Gunshot Victim Found in Angeles Forest

A Tijuana man was driven to a dark canyon in Angeles National Forest near Sunland and shot to death as he tried to flee his attackers, police said Monday.

Responding to an assault call about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, police found the body of Manuel Delgadillo, 35, riddled with high-caliber bullets alongside Big Tujunga Canyon Road, said Lt. Steven Allen of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division.

Witnesses told investigators that a number of men in a brown sedan, which was parked in the highly wooded area, opened fired when Delgadillo tried to run from the car. Emergency crew personnel pronounced him dead at the scene.

Last Wednesday, another body was found inside a burned Lexus about four miles west of where Delgadillo was found, although police said they do not know if the two cases are related.

“There aren’t any homes up there and only a few people live up there, so it’s unlikely this incident started up there,” Allen said. “So we’re under the assumption that he went out there with the other men in the car, willingly or unwillingly.”

The narrow, winding road where the shooting occurred has no street lights. A few modest homes, a small private equestrian center and a rundown trailer park that appeared abandoned sit above the road, which leads to a Fire Department camp in the national forest.

Delgadillo, who also went by the name Manuel Delgadillo Garcia, had a valid California driver’s license with a Chula Vista address, but his widow confirmed he lived in Tijuana, police said.

Authorities in Chula Vista said many of that city’s immigrant workers use family members’ addresses to obtain California identification and work credentials but live in Tijuana, because the cost of living there is lower.

LAPD Det. Chuck Lenane said there is no evidence that the shooting was gang-related.

“We don’t know where he was beforehand,” Lenane said. “All we know is where he ended up.”

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Times staff writer Jason Song contributed to this story.