Baslow

The L.A. County Coroner needs help resolving a horrific suicide for which there are few clues -- except a tattoo on the chest of the victim's mangled body that forever claims his love for "Donna."

John Doe No. 41 for 2013 was videotaped by an on-train camera as he leaped into the path of the Metrolink train just north of Burbank Airport's runway March 5 at 5 p.m. He was a Latino over the age of 35, but the terrible maiming of his body -- and the fact that his fingerprints revealed zero criminal record -- makes an ID impossible. Who is Donna, which means "lady" in Italian, and is she out there?

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Samuel Levine / Facebook

A 22-year-old USC student died while on spring break in Cabo San Lucas, the university announced.

Steve A. Kay, Dean of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, said in a statement sent to the Weekly that Levine died Tuesday "in an accident," the details of which were not revealed.

Levine ...

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Elisa Lam / LAPD

See also: Cecil Hotel All But Abandoned By Short-Term Guests Even As Water Tests OK.

The seemingly strange behavior of once-missing tourist Elisa Lam paired with the discovery of her body Tuesday in a hotel water-storage tank begs questions about her actions before the 21-year-old's untimely death.

In an effort to find the Canadian traveler, the LAPD last week revealed security video of the woman in and out of what appears to be a hotel elevator. She pushes nearly all the buttons and walks in and out of the car, peering out in what could be interpreted as a fearful or almost paranoid fashion:

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LAPD

Elisa Lam.

Updated at the bottom: A body found in the hotel's water tank has markings matching those of Lam, police say. First posted at 1:34 p.m.

Police believe a body found on the roof of the Cecil Hotel downtown is that of missing Canadian tourist Elisa Lam, LAPD officials told the Weekly.

The discovery at 640 S Main St. was reported at 10:13 a.m. today, police said.

The woman was seen acting strangely in an elevator, apparently in the hotel lobby, on security video released by the department last week:

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Couresy of Beverly & Pack

Everyone wants to live forever. But a study from USC and the National Academies suggests that if you'd like to see 51, it's time a lot of people stopped acting stupid. Americans spend more on health care than anyone, but are less healthy, birth to death, than residents in other developed countries. In fact, death before 50 accounts for about two-thirds of the difference between U.S. male life expectancy and guys in other nations. For women, not as bad.

U.S. residents are more likely to prematurely die of anything and everything, and the causes for that include many lifestyle-driven diseases such as diabetes and HIV. Are they really so much more fit and careful in Europe?

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LASD

Scott Sterling.

Scott Sterling, the 32-year-old son of controversial Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling, was found dead of an apparent overdose in Malibu last night, sheriff's officials said.

Someone called and asked deputies to check up on Sterling at his beachside home last night, and when cops arrived about 11:30 they found his body, according to a sheriff's department statement.

The person who called, according to the statement, said ...

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Burbank PD.

The investigation into the strange death of Lee Morris, an Alaska Airlines pilot whose freeway-adjacent body was found during a layover in Burbank in October, is today a closed case, police said.

The L.A. County Coroner's office says he died of natural causes, Burbank police announced today. Coroner's Lt. Fred Corral told us his death was the result of a heart attack.

Authorities were initially alarmed because of the location of his body:

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Courtesy Alaska Airlines

Morris with grandsons Brady (left) and Bryce Helgeson.

Updated at the bottom with the coroner's initial thoughts (hint: no foul play is suspected yet ... ). First posted at 12:22 p.m. Wednesday.

Burbank police had a mystery on their hands after the body of an Alaska Airlines pilot in town on layover was found next to a freeway offramp.

There are no "obvious" signs of trauma on the body of 55-year-old Lee Clifford Morris of Richland, Washington, but it's still an odd location for a death -- with little or no pedestrian access, Burbank police Sgt. Darin Ryburn tells the Weekly.

The case went into high gear ...

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LAPD

Goeser.

Cops today said remains found along a hiking trail in Pacific Palisades were those of missing UCLA student David Goeser.

The LAPD says in a statement that the 23-year-old "died from a single gunshot wound to the head" and that "a semiautomatic pistol was also found next to the body."

The remains, including a skull and torso, were found ...

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@Yarddownmuzik via Twitter

"R.I.P. Patrick I know u in heaven because u didn't deserve that save me a spot up there"

[Update: Detective Chris Barling, lead homicide investigator for the LAPD's 77th Street Division (the deadliest division in L.A. so far this year, with a staggering 42 homicides), told LA Weekly freelancer Michael Krikorian at the scene that "Nobody would target this kid. The total motive is that he is in the park." For decades, the park has been a home to a local Bloods gang called the Harvard Park Brims. Anyone with information about Tuesday's shooting is urged to call detectives at (213) 485-1383. Donations to the victim's devastated family can be made at any Bank of America branch: Just give the teller the ID number 02363 42806, c/o Patrick Caruthers.]

