{"id":272332,"date":"2026-04-17T09:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T09:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/272332\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T09:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T09:03:18","slug":"woman-found-dead-with-strangulation-marks-in-californias-big-sur-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/272332\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman found dead with strangulation marks in California’s Big Sur forest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!\n <\/p>\n

Hikers in Big Sur discovered a woman’s naked body deep in the woods on a popular hiking trail.<\/p>\n

Authorities responded to an April 9 call after hikers found the body in the Los Padres National Forest. In a statement released on Monday, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) identified the woman as 37-year-old Joanna Ruth Shields.<\/p>\n

According to witnesses, Shields had multiple injuries including a head wound and neck cuts.<\/p>\n

“I didn\u2019t see any blood. She was pale. She had markings around her neck. I don\u2019t want to say choking marks,” one witness told KSBW<\/a>. “And then when the firefighter lifted the jacket, he confirmed that she had a big gash on her head.”<\/p>\n

CALIFORNIA WOMAN ARRESTED AFTER ALLEGEDLY BEHEADING BOYFRIEND, FLEEING TO MEXICO<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Aerial <\/p>\n

Aerial view of Big Sur, the Santa Lucia coastal mountain range and the Los Padres National Forest, in California, Dec. 19, 2013. (Reuters\/Michael Fiala)<\/p>\n

The hikers that found her also claimed they encountered a man who claimed to be the Shields’ friend and that he “appeared to be scared, nervous and shocked.”<\/p>\n

He allegedly told the witnesses that he found Shields naked and face down in water after being apart from her for a few minutes.<\/p>\n

MCSO is actively investigating the death as suspicious “because we don’t know what the cause of death is,” Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. Andres Rosas told Monterey County Now.<\/a><\/p>\n

However, Rosas also cautioned the public from jumping to conclusions and claimed that everyone present at the scene has been cooperative.<\/p>\n

“At this point, nobody’s in custody. Everybody has been cooperative. We’ve never said this is a murder,” Rosas told Fox News Digital. “There is no danger as it relates to this case.”<\/p>\n

Rosas also insinuated that witness reports may have been overzealous. “They did paint a very vivid picture, they used the words atrocious,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes things are not as they appear,” he concluded.<\/p>\n

CALIFORNIA WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN NATIONAL FOREST, HUSBAND SEEN DRAGGING SOMETHING IN LARGE TARP<\/a><\/p>\n

\"McWay <\/p>\n

McWay Falls cascades over an 80-foot cliff onto the beach at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park along California Highway 1 in Big Sur, Calif., on May 2, 2021. (Brian van der Brug\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

MCSO Coroner Tina Nieto performed an autopsy on Shields on Monday, but her official cause and manner of death are pending the results of toxicology tests.<\/p>\n

Shields was an avid skateboarder<\/a> and beloved in the skating community.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Campers enjoy the scenic beauty of Big Sur during a camping trip along the California coastline. (iStock)<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP<\/a><\/p>\n

“Joanna was extremely friendly with everyone, and I don\u2019t think she had a single enemy,” Brandon Devroede, a former co-worker of Joanna’s and operation manager at Evolve Skateboards USA, told FOX 5 KSWB-TV.<\/a> “She was willing to help everybody.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Hikers in Big Sur discovered a woman’s naked body deep…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,70878,134,16359],"class_list":{"0":"post-272332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-camping-hiking","12":"tag-homicide","13":"tag-wild-nature"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}