The mummified body of a man found inside a wall at Oakland’s old convention center was identified Monday.
Cops said the man was Joseph Edward Mejica, a 42-year-old who was last seen alive in August 2020, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Mejica was homeless, and his mother reported him missing in September 2020, according to the Chronicle. She mentioned that he would visit construction sites looking for copper wire to sell.
Construction workers at the dilapidated Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center discovered Mejica’s body in March 2022. They found his remains inside of a wall, and investigators were baffled.
Their best theory was that Mejica somehow fell from a higher point and wedged himself in the 15-inch wide space between an inner wall and outer wall, the Chronicle reported. But Mejica’s official cause of death is still under investigation.
Mejica was identified through a tubular plate in his ankle, police told the Chronicle. DNA samples were used to confirm the identification.
The Kaiser Convention Center has been closed and abandoned since 2005. Oakland’s city government approved a redevelopment plan several years ago. It was supposed to begin in 2020 but was delayed because of the COVID pandemic.