Dog-walker is hounded for doing the right thing

I go up to the Hollywood Hills for peace, solitude, hiking and walking my dogs. And Bronson Canyon is the best part of the hills.

Minutes away from the Capitol Records building and studio lots is some of the most pristine native wilderness you will find along Griffith Park’s 52 miles of fire roads and trails.

The canyon path winds uphill from the Craftsman bungalows of Beachwood, through sprays of red-berried toyon, or California holly, the plant that gave Hollywood its name. Scrub oaks and sycamores shade a creek bed, and laurel sumac and black sage scent the air.

This year, unseasonably warm weather brought on a false spring, and the silvery wild lilac is already in bloom. But there’s still a brisk bite in the early-morning air — or, as one hiker put it recently, “What we in Los Angeles call winter.”

There’s a patina of Hollywood history in the canyon, and it’s not just from the towering sign that bursts into view as the trail rises into open range. A side trail leads you to Bronson Caves, an old quarry that TV cast as the Caped Crusader’s Batcave, and appeared in such classic films as “Riders of the Purple Sage” (the Tom Mix version) and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (the first one, in 1956).

Today’s stars also put in unscheduled appearances. Minnie Driver once spent 15 minutes petting and praising my blind, aging dog’s gallantry in continuing to hike. Another time, a colleague’s husband reached the top of the hill before realizing the extraordinarily handsome man he’d been chatting with was Brad Pitt.

New York has its Central Park, and Boston its Common. But to watch the sun rise over land relatively untouched since Native Americans walked the ridges less than a mile from the urban scrum has no parallel.

So it was profoundly unsettling when a severed head, feet and hands were found in Bronson Canyon last week — even more so for Lauren Kornberg, the dog-walker who made the grisly discovery.

Kornberg grew up in the lee of the canyon, celebrated her childhood birthdays there and has hiked this and other parts of the Hollywood Hills her entire life. “It’s like my backyard,” she said.

But as bad as the brush with violent death was, Kornberg said, “the most shocking part of the whole thing was to learn how words can be twisted by the media.” More on that later.

No one seemed to be interested in what actually happened, or in the role of the dogs, who were the real heroes, she said.

Kornberg’s account goes like this:

She was walking with her mother, who still lives near the canyon, and the nine dogs she cares for. Not far from the trail head, they took a side path so the dogs could work off some excitement before joining the other hikers.

A ruddy golden retriever named Ollie broke away from the pack and started digging busily in the brush, as he often did. Ollie found something but, uncharacteristically, he immediately let it drop.

“Normally when he found a mouse or a squirrel, he’d be shaking it and prancing back and forth, showing off,” Kornberg said.

As the object tumbled into the ravine, Riley, a husky mix, went after it. But instead of the usual pandemonium when a pack of dogs jostles over a prize, Riley nosed leaves and branches over the object, trying to cover it. A terrier mix named Rocky also headed down but quickly backed away, his hackles bristling.

It wasn’t until her mom walked to the edge of the ravine that they realized it wasn’t a film prop, as Kornberg had assumed, but a human head. She thinks the dogs’ human bond canceled out their prey instinct.

“It’s why you have dogs who don’t leave the side of their owner when they’re down,” she said.

Riley’s owner, longtime Hollywood publicist Nancy Block, said her dog returned home sad and listless, perhaps in reaction to Kornberg’s obvious trauma.

“She loves Lauren, and she knew something was really wrong,” Block said.

Kornberg spent hours with detectives. Coroner’s investigators, with the help of a cadaver dog, later found feet and hands in the brush, as well as the shredded grocery bag the killer had used to carry the head. The victim was later identified as Hervey Medellin, 66, a former airline worker who lived in the neighborhood; his slaying remains under investigation.

“I feel flattered the dogs will bring justice for some family,” Kornberg said. “Two more hours it would have been nighttime, and with the coyotes up there, I don’t know what would have survived.”

The next day, a client who works in the media asked Kornberg for an interview. Dismemberment killings, sadly, are not new to Southern California. Last spring, a woman was found wheeling a trash bin containing parts of her ex-boyfriend’s body down a street in Ontario.

But that story didn’t break against a backdrop of LAPD helicopters whirling around the Hollywood sign. It stalled on the back pages. Coverage of the Bronson Canyon head, on the other hand, went haywire, and Kornberg soon found herself under attack.

TV crews refused to leave her yard until she went on camera. Online commentators accused her of fouling the canyon with dog doo, and bloggers spread a rumor she was peddling a photo of herself with the dead man’s head.

Kornberg got a lawyer, and some outlets published a denial. But there was no way to shut down the echo chamber of commentators piggybacking on the allegations, she said.

“The way they can print whatever they want and you have no recourse, it was really shocking,” she said.

Kornberg has been avoiding Bronson Canyon for fear the circus will start up again. But her mother told her: “Don’t let them chase us out of our park.”

Kornberg agreed. “I have a business degree. I’m not an actor or a singer, waiting to be discovered,” she said. “This is what I have chosen to do. I love the dogs, my clients and the freedom. Everything about it makes me happy.”

I’m back too, but without the pure delight I once felt in the canyon. The unease over the tragic killing will fade with time, but not my disgust with parts of my own profession. Kornberg did the right thing, and in return she was hounded. Hollywood lifted its shirt and revealed its vicious underbelly.

“All she tried to do was help,” said Block.

gale.holland@latimes.com