By Patrick Smith - NBC News
Police have arrested a suspect after the partial remains of a woman were found Wednesday inside a dumpsterin the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles, California.
A woman's torso was found wrapped in plastic in the parking lot of a commercial property around 6 a.m. local time, police said.
The discovery was made by a local man who was checking the dumpster for recyclables.
Police said they arrested Sam Haskell, 35, on suspicion of murder after officers arrested him the same day at a shopping mall in Topanga.
Although the body was so dismembered that police said it could not be formally identified, authorities said three people who lived with the suspect in a house in the nearby Tarzana neighborhood are missing.
They are his wife, Mei Haskell; his father, 72-year-old Gaoshan Li, and his mother, 64-year-old YanXiang Wang, NBC Los Angeles reported.
[Mexico investigates the discovery of a lifeless body "stuck" in the buoys installed by Texas and another body in the Rio Grande]
Three school-age children also lived at Haskell's home — all were found safe and sound at school — and were placed in the care of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.
"When officers arrived at the scene, they discovered a dismembered woman wrapped in a plastic bag. It was right outside the dumpster," LAPD Detective Efren Gutierrez said during a news conference Wednesday.
Agents closed a section of Clearstream Terrace in Tarzana that same day.
"There was some video evidence that was collected from the location that led us to this location," Gutierrez added in a later media appearance outside the suspect's property.
Authorities received a first call at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday after someone saw a suspicious bag possibly including human remains in Tarzana, but when officers showed up they found nothing and there was no evidence to justify entering the home, Gutierrez said.