Coroner: Dead man in a barrel in Malibu was shot in the head
KABC-7 VIA AP / JULY 31
This image taken from video and provided by KABC-7 TV shows law enforcement officers standing by a barrel at Malibu Lagoon. The man whose naked body was found inside the barrel was shot in the head, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner has determined. The man was identified by the coroner’s office as 32-year-old Javonnta Marshann Murphy. The coroner’s case information now lists the cause of death as a gunshot wound to the head, the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday, Aug. 5.
MALIBU, Calif. >> A man whose naked body was found inside a barrel in Malibu, Calif., last week was shot in the head, a coroner has determined.
The man was identified Wednesday by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office as 32-year-old Javonnta Marshann Murphy but no cause of death was given at the time. The coroner’s case information now lists the cause of death as a gunshot wound to the head, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
The circumstances that led to Murphy being shot and sealed inside a barrel remain under investigation by the Los Angeles County sheriff’s office.
The 55-gallon (208-liter) black plastic barrel was first spotted July 30 floating in a Malibu lagoon and brought in with a kayak by a maintenance worker, but it was not immediately opened.
The Sheriff’s Department said the barrel was opened July 31 by a lifeguard at Malibu Lagoon State Beach, who had retrieved it after it washed back into the lagoon.
It was not known how long the body had been in the drum.
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Patrick Nelson, a family friend, told the Los Angeles Times that Murphy had grown up in South Los Angeles with four brothers and was an aspiring rapper.
