurred at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 25.