An LA County Sheriff’s Department Homicide investigation into the death of 53-year-old Malibu resident Julia Christine Snyder was still underway as of Monday, March 2, nearly two weeks after the discovery of her body.
Snyder was initially reported missing from the 4300 block of Ocean View Drive in Latigo Canyon on Feb. 8.
According to Lieutenant Barry Hall with the sheriff’s homicide bureau, speaking on Monday, the investigation was “being handled as a death investigation.Â
“There’s no outward signs of trauma or foul play at this point,” Hall said.
The lieutenant also confirmed Snyder’s remains had been found in a crawl space beneath a home.
When asked about the time of Snyder’s death, Hall stated there were indications “she had been there for several days; it was a cool, dark place so decomp would be slowed, just from being there, versus being in a regular room.”
As for a cause of death, investigators working for the department of medical examiner-coroner were working to determine what happened.
“Coroner does a separate investigation just concerning [the] cause of death—mode and cause of death—and we do an investigation of what leads up to it,” Hall explained.Â
According to Hall, results of the investigation were most likely to be released in three to four weeks from the date of Snyder’s autopsy.