Lisa Marie Bromiley was 20 years old when she was found dead on Wednesday, August 26, 2009, in Palmdale. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, she died after sustaining blunt force trauma in the 2500 block of Olive Drive. Her death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department case handled by the Homicide Bureau.
Lisa lived in Lancaster. According to ABC7 and the Daily News, she was last seen leaving a friend's house in Palmdale on the evening of Saturday, August 22. The Sheriff's Department's Missing Persons Detail said she was driving a black 2009 Kia Spectra with paper plates. Relatives and friends posted fliers in the area asking for information, and her family told authorities there had been no activity on her ATM card or cell phone after she disappeared.
Four days later, deputies went to the 2500 block of Olive Drive, in a gated condominium complex, after a call that a parked car matched the description of a missing woman's car. Sheriff's Lt. Dave Dolson told a news camera crew that deputies were checking out reports of a suspicious vehicle. When they opened the trunk, they found the body of a woman. A family member told ABC7 the car belonged to Lisa, and Dolson said the body appeared to have been in the car for a few days.
According to the Los Angeles Times Homicide Report, Ed Winter, a spokesman for the coroner's office, said Lisa "was found with blunt-force head trauma in the car at 6:08 p.m." The Times reported that she had been beaten.
Those reports leave the central questions unanswered. They do not say where Lisa went after leaving her friend's house, whether she was killed in Palmdale or elsewhere, or how her car came to be parked inside a gated complex. That the car sat there for days before anyone reported it suggests someone may have left it there deliberately, but investigators never publicly described a suspect or a motive. No obituary or memorial page for Lisa could be found for this story.
Palmdale and Lancaster are the two largest cities of the Antelope Valley, in the high desert of northern Los Angeles County, on the far side of the San Gabriel Mountains from the Los Angeles basin. The aerospace industry, centered on Air Force Plant 42, has long been one of the area's major employers. Palmdale relies on the Sheriff's Department for its policing.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest. The disappearance of a young woman, the fliers posted by her family and the discovery of her body in her own car drew coverage from Los Angeles television stations and newspapers in the summer of 2009.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Lisa Marie Bromiley could be found in news archives or public records. More than 16 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who saw Lisa or her black Kia Spectra between the evening of August 22 and August 26, 2009, or who noticed the car arriving at the Olive Drive complex in Palmdale, may hold information that could help detectives. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
