SANTA MARIA, Calif.- Santa Maria Police say they found a man's body stuffed in the back of the truck Tuesday morning on Los Padres Road in Orcutt. The owner of the U-Haul shop on West Main Street in Santa Maria tells Central Coast News the truck the body was found in, was rented out from his business yesterday.
"We received information from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department that the u-haul was located here and we responded after they located it," said Sergeant Mark Norling, Santa Maria Police Department.
Police believe the man may have been killed inside this home on the 1100 block of West Donovan.
"We began an investigation yesterday of a possible assault with information that a homicide had occurred," said Norling.
Police say they now have three suspects in custody, 37-year-old Ramon Maldonado, 28-year-old Carmen Cardenas and 54-year-old Pedro Torres.
Maldonado has been on Central Coast News before. Back in December, police pulled up to a home on 500 block of Richard Street thinking they were responding to a burglary. Instead they found Maldonado, at the time a well-known gang member and three suspects. Maldonado was arrested for a local warrant along with probation violations from Monterey County.
It's unknown where Maldonado was living prior to his alleged involvement with Monday's homicide, but the owner of the U-Haul business on West Main Street says one of the other suspects Cardenas rented the truck from his shop Monday morning and said she did not look suspicious to him.
As of Tuesday evening, police are still investigating and have not released the name of the man killed.
