BRIEFS. public safety

Police investigating 7 murders

Police are reporting that seven people were murdered during the holidays, including a 17-year-old whose cousin was murdered earlier this month.

Authorities also reported finding a body floating in the ocean off the coast of Amador, and said that an elderly woman died in a house fire.

Ángela Vivero, 17, was killed by a gunshot wound to her head on Christmas Day in her Santa Ana home, police said. Authorities think the crime was related to the Dec. 11 murder of her nine-year-old cousin, Joseadis Olivarren, in El Chorrillo. Earlier, police said that the people who murdered Olivarren may have been looking for the child's father.

The holiday season was particularly brutal, as six other people were killed in violent confrontations. The victims included two university students, Dayris Morales and Carlos Guerrero, who were shot during a gunfight in San Miguelito, and Marcos Samudio and cousins Luis De Gracia and Alberto Peralta, who were murdered in Colón.

The other murder victim was Rogelio Rodríguez, who was murdered in Villa Zaíta.

Police are also trying to determine the identity of a person that was found floating near a pier on the Amador Causeway. Police said the body had been weighed down by auto parts, and they could not say how long it had been in the water.

Authorities plan to carry out DNA tests to attempt to identify the victim.

Police also reported that Maria Ramos, 96, died in a house fire in Cerro Viento.