Missing woman’s body found in California forest and detectives believe her husband has fled to Peru
Aug 21, 2025, 10:51 AM | Updated: 2:34 pm
LANCASTER, Calif. (AP) — The body of a missing woman was found in a Southern California forest days after her husband was recorded on surveillance video dragging something heavy out of their apartment complex north of Los Angeles, authorities said this week.
Sheylla Cabrera, 33, of Lancaster, was reported missing on Aug. 12, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The next day, homicide detectives located the footage of her husband, Jossimar Cabrera, 36, hauling an object wrapped “in a large piece of material” from the residence where the couple lived with their three young sons, the statement said.
On Aug. 16, searchers discovered Sheylla Cabrera’s body wrapped in similar material at the bottom of an embankment in Angeles National Forest south of Lancaster, the department said. The coroner’s office will determine the cause of death.
Officials said Cabrera’s husband fled to Peru with the couple’s sons. Peru’s foreign ministry said Saturday on social media that it had repatriated the children back to Los Angeles via Mexico City to be reunited with their mother’s family.
Jossimar Cabrera is believed to still be in Peru, LA County sheriff’s officials said. The Los Angeles Times said Tuesday that Peruvian media reported that officials questioned Cabrera at the airport in Lima and took the children into protective custody, but didn’t detain him.
Sheylla Cabrera’s mother, Helga Rocillo, told the Peruvian news outlet Latina Noticias that her daughter had intended on filing a criminal report against her husband due to alleged psychological and physical abuse, according to the Times.
Sheriff’s detectives are in the process of presenting the case to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office for possible murder charges. The DA’s office said it hadn’t yet received the case as of Thursday morning.
