Family of woman found dead in L.A. homeless encampment say questions remain

Family members of a 46-year-old woman, a U.S. Army veteran and mother of six children, found dead in a homeless encampment are speaking out, sharing their concerns with the Los Angeles Times about how police have handled the investigation.  

Lucrecia Macias Barajas and an unidentified man were found dead inside a locked makeshift sidewalk structure in L.A.’s Westlake District on May 12.  

The grisly discovery was made by one of Barajas’ daughters who tracked her mother’s cellphone to the location. Video taken at the scene showed the young woman on the ground, sobbing and, later, imploring police to take her mother’s body out of the tent.  

Officers, however, waited because two live dogs, a pit bull mix and a shepherd mix, one of whom reportedly bit into Barajas’ body, were still in the tent.  

The 46-year-old’s daughter told The Times that her mother’s body wasn’t removed from the tent until early the next day, after animal services, who are now holding the dogs as evidence, responded to the scene. 

According to the daughter, who did not want to be identified, Barajas’ and the male victim’s corpses were in the tent with the dogs for at least eight hours after they were found.  

Barajas’ daughters were reportedly given the card of an LAPD detective on the case with the words “overdose investigation” written on the back of it and are now saying police have been too quick to rule out homicide.  

Born in Nicuaraga, Barajas fled with her family in 1986 amid the country’s civil war. She later joined the U.S. Army between the late 1990s and early 2000s. The daughters told The Times that they believe their mother started using methamphetamine in 2017, as a way to manage raising six children, working and battling stage 3 lymphoma.  

The children were reportedly never aware of their mother’s drug use, though she later ended up on the street with an addiction to the drug. Later, after getting sober, she moved back in with her family.  

While her daughters are unsure why she went to the encampment along Huntley Circle near downtown L.A. that day, they told The Times there are circumstances surrounding her death that remain suspicious.  

One of their issues with the alleged “overdose investigation” is that the tent their mother and the other man were found in was secured with a lock on the outside of the entrance, presumably suggesting a third party could have bolted it as they left the scene.  

In addition, a 25-year-old man, Hans Salinas, told The Times that he and his girlfriend were awakened at around 3:30 a.m. that morning to sounds of a man and woman arguing, followed by a woman’s screams for help and then silence.  

The app the daughter used to track her mother’s cellphone to the area reportedly shows the 46-year-old arriving two hours before Salinas and his girlfriend heard the screams.  

Barajas’ daughters also believe police failed to secure the crime scene, allowing security cameras attached to the makeshift structure to go missing, along with their mother’s cellphone, which was traced to a park three blocks away several hours after the victims’ bodies were removed from the tent.  

L.A. Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the Westlake District, told The Times in a statement that she has spoken with LAPD and is working to “ensure the family gets the answers they deserve.”  

In the meantime, family members continue to grieve their unimaginable loss.  

“I want people to know she wasn’t a homeless drug addict, because that’s not true,” one of her daughters told KTLA. “Some people are coming to that conclusion, and that’s not fair. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.” 

A GoFundMe organized for the family can be found here.  

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