Authorities on Friday confirmed that the body of a woman found by a hiker in Siskiyou County last weekend has been identified as a 19-year-old who went missing in Oakland earlier this year.
The family of Tatiana Dugger reported her missing to Oakland police on January 9, according to authorities. Dugger was a former Oroville resident who had recently relocated to Los Angeles, authorities said. Cell phone records indicated that the Oakland area was her last known location.
Oakland police contacted the Butte County Sheriff’s Office to get their cooperation in the ongoing efforts to locate Dugger given that she was a recent resident of Oroville.
The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said that last Sunday at about 11:45 a.m., a hiker reported that the body of a dead person was located on United States Forest Service land near U.S. Route 97 and Juniper Terrace in an area approximately eight miles northeast of the town of Weed.
Detectives with the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, USFS law enforcement officers, CHP officers and personnel from the Department of Justice responded to the location. The deceased person located in a remote area off the roadway was determined to be female and appeared to have been there for an extended period of time.
On Thursday, an autopsy was performed on the deceased female. Due to some of the known facts up to that point, detectives from the Butte County Sheriff’s Office joined the Siskiyou County Major Crimes Unit at the autopsy.
Using a rapid DNA identification process, the deceased female was positively identified as Dugger on Friday, authorities said.
The investigation into Dugger’s disappearance and death is ongoing and additional circumstances surrounding her death will not be released at this time. Anyone with information that may be relevant to the investigation is asked contact the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office 24-hour dispatch center at (530) 841-2900.
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