The Murder of Malibu John Doe, January 1977

On Saturday, January 15, 1977, the complete remains of a teenager or young man were found in a remote ravine off of Kanan Rd, two miles west of the Ventura Freeway in either Agoura or Malibu, LA County, CA. His remains were decomposed and/or partially skeletonized, with some soft tissues remaining.

John Doe was a victim of homicide, having suffered blunt force trauma to the head. He is estimated to have died about six days before discovery, which puts his date of death as about Sunday, January 9, 1977.

John Doe was a white male, either 17 to 20 or 17 to 30 years old. He is variously described as being approximately 5'4 to 5'8, measuring in at 5'6, or being 5'8 tall. His weight during life is unknown, though his decomposed remains weighed only 43 lbs when he was found. He had brown hair, though his eye color is unknown. He was wearing green socks, as well as a tan Levi corduroy shirt, size small. A photo of a cloth fragment of the shirt is available on NamUs and Doe Network alongside a sketched reconstruction.

Sketches of John Doe provided by LASD. Photo from NamUs.

Malibu John Doe's dental records and DNA are available for comparison, though his fingerprints are not. Concerning his dentals, Doe Network states, "3 0 plus 0,10 developmental defects, 14 pin." John Doe has only one exclusion on NamUs: he is not Daniel Hoffer. John Doe's NamUs page, #UP4445, was created on September 10, 2008 and last updated October 12, 2022. 

Anyone with any information is urged to contact Investigator Betsy Magdaleno of the LA County Medical Examiner's Office at (323) 343-0512 or IDUnit@me.lacounty.gov. The agency case number is 1977-00694.

Sources

NamUs 

Doe Network 

LA County ME

Unidentified wiki 

WebSleuths

Note: I could not find any contemporary newspaper reports regarding John Doe.

Further Note: While this write-up was originally published on July 8, 2025, I regularly revisit cases, fix any typos or formatting errors, check for updates, hyperlink new posts, ensure that I have exhausted all sources, etc. When edits are extensive, I re-post the write-up. This post was last updated on October 1, 2025.