Two missing men from California's Lancaster area were identified after their remains turned up buried on a remote desert property, with sheriff's investigators treating the deaths as a homicide case.
Edward Perez, 46, and Ricky Phillips, 61, both from the Lancaster area, disappeared in mid-September. Their remains were later recovered on a remote property near 50th Street East and Avenue F, in the California desert outside Lancaster.
The New York Post reported that Phillips vanished on Sept. 10 and Perez was reported missing on Sept. 19. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department crews launched a search on the lot Tuesday and wrapped the work Wednesday.
Investigators focused near the remains of an old greenhouse on the sprawling property, which was littered with debris and RVs. Deputies dug at the site, collected evidence under a canopy, and used cadaver dogs during the operation.
Remote-ground recoveries often leave families waiting on hard answers, a pattern also seen when human remains near a Tennessee island required careful identification work long after a major storm.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials said the case is being investigated as a homicide "based on the circumstances surrounding the discovery." No suspects have been named publicly, and no arrests have been announced.
Los Angeles County medical examiner records list the cause and manner of death for both men as "deferred," with no further details released. Officials have not said how Perez and Phillips died.
The Tuesday-to-Wednesday search put boots and dogs on a littered desert lot and ended with two sets of remains identified. That pace matters to lawful residents who expect missing-person cases to move when evidence appears.
Desert and open-country probes can turn on thin physical clues, much like the crime-scene hair work in the Nancy Guthrie case that left investigators without a usable DNA profile.
What the public still does not have is a clear account of the burial circumstances that pushed the case into a homicide lane, or any word on who controlled the Lancaster property. Those gaps keep the mystery alive for relatives and neighbors who watched two local men vanish weeks apart.
Sheriff's statements so far stay narrow: the discovery conditions support a homicide investigation, the medical examiner has deferred cause and manner, and the tip line is open. That is the official record as it stands.
Other missing-person searches in remote terrain have ended with a living recovery, including a seventy-year-old hiker found alive after 11 days on a Michigan island. Perez and Phillips did not get that ending.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500. Until investigators fill in the deferred findings and name a suspect if one exists, two mid-September disappearances remain an open homicide file in the Antelope Valley desert.
Wooded and rural searches elsewhere have also drawn heavy resources, as when a Virginia toddler was found safe after an overnight FBI-backed search near a Cumberland home. Here, the outcome was two buried remains and a case still short on answers.
Families and taxpayers deserve a finished investigation, not a deferred file that sits while the desert keeps its silence.