Police Seek Help Identifying Woman Who Set Self Afire

Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying a woman who died hours after she doused herself with gasoline, lit a match and set herself afire, authorities said Tuesday.

On Sunday, police received an anonymous call about 7:30 a.m. that a body had been dumped on an equestrian trail north of Laguna Lake and west of Harbor Boulevard in an upscale neighborhood of Fullerton, said Fullerton police Sgt. Doug Cave.

When officers arrived at the scene, they found the barely breathing woman lying in a culvert underneath a bridge near two empty containers of fire accelerant, Cave said.

Paramedics rushed the woman to St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton with third-degree burns over most of her body. She was transferred to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where she died shortly after 6 p.m.

Her hands were too badly burned to obtain fingerprints, authorities said. She carried no identification and refused to tell officers her name or where she lived.

“The woman indicated that she had tried to kill herself, and that she did not want to live,” Fullerton spokeswoman Sylvia Palmer Mudrick said.

Cave described the woman as in her 50s, with bleached blond hair, blue eyes, 5 feet 6 inches tall and 168 pounds. Found near her body were singed remnants of what appeared to be a green jacket. Anyone with information is asked to call Fullerton detectives at (714) 738-6782.