California police have identified the girl whose body was found inside a duffel bag near an equestrian trail last week on March 5.
She was 9-year-old Trinity Love Jones, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that described her as a Los Angeles County resident.
“Although the Coroner’s Office determined the death to be a homicide, the cause of death is being withheld,” the sheriff’s department statement said. “Investigators have detained two persons of interest in this case and they are actively continuing their investigation.”
After learning her identity, relatives arrived at a memorial to the girl—established where her body had been found in Hacienda Heights, CNN affiliate KTLA reported.
California police identify girl’s body found in duffel bag as 9-year-old https://t.co/TzpWRquy9n pic.twitter.com/uZpXsmbgMw
— FOX8 WGHP (@myfox8) March 11, 2019
Antonio Jones told the news station that Trinity was his youngest daughter and had been “full of character, full of life, full of joy.”
“Words can’t explain what I’m feeling right now,” he said, according to KTLA. “I just want answers. I just want justice.”
The dozens of people participated in a vigil, reported CBSLA, near the entrance to the trail where her body was found.
“It breaks my heart, it just breaks my heart,” Marlene Contreras, one of the vigil’s organizers told the station.
“When things like this happen, we need to come together and be a voice for this little girl, especially since she doesn’t have a family, I think it’s important that she’s everybody’s child,” said Contreras.
The girl was found Tuesday morning in the area south of Hacienda Boulevard and Glenmark Drive, just below a Buddhist temple, according to police.
Her head and upper body had been protruding from the partially zipped roll-away black duffel bag.
She was wearing a shirt that read “Future Princess Hero,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Scott Hoglund told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday.
Hoglund said authorities believed the girl had been left late on the evening of March 3 in light brush by the trail but did not know if she had been dead or alive.
By Susannah Cullinane
The Epoch Times reporter Simon Veazey contributed to this report.