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Gonzo Carles

Two hikers came across a macabre scene in Pacific Palisades over the weekend.

They found a skull in Los Liones Canyon, and paramedics and police were soon on the scene. Arriving officers then apparently discovered the rest of the body, a "torso," about 20 feet away, according to an LAPD statement.

The find was reported ...

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CBS2

The victim's apparent driver's license photo

A 69-year-old man driving south on Crenshaw Boulevard just after 2 a.m. this morning crashed into a horse that was weaving through lanes near Palos Verdes Drive North, says the California Highway Patrol.

The coroner has since identified the driver, who was pronounced dead soon after at Torrance Memorial Hospital, as Rancho Palos Verdes resident Ryan Yonny Koyama.

CHP Officer John Tye says that in his 22 years at the department...

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David Wood

An opening event yesterday evening at the Pacific Design Center was interrupted by apparent suicide. Theodore Edward Rowan, 72, was a resident of West Hollywood, says Ed Winter of the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office.

Witnesses say Rowan fell to his death at approximately 5:30 p.m. in the midst of a grand opening of some kind at the Cesar Pelli-designed PDC campus.

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Carlos Salas via Facebook

Tragedy struck the seaside town of Laguna Niguel in the wee hours this morning, when friends tell the local Patch that 20-year-old Carlos Salas was killed just 400 feet from his house.

Orange County Sheriff's investigators say the young victim was skateboarding home from a friend's place around 3:48 a.m. when black 1998 Nissan Maxima plowed into him, dragging him southbound along Golden Lantern ...

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Tea Tihanyi via Twiiter

Michael Vega, 25.

Not even a bike helmet could save 25-year-old Michael Ray Vega, the Norco resident killed in Rancho Cucamonga yesterday evening by a hit-and-run driver who left him to die along Foothill Boulevard.

"You were a great dude," his friend Lacey LeBlanc wrote on Twitter. "No one deserves the fate you received."

According to San Bernardino Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Jody Miller, the victim was riding his bicycle west on Foothill when, around 7:40 p.m., he was hit from behind...

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Paul Mingyu Sang via Facebook

This would have been Sang's first year at the Santa Clarita college.

A 19-year-old foreign-exchange student at a small Christian college in Santa Clarita reportedly suffered a tragic death at a SoCal beach on Wednesday, when a hole he was digging in the sand collapsed around him.

South Korea native Mingyu Sang, whose American name was Paul, dug the hole while attending a daytime "beach bash" thrown by his school as part of "welcome week" (a common getting-to-know-you ritual for West Coast colleges).

The event took place at Mandalay Bay in Oxnard...

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IMDB

Tony Scott.

Updated at the bottom with a NEW report that Scott DID NOT have cancer. Top was rewritten to reflect our own confirmation of reports of Scott's death. First posted at 9:01 p.m. Sunday.

Director Tony Scott jumped to his death from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro today, the L.A. County Coroner's office told the Weekly.

A U.S. Coast Guard official confirmed to the Weekly that the decedent left a note and had parked a Prius on the bridge that was subsequently towed by the LAPD. The person leaped some time after noon, the official said.

Scott ...

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Beverly Hills Hotel / Facebook

Added at the bottom: The woman has been ID'd. The headline has been changed to reflect this.

In one of the odder death stories we've come across, the female driver of a hearse was found dead behind the wheel today next to the famed Beverly Hills Hotel, police tell the Weekly.

Cops say they got the call of a body slumped over the steering wheel of a car in the 900 block of North Crescent Drive about 3 p.m.

We spotted the initial reports from BHScanner, which tweeted that Crescent Drive was closed as authorities continued to investigate the situation this afternoon:

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Sony

A SoCal philosopher just got $5 million to study what happens after you die. Really.

Give the money to us and we'll refund $4 mil, save you a lot of time, and tell you what our mama always said: You die, you die.

Anyway, the lucky winner is John Fischer, who got the grant from the John Templeton Foundation. To be fair, there's more involved here, apparently, than just chin-scratching about the afterlife experience:

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Ivans.

The body of an FBI agent feared to be suicidal appears to have been found in the foothills above Burbank, police said this morning.

Stephan Ivans was a 35-year-old L.A.-based lawman said to be despondent when he went for a walk in the Verdugo Mountains in spring. KNX 1070 Newsradio reported that a law enforcement "service revolver" was found next to the body.

The discovery was made ...

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