Body found in rental truck abandoned in Anaheim

Staff at a storage facility in Fullerton found human remains Wednesday, Jan. 8, inside a box truck that had been rented and later abandoned in Anaheim, prompting a suspicious death investigation.

Fullerton Police were dispatched to the U-Haul Moving & Storage facility at 2260 E. Orangethorpe Ave., at about 1 p.m., after employees made the discovery, Anaheim Police Sgt. Shane Carringer said. A body was found wrapped in plastic in the cargo hold of a truck. Officials were working to determine who that person was and how that person died Wednesday evening.

“Regardless of whether this was a homicide, something happened here that we need to get to the bottom of,” Carringer said.

Authorities learned that the truck containing the body had been rented in Anaheim, Carringer said. It was located unoccupied in that city after its designated rental period had lapsed, and was taken to the U-Haul in Fullerton by a third-party company. Workers found the dead person while conducting inventory and called police. Officials were attempting to verify the exact timeline of those events as of Wednesday.

A strong odor of decomposition hung in the air at the storage facility as police searched for clues, Carringer said. Police were expected to remain in the area well into the evening to conduct the investigation.