By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Published on: January 10, 2003

By Peggy Kelly

Ventura County sheriff’s are still investigating the murder of a Fillmore teenager who acted as the designated driver for her friends on New Year’s Eve and was found dead hours later in a remote rural area.

Valeria Zavala, 19, was home from San Jose State University for the holidays when she died from asphyxiation; the pretty Fillmore High School cheerleader and honor student also suffered blunt force trauma to the head, according to Deputy Medical Examiner Michael Feiler. The method of asphyxiation as well as the suspected weapon used to strike her on the head has not been revealed, and the results of tests to determine whether or not Zavala had been sexually molested are pending.

Zavala’s partially clothed body was found stuffed in a concrete drainage pipe at about 10 a.m. New Year’s Day in the 20000 block of South Mountain Road, about a mile west of Balcom Canyon Road. The concrete drainage pipe runs under South Mountain Road. A 15-year-old boy who was returning from a walk in the area discovered her body.

Sheriff investigators have been unable to determine Zavala’s whereabouts after she dropped off two friends - Zavala was driving the vehicle of one friend - after a New Year’s Eve party and reportedly was going to visit her ex-boyfriend. The vehicle was found in a parking lot off Highway 126 at C Street in Fillmore, about three blocks from Zavala’s ex-boyfriend’s home. Zavala had left her own car at the party.

At about 12:40 a.m., Zavala had telephoned her mother from the party and told her she would drive her friends home. While on holiday break, Zavala was staying at her mother’s home in Oxnard; her father lives in Fillmore.

Sheriff investigators are still seeking anyone who might have seen the black, four-door 1999 Toyota Corolla Zavala was driving.

An aspiring elementary school teacher, Zavala was active with the Alpha Kappa Delta Phi as the sorority’s fundraiser. She has two sisters attending Fillmore High School and an 11-year-old brother.

Services for Zavala were held Tuesday in Fillmore.

If you have any information about the case, call the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department at 654-2311.