Boy, 15, Found With Fatal Gunshot Wound Is Identified : Probe: Teacher, and then friend, recognized teen's likeness in newspaper sketch. Officials believe his death was a suicide, but tests continue.

Boy, 15, Found With Fatal Gunshot Wound Is Identified : Probe: Teacher, and then friend, recognized teen’s likeness in newspaper sketch. Officials believe his death was a suicide, but tests continue.

By LILY DIZON and LEE ROMNEY

June 4, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

GARDEN GROVE — A youth who police said died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head has been identified as Juan Antonio Arellano Jr., a 15-year-old freshman at Garden Grove High School.

The teen was identified Friday by a teacher who recognized an artist’s sketch in a newspaper.

Arellano’s body was found in an alley about 8:40 p.m. Wednesday by residents living in the 10100 block of Emerson Avenue. He suffered a gunshot to the head and was found lying on an antique Smith and Wesson .22-caliber revolver.

The coroner’s office is conducting standard testing to determine if there is another cause of death, but police said they are investigating the case as a suicide.

One of the teen’s close friends and neighbors said he saw Arellano earlier in the evening and his friend seemed down, but not unusually so.

“He seemed normal,” said Mike Edsell, 17, who grew up around the block from Arellano and went to elementary school with him. “He was kind of down, but he’s always kind of down. He came over to my house to kick back a little bit. We watched TV. Then he just left.”

Edsell said Arellano got good grades in elementary school and continued to make the honor roll in junior high, where he also played on the football team.

Then, Edsell said, Arellano “got into high school and started hanging around with the wrong crowd.”

Edsell said his friend associated with gang members and used to leave his parents home for two weeks at a time to go hang around with friends in Santa Ana. Arellano had gotten in some minor brushes with the law in the past year, but none of it was serious, Edsell said.

“I kind of talked to him about taking off from his pad and leaving his parents,” Edsell said. “I always told him that wasn’t cool.”

The last time Arellano disappeared for a while, Edsell said, was “a couple of weeks ago.”

“They’re pretty upset,” Edsell said of Arellano’s parents. “They did all they could for him. They were pretty good parents to him.

“We’re all just taking it pretty hard. I can’t believe that could happen to one of my really good friends.”

Edsell, who went to visit Arellano’s 10-year-old brother Saturday and offer him support, said his teacher at Louis Lake High School read a newspaper article to the class Friday about the missing boy.

Edsell realized that the boy’s body had been found just down the street from his house, so he bought a paper on his way home and noticed the police sketch resembled his friend. He called police, but Arellano’s teacher had already identified the teen.

“I just wish he would have told me something,” Edsell said. “It didn’t seem like nothing was wrong with him, because he’s always kind like that, kind of quiet.”