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Search Continues for Dismembered Body Parts in Complex For-Profit Double Murder
Police from several agencies are searching El Dorado Wilderness Park in Long Beach this morning for a second day, looking for missing body parts hidden there by 26-year-old Costa Mesa resident and amateur actor Daniel Wozniak, as detailed in his confession. The head and other parts are those of Samuel Herr, a 26-year-old man who was initially believed to have been the suspect in another murder, to which Wozniak has also confessed.
It's all a part of a complex scheme to steal money as orchestrated by Wozniak, who killed Herr, his neighbor, a week ago "in the attic of a theater on a military base in Los Alamitos," according to abc7. Wozniak shot Herr to death then dismembered his body, leaving the torso in the building and stashing the remaining parts 2 miles away in the park.
Following Herr's murder, Wozniak used the victim's cellphone to contact Herr's friend Juri Kibuishi. In Herr's apartment, Wozniak killed the 23-year-old woman in order to stage a scene that would lead police to believe Herr was the suspect. In the meantime, Wozniak took Herr's credit cards and began to complete his plan to "drain out the bank account of Samuel Herr by making withdrawals out of the ATM until he cleaned out the bank account."
However, the use of the withdrawals did not go unnoticed by surveillance cameras and the teen Wozniak hired to make the transactions gave him up. Wozniak was arrested soon after, and confessed to the double murder and profit scheme. Today Wozniak is being held at a medical facility following an alleged suicide attempt. He has been "charged with two felony counts of murder with special circumstances for the deaths of both Herr and Kibuishi."
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