Stanislaus County Sheriff's detectives are now investigating a body found in Del Puerto Canyon on Saturday as a homicide.

They have identified the victim as 31-year-old Javier Alvarez Medina of San Jose. An autopsy revealed that Medina had been deceased for about one week and had died as a result of a gunshot, according to a release from Stanislaus County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Anthony Bejaran.

Detectives have been tight lipped so far about where Medina was shot or other specific details of the investigation.

Investigators say they have had difficulty interviewing family members, who have not been cooperative so far, according to Bejaran. Few details have emerged about what Medina was doing before his death, but he was last seen in San Jose on Saturday, Sept. 29, Bejaran stated.

Medina had previously used the name Adan Loya Medina and had been deported for a 2008 felony conviction for drug sales and trafficking, according to sheriff's officials.

Detectives are now seeking to determine the events that led up to Medina's shooting and to learn whether there is any connection between his death and a double homicide investigation in early August in which two bodies were found alongside Del Puerto Canyon Road two miles from where Medina was found.

The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department responded at about 6:20 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6 to a call about a dead body in a ravine near the 12-mile marker of the canyon road west of Patterson.

Sheriff’s deputies walked more than a mile along Del Puerto Canyon Road and along the canyon floor below on Tuesday, Oct. 9, using metal detectors as they scoured the area for any physical evidence they could find related to the case, Bejaran said.

The discovery of the body Saturday comes after homicide detectives recovered the bodies of two men on Aug. 4 who had been bound and shot near the 10-mile marker.

The coroner’s division has since identified those men as San Jose resident Esteban Carlos Martinez, 39, and 53-year-old Redwood City resident Pedro Garcia-Valencia.