Chico girl shot, killed

In the afternoon on Saturday afternoon (July 4), a girl’s body—since identified as that of 16-year-old Melissa Esquivel-Flores of Chico—was discovered in a farm worker’s shop south of Orland.

According to a press release from the Glenn County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a report of a girl’s body found on the 3600 block of County Road D and concluded that Esquivel-Flores, last seen by her father late in the evening on July 3, had been shot in the head. Her official cause of death is pending an autopsy, but detectives are investigating the case as a homicide and have identified a person of interest, whose name is being withheld from the public.

“This case appears to be an isolated incident and it does not pose a risk to public safety at this time,” the release notes.