{"id":53845,"date":"2025-07-10T10:14:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T10:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/53845\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T10:14:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T10:14:16","slug":"u-s-army-veteran-death-due-to-fentanyl-and-meth-examiner-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/53845\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Army veteran death due to fentanyl and meth, examiner rules"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The death of a U.S. Army veteran whose body was discovered by her daughter in a homeless encampment on the edge of downtown L.A. was ruled accidental and due to drug use, the L.A. County medical examiner\u2019s office said Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Lucrecia Macias Barajas, 46, succumbed to the effects of fentanyl and methamphetamine, according to Dr. Jamie Nakagiri, L.A. County deputy medical examiner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Barajas was found dead May 12 at a tarp-covered shelter in a Westlake cul-de-sac along with 39-year-old Pojoy Sajqui<\/a>. It\u2019s unclear what the relationship was between them, though Sajqui also died of the same cause.<\/p>\n

The encampment was already the scene of death and injury earlier this year when authorities discovered a body inside a burned vehicle there. A second individual, a 38-year-old man, was taken to a hospital.<\/p>\n

One of Barajas\u2019 three daughters traced her cellphone on May 12, which led her to the encampment.<\/p>\n

Video at the time showed that same daughter crying on the ground and later begging Los Angeles Police Department officers to remove her mother\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

Barajas and Sajqui were found unresponsive inside a tent, and their death was pronounced at 7:30 p.m. that day by a Los Angeles fire paramedic, according to the medical examiner\u2019s office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A deputy medical examiner completed the examinations on May 14 and noted there were after-death injuries to Barajas due to animal activity.<\/p>\n

In May, the LAPD characterized the death as a suspected drug overdose. Police officials told The Times they were not investigating the matter as a homicide despite calls from family members for further examination.<\/p>\n

A family representative was not immediately available Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Staff writer Ruben Vives contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death of a U.S. Army veteran whose body was discovered by her daughter in a homeless encampment…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[39987,4637,1582,276,3603,39988,4446,39990,39989,39992,24094,19176,2961,224,5337,39986,1812,39991,39993,39985],"class_list":{"0":"post-53845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-barajas","9":"tag-body","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-daughter","13":"tag-dead-may","14":"tag-death","15":"tag-encampment","16":"tag-examination","17":"tag-examiner-rule","18":"tag-fentanyl","19":"tag-injury","20":"tag-la","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-meth","24":"tag-office","25":"tag-sajqui","26":"tag-tarp-covered-shelter","27":"tag-u-s-army-veteran-death"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114828414998282990","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}