Teacher’s body found stuffed in trunk of burned car after screams heard

A school teacher’s body was discovered stuffed in the trunk of a burnt car following a reported explosion at a home.

The woman’s body was found around 8.30am on Wednesday after firefighters extinguished a blaze in a garage in the Los Angeles suburb of Quartz Hill.

Neighbors said they heard what sounded like a woman screaming and an explosion just before the fire began, KCAL reported.

Firefighters arrived to find multiple cars already scorched at the home on 38th West Street, including the one holding the teacher’s body.

‘As the location firemen were clearing the garage they found a body, then they notified the deputies and the person was pronounced dead on the scene,’ said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Lt Daniel Vizcarra.

A man who said he was the uncle of the victim told the TV station that she was a ‘quiet’ 27-year-old who taught at an elementary school in Palmdale. The school contacted her family after she failed to show up. He declined to name her.

The uncle said she had been in a romantic relationship for roughly a year and that he knew little about the man.

Investigators searched for Matthew Switalski, 37, as a person of interested ‘wanted only for questioning at this time’, according to KCAL.

The owner listed for the home is Switalski, a bible school graduate employed at the aerospace company Northrop Grumman, the Daily Mail reported. Neighbors on the 41400 block of 38th West Street said that Switalski rented out rooms in the five-bedroom house to employees at the company who were not there.

Neither Switalski nor any neighbors have come forward.

‘We’re trying to get in contact with all the residents,’ Vizcarra told KTLA 5.

The teacher’s body was found about five months after three US Marines were discovered dead inside a car parked at a gas station in Hampstead, North Carolina.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.