A homicide victim found in a Fallbrook motel on Friday afternoon has been identified as 38-year-old Douglas Hardy, a sheriff’s official said.
The county Medical Examiner’s Office said its preliminary results indicated Hardy’s cause of death was blunt-force trauma, according to the Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff’s officials earlier reported the victim had been stabbed.
He was found after someone called the Sheriff’s Department at the Econo Lodge Inn & Suites on Mission Road to ask for help and the call disconnected.
When deputies arrived at the motel, they found a victim in one of the rooms. A witness told deputies a man in bloody clothing was seen running away, Lt. Joseph Jarjura said in a press release.
A search ensued and someone spotted a man matching the suspect’s description in a nearby resident’s yard, Jarjura said.
After a foot pursuit, deputies arrested a 35-year-old man, Brian Zielinski, and he was booked into jail on suspicion of murder early Saturday.
Detectives are still investigating what led to the killing. Anyone with information about the death was asked to call the department’s Homicide Unit at (858) 285-6330 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at (888) 580-8477.
