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Officials Mum About Body Found In Trunk

Body May Be Los Angeles Woman Missing For One Week

POSTED: 6:07 pm PDT July 16, 2004

No one in Los Angeles or San Diego counties was willing to say Friday if a female's body found in San Diego in the trunk of a silver Mercedes-Benz is that of an El Segundo Realtor missing since July 8.

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Manny Fernandez of the San Diego Medical Examiner's Office said the case is officially sealed. That was also the word from the Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau in Monterey Park.

Julia "Deede" Buchanan Keller's E320 sedan was found about noon Thursday, parked at an expired meter in the 1000 block of 11th Avenue, said Deputy Bill Spear of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

That agency took over the homicide investigation from the El Segundo Police Department Thursday.

"No word yet on (an identification) of the body," Spear said Friday morning. "But it's definitely her car."

uthorities had been saying even before the discovery of the body that Keller appeared to have been the victim of foul play. The body that was found was said to have been a female's.

The 55-year-old Keller was last seen about 11:30 p.m. July 8 at her home in the 500 block of Richmond Street after being dropped off by a date, said El Segundo police Detective Ken Mulroney.

Police have questioned Keller's date and her ex-husband, an American Airlines mechanic and El Segundo resident who went to Bolivia last Sunday to visit relatives. Authorities said neither man is a suspect.

Mike Keller called police Sunday night after his mother missed several business and social appointments, police said.

Police found her purse in the house and the television on, but her car was gone and her four dogs had not been fed. There were no signs of forced entry into her home, Mulroney said.

Keller's employer, Shorewood Realtors, offered a $50,000 reward Tuesday for information leading to her whereabouts.

Friends say she was a beloved woman with no known enemies.

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