By Karl Fischer, Contra Costa Times
Submitted with permission by Safe Restraints, Inc.
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SAN PABLO – Police searching for a missing Vallejo woman found her car parked with a body in it and arrested a man who ran away from it when they tried to approach him.
Although the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office deferred comment to Vallejo police, who did not return calls, friends and family members of 27-year-old Alicia Loza confirmed that her body was in the car found parked on the 2000 block of Stanton Avenue.
Sheriff’s deputies, San Pablo and Richmond police arrested 33-year-old Aukusitino Afamasaga in the back yard of a house on the 1900 block of Crucero Avenue about 4:40 p.m., carrying him off the property in The Wrap from Safe Restraints, a restraining leg wrap.
“He beat her up badly, and she pressed charges,” said Lori Orr, Loza’s supervisor at a Walnut Creek medical billing company. “From what I’ve been told, it sounds like he made her his first order of business” after his recent prison release.
Earlier Tuesday, Vallejo police alerted local law enforcement agencies to look for Loza’s 2000 Toyota Solara in connection with her possible abduction.
Loza’s family told police Afamasaga threatened to hurt her last week. Records show both have ties to West Contra Costa County.
A resident on Stanton flagged down a deputy about 4:10 p.m. to report that Afamasaga was in the area, sheriff’s spokesman Jimmy Lee said. The deputy soon spotted the car parked in front of an apartment building.
“As the deputy pulled behind, the individual fled on foot,” Lee said. The deputy quickly noticed a woman’s body in the passenger seat.
Afamasaga was arrested on suspicion of parole violations, Lee said. Police would not comment on his criminal history, but Orr said he was recently paroled from state prison for a domestic violence conviction involving Loza. The Contra Costa Coroner’s Office did not identify the body Tuesday night.
Orr last saw Loza when she left work about 5:30 p.m. Friday. She said that she and Loza’s family reported her missing to several law enforcement agencies over the weekend, including Vallejo and Richmond police.
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