Model found bound and gagged in refrigerator was in a ‘violent physical altercation’ before she died: Autopsy

Police are investigating the murder of Maleesa Mooney, inset. (Screenshots from Los Angeles station KABC/YouTube)

An autopsy in the death of a model lays out the brutal way in which she was murdered in her Los Angeles home as investigators continue to hunt her killer.

Maleesa Mooney was found in her downtown Los Angeles apartment on Sept. 12. According to investigators, Mooney’s hands and ankles were bound, her mouth was gagged and her body was found stuffed inside a refrigerator, an autopsy performed by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office states. It was obtained by local affiliate KTLA.

Mooney was last seen on her surveillance video in her Skye at the Bunker Hill luxury apartment building on Sept. 6. Concerned for her well-being, her mother called police for a welfare check on Sept. 12. Officers entered with a property management’s key and found her body “wedged inside the refrigerator with pooled blood beneath it,” the autopsy said.

“Her wrists were bound together, her ankles were bound together and these bindings were tied to each other behind her back with miscellaneous electronic cords and clothing items,” the autopsy said. “Additional clothing items were around her face and neck. An apparent gag, fashioned out of an article of clothing, was stuffed in her mouth.”

She also suffered from blunt force injuries to her face, head, back and upper left arm. Those injuries are “generally not considered acutely life threatening on their own” but do indicate she was in a “violent physical altercation” before her death, medical examiners wrote. As for her cause of death, medical examiners say there is a “suspicion for homicidal asphyxia.” They don’t think the asphyxia was by strangulation but could have been through other means.

Toxicology reports also revealed Mooney had alcohol and cocaine in her system. Her killer remains on the loose.