The coroner’s office this week released the name of a man whose decomposing body was found stuck inside a brick pillar at a Lancaster supermarket.
The body of Raymundo Rivera, 35, was found about 2:40 p.m. Aug. 11 inside a pillar at Winco Foods, 740 W. Avenue K, according to the Los Angeles county coroner’s office and sheriff’s department. His place of residence was not immediately available.
Investigators have said he may have been a man on the run from sheriff’s deputies.
Deputies had chased a man suspected of driving a stolen vehicle on Aug. 6, when a witness says he ran into the supermarket, sprinted up stairs into the offices, and then hid in a crawl space.
Investigators thought he simply got away, but six days later, a store manager complained about a strong smell.
A plumber was called and a couple of bricks were broken to look inside the pillar.
“When they did that they looked down and they could see a shoe and a leg down there at the bottom of the column inside the column,’’ sheriff’s Lt. John Corina said.
The body was in “advanced stages of decomposition,’’ according to the sheriff’s department.
Corina said it appeared Rivera fell or climbed into the inside of the column and could not get out.
Corina called it “a horrible way to die.’’
An autopsy was pending at press time, according to the coroner’s office.
