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Officials confirm body found in Warren is woman reported missing
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County Coroner’s Office has confirmed the body found Friday night in an abandoned lot along Oak Street Southwest at Nevada Avenue is that of Savanna K. Erjavec, 23, who listed a Taylor Avenue address in Girard and one in Euclid.
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office is expected to conduct an autopsy today in an effort to determine how she died.
On a Trumbull County 911 recording, a Liberty Township man can be heard telling an operator: “My friend went missing a couple days ago.” So he and others “were out looking for her in the woods. We found her. I think she’s dead.”
He continued: “We just wanted to search because she’s from [the Cleveland area], and she just ran out of the car the other day, and we couldn’t find her. And I just wanted to find her to ease my mind, and it’s not easing my mind now,” he said.
He gave the dispatcher Erjavec’s age and spelled her name. He said a friend was also there with him. Police said three males from the scene were taken to the police station and interviewed.
A police report says the man found her body at 8:47 p.m. Friday. It said the body suffered a “major injury,” but the type of injury was not specified.
The report is captioned “dead on arrival,” not homicide. Warren detectives could not be reached Monday to clarify whether they believe her death is a homicide.
Erjavec’s father, Tim Erjavec of Euclid, called the Warren police station at 11:33 a.m. Friday to report his daughter missing, and she was entered into a database of missing persons.
He said his daughter ran from a man’s vehicle about 1 a.m. Thursday at the intersection of Nevada Avenue and Hamilton Street Southwest and had not been heard from since. He gave the name of the man, and it was a different Liberty man than the one who made the 911 call.
Her body was found about two blocks away from that location. She had been staying for a short time at a home on Jackson Street Southwest, Tim Erjavec said.