BODY MAY HOLD CLUES; CORPSE FOUND IN AQUEDUCT MIGHT BE MISSING LANCASTER WOMAN.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry and Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writers

After ruling out that one body found dumped in the desert was that of missing Lancaster resident Renee Elizabeth Mullins, investigators were faced Wednesday with identifying a second body.

Detectives, coroner's experts and reporters had swarmed Tuesday afternoon to the discovery of a woman's decomposing body in a field north of Palmdale Boulevard and west of Division Street.

Like Mullins, 34, who disappeared from her apartment early Sunday under suspicious circumstances, the dead woman's hair was blond, and she was about the right age.

Investigators eventually determined that the woman was 5 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than the 5-5, 105-pound Mullins, though the body remains unidentified.

By Wednesday afternoon, detectives had a second body to examine.

This one turned up in the California Aqueduct, jammed against a gate that controls water flow, south of the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.

Deputies said the body was bloated and discolored, and thus not easily identifiable. They were bringing in an inflatable boat to retrieve it.

The body had been spotted about noon by a state Department of Water Resource worker checking the aqueduct.

Meanwhile, friends and dental office co-workers went door-to-door to Lancaster and Palmdale businesses handing out fliers bearing Mullins' photograph and asking anyone who had seen her to call the Sheriff's Department.

Strawberry blond with green eyes, Mullins was last seen wearing discolored Rocky Mountain jeans and a discolored top early Sunday at her apartment on 16th Street West in Lancaster.

That was where a friend had left her about 2:30 a.m. But about 30 minutes later, a neighbor called 911 to report a disturbance in Mullins' apartment.

The neighbor reported hearing a female crying and screaming, deputies said. There was a lot of commotion, then silence.

When deputies got to the apartment, no one was there, but the place looked as if there had been a struggle. The patio screen door had been removed, a broken lamp and a glass gum-ball machine lay on the floor. Deputies found a broken gold chain on the floor.

Mullins' purse, identification and car keys were found inside the apartment. Her car was parked in a carport outside.

Deputies said Mullins had moved to the Lancaster apartment about three weeks ago after separating from her husband of 14 years.

Mullins worked for Dr. Gilbert Snow's Lancaster dental office, doing community relations and marketing work, and was well known around the Antelope Valley.

She appeared on television commercials and did radio spots for Snow's dental practice, and before that did community relations work for Waste Management of Lancaster, friends said.

Anyone with information was urged to contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department homicide bureau at [phone] or the Lancaster Sheriff's Station at [phone].

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Photo

Photo: (Color only in AV edition) Renee Elizabeth Mullins

Disappeared Sunday