The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department launched a homicide probe Tuesday after human remains surfaced on a debris-strewn desert property in Lancaster, a remote Mojave Desert city roughly 70 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.
Investigators converged on land near 50th Street East and Avenue F, where aerial footage captured agents excavating a large hole while evidence markers peppered the ground. A canopy went up over an area where photographs and other material appeared to be gathered, and witnesses reported cadaver dogs working the scene.
“Based on the circumstances surrounding the discovery, the case is now being investigated as a homicide,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Homicide investigators are in the early stages of investigating the scene.”
Officials have clamped down on details, withholding the identities of the dead and the manner of their deaths. The secrecy, they said, serves “to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation.”
The property itself sits cluttered with RVs, scattered debris and what looked to be the remains of an old greenhouse. The rural location and chaotic conditions complicated the initial search and documentation of evidence.
The grisly find landed just blocks from where Ricky Allen Phillips, 61, vanished without trace two weeks earlier. The timing and proximity have stirred speculation, though authorities have offered no indication the cases connect.
Phillips was last seen Sunday, Aug. 30, on the 44900 block of 10th Street W in Lancaster, according to an LASD missing-person bulletin. The department classified him as an “at-risk missing person,” noting his family was “concerned for his well-being.”
He is described as 5 feet, 7 inches tall, weighing 230 pounds, with black hair and green eyes. The bulletin generated no public leads in the days before the remains turned up nearby.
Law enforcement has repeatedly declined to say whether Phillips could be among the recovered dead. The homicide probe and the missing-person case remain officially separate, with no shared evidence disclosed.
The desert terrain around Lancaster, with its vast empty stretches and scattered dwellings, has historically complicated both searches and criminal investigations. The city’s location at the western edge of the Mojave makes it a jurisdiction where cases can go cold for lack of witnesses.
For now, the homicide investigation sits in its earliest phase, with detectives still processing the scene and awaiting identification of the remains. The sheriff’s department has not indicated when more information might be released.
Phillips’s family continues to seek answers in his disappearance as the parallel investigation unfolds blocks from where he was last known to be. Whether the two mysteries converge remains the question hanging over the high desert community.
The sheriff’s department said it will provide updates as the homicide probe advances, though no timeline was given for when identifications or cause-of-death determinations might come.
The next scheduled briefing from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has not been announced.