Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators are probing the deaths of two people after human remains turned up on a cluttered desert property in Lancaster. The department confirmed the case is being handled as a homicide while detectives work the scene in its earliest phase.

The New York Post reported that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department made that confirmation on Tuesday. The remains were found near 50th Street East and Avenue F in the remote Mojave Desert city in Southern California.

Officials have released almost nothing about who died or how. They have named no suspects and announced no arrests. What they have said is enough to put the public on notice: two people are dead, and homicide investigators are now in charge.

Desert property becomes an active homicide scene

The find was not on a quiet residential street. It was on a property packed with debris, RVs, and what looked like the remains of an old greenhouse. Law enforcement flooded the site as the probe got underway.

Witnesses described a heavy presence that included digging, evidence markers, and a canopy. They also reported cadaver dogs on the property. KTLA video showed agents digging a large hole as the investigation unfolded.

Cases that start with bodies recovered outdoors often move fast into full homicide mode, much like two people found shot dead outside a Millville convenience store when police launched a suspect hunt. Lancaster’s scene already carries that same posture: controlled access, forensic work, and a sheriff’s office framing the deaths as criminal until proven otherwise.

The department has not publicly described how the remains were first located, who owned the property, or who occupied it. Those questions sit with investigators now tasked with locking down the scene and preserving every piece of physical evidence.

Sheriff’s office: early stages, homicide classification

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office stated the legal posture in plain terms.

"Based on the circumstances surrounding the discovery, the case is now being investigated as a homicide."

Officials added another line that signals how new the work still is.

"Homicide investigators are in the early stages of investigating the scene."

They are withholding the identities of the dead and details surrounding the deaths “to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation.” The office also said no other information had been released.

That silence is standard in a fresh death probe, but it leaves families and neighbors without answers. Multi-victim scenes can expand quickly once detectives map relationships and timelines, a pattern also seen when five people were left dead after a multi-scene shooting spree in rural Michigan. In Lancaster, the public record still stops at two deaths and an active homicide label.

Missing man case nearby, with no official link

Separate from the remains discovery, the sheriff’s department has been seeking information on Ricky Allen Phillips, a 61-year-old man classified as an “at-risk missing person.” An LASD missing-person bulletin said his family was “concerned for his well-being.”

Phillips was last seen Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026, on the 44900 block of 10th Street W in Lancaster. The bulletin described him as 5 feet, 7 inches tall and 230 pounds, with black hair and green eyes.

Coverage of the remains find placed his disappearance about two weeks earlier. The discovery site was described as near, and just blocks from, the area where he vanished. Authorities have not indicated that Phillips is one of the people found, and they have not said his disappearance is tied to the homicide investigation.

Missing-person work and outdoor body recoveries often collide in public attention even when agencies keep the files apart, as in coverage of a Citadel cadet and childhood friend fatally shot in a vacant Florida lot while police hunted a killer. In Lancaster, the sheriff’s department has drawn no public bridge between the Phillips bulletin and the two deaths under review.

Until officials say otherwise, the missing-person case and the homicide probe remain separate tracks. Residents following either matter should treat them that way.

What investigators still have to establish

Homicide detectives in the early stages face a basic checklist before any charging decision can even be discussed. They will need to identify both deceased people. They will need to determine cause and manner of death. They will need a reliable timeline for when each person died and when the remains reached that property.

Authorities have not publicly confirmed who found the remains or the exact moment of discovery. They have not released property ownership details or named any person of interest. No public results have been released about forensic testing at the scene.

Violent death investigations also hinge on whether detectives can match physical evidence to a suspect, a challenge underscored when a sheriff confirmed DNA from a crime scene hair sample could not be profiled in the Nancy Guthrie disappearance. Lancaster’s team has not said what evidence markers and cadaver dog searches have already produced.

Investigators will need to determine whether the two deaths share a single crime sequence or reflect separate acts. They will need to decide whether the debris-filled lot was a primary crime scene, a disposal site, or both. None of that has been answered in public statements so far.

Public safety stakes in the Antelope Valley

Lancaster sits on the desert edge of Los Angeles County, where large lots and open ground can hide activity until a tip, a search, or pure chance breaks the silence. A homicide label on two recovered bodies raises the immediate question of whether a killer is still at large.

The sheriff’s office has not claimed a closed case, a detained suspect, or a narrowed motive. That means the institutional job is straightforward and unfinished: identify the dead, reconstruct the crime, and remove any remaining threat from the community.

Readers who track homicide charging language know how wide the gap can be between a death investigation and a courtroom-ready case, including matters such as a Pennsylvania man allegedly stabbing an elderly woman to death after telling police “they all have to die.” Lancaster is still on the front end of that path, with identities sealed and the scene work only beginning.

For now, the only official certainties are grim and limited. Two people are dead. Human remains were found on a Lancaster property near 50th Street East and Avenue F. Homicide investigators hold the file. And the department is keeping names and death details back to guard the probe.

When bodies surface in the desert and sheriffs call it homicide, the test is simple: identify the dead, catch the guilty, and show the public that open ground is not a free zone for murder.