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Missing teen found dead in South Baltimore

18-year-old last seen in Anne Arundel County
Posted at 6:28 PM, Oct 01, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-01 18:52:20-04

As neighborhoods go, this is a shortcut through nowhere.

RELATED: Woman missing in Anne Arundel Co, found dead in Baltimore

Out of sight and out of mind, Old Riverside Road gets more than its share of illegal dumping, and on Thursday, someone spotted a body dumped there. 

"It was about 9:30 in the morning and I was riding my bike up to go get a pack of cigarettes from the Royal Farms there,” said Charles Messerschmidt of South Baltimore, “I made it around the corner here and saw a cop sitting there, and as I was riding past, I saw a naked body over in the brush on the left-hand side."
    
Later that evening, Anne Arundel County police fielded a call from Calvert County and they would soon begin connecting the dots. 

"We had a report of a missing person Thursday evening,” said Marc Limansky of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, “18-year-old Danielle Gunson was reported missing to our agency.  Our detectives began to look into it and came to realize Baltimore City had located a deceased individual just over the line in their jurisdiction."
    
On Friday, police in Baltimore determined the homicide victim, who had suffered trauma to her upper torso, was Danielle Gunson.
    
Gunson, who had been in the company of a man in Anne Arundel County, had quit answering her family calls, prompting her family to notify police.

"We're looking into any associations she may have had with folks in this area to see who she may have been visiting and traveling with, which may lead to the identity of her attacker," said Limansky.
    
Now, the same family, which had hoped for the teenager's safe return has launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for her funeral tormented by details of her death as police search for her killer.

"Maybe they kind of pushed her body out of a moving car and it rolled over into the brush is what it looked like," said Messerschmidt, "I actually thought it was much younger, because she was just tiny---a real tiny frame.  I thought it was a kid actually when I saw it at first."