The Death of Bell John Doe, September 1979

At about 4:45pm on Wednesday, September 19, 1979, the body of a teenager or young man was discovered in the Los Angeles Riverbed, north of the Patata St overpass/trestle in Bell, LA County, CA. He had been deceased for only some hours prior, and his face was recognizable; a postmortem photo is available through a link on the Doe Network. The cause and manner of death have not been released.

Artist rendering from NCMEC.

John Doe was 15 to 25 years old, 5'8, and 129 lbs. The estimated age group listed by NamUs is "Adult - Pre 30." He was white and had brown eyes and short, thin, light brown hair. A reconstruction of him created by NCMEC is available. When found, he was wearing blue slacks, a Hawaiian print shirt from K-Mart, a brown leather belt, underwear, and white socks with a red stripe at the top.

John Doe's dentals, DNA, and fingerprints are all available for comparison. He has six MP exclusions on NamUs, as well as one repeat: John Doe is not Donald Rexroth (whose remains were found in 2017 and IDed in 2019), David Schwarzschild, Lawrence Colton, Titanic Hagen, Mitchel Weiser, or Robert Keck.

I could not find any contemporary news reports about John Doe. His NamUs page was created on September 10, 2008 and last updated January 20, 2021. The Doe Network, NCMEC, NCIC, and NamUs case numbers are 1401UMCA, 1184184, U170020176, and #UP4399, respectively. 

Anyone with information regarding John Doe should contact Investigator Betsy Magdaleno of the LA County Medical Examiner's Office (LACME) at (323) 343-0512 or IDUnit@me.lacounty.gov. The agency case number is 1979-11760.

According to NCMEC and the Doe Network, individuals may also contact the LA County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500. Any little piece of information, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is appreciated, and may be the key to recovering John Doe's identity.

Note: John Doe was found four days before the fall equinox. See the Holiday & Events Reference Page for an explanation as to why this is being mentioned. 

Sources

NamUs 

LACME 

NCMEC

WebSleuths

Doe Network

Unidentified wiki

Note: While this write-up was originally published on July 31, 2025, I regularly revisit cases, fix any typos or formatting errors, check for updates, ensure that I have exhausted all sources, etc. When edits are extensive, I re-post the write-up entirely. This post was last updated on January 19, 2026.