SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A body believed to be that of a retired Army captain from San Diego who went missing over the Labor Day weekend was found Friday in a shallow grave in the Riverside County desert, authorities reported.
Personnel from various Southern California law enforcement agencies had been searching remote terrain in the Cactus City area for the remains of presumed murder victim Julia Jacobson for several days when they made the grim discovery late this morning, said Cpl. Fred Alvarez of the Ontario Police Department.
Found alongside the 37-year-old woman's body near Interstate 10 and Box Canyon Road were the remains of a dog, Alvarez said. Jacobson's white-and- brown wheaten terrier, Boogie, was believed to have been with the former servicewoman when she disappeared.
In October, Jacobson's ex-husband, Dalen Larry Ware of Phoenix, Arizona, was arrested on suspicion of killing her in San Bernardino County. Authorities have disclosed no suspected motive for the alleged slaying.
Jacobson, a corporate real estate broker for 7-Eleven who deployed to Iraq twice during her military career, vanished after leaving her North Park home early on the morning of Sept. 2.
That evening, a friend received text messages from Jacobson's cellphone stating that she was in the Palm Springs area and planned to continue on to Big Bear.
Five days later, Jacobson's company car was found abandoned a few blocks from her home with the keys in the ignition and the windows all partially rolled down.
After San Diego police determined that Jacobson had gone to Ontario on the day she disappeared, authorities in San Bernardino County took over the case.
A forensic analysis of her car and other evidence soon convinced detectives that she had been murdered, according to Ontario police Detective Melissa Ramirez. Officials have declined to reveal the nature of those findings.
This week, based at least in part on information provided by Jacobson's suspected killer, more than 120 police personnel from Ontario, San Bernardino, San Diego and Riverside began scouring a six-square-mile expanse of rugged open territory south of I-10.
A cadaver dog alerted a deputy to the gravesite about 10:30 a.m., Alvarez said.
Ware is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at Adelanto Detention Center in San Bernardino County and is due in a Rancho Cucamonga courtroom next month.