A 19-year-old Jewish student who went missing in Southern California has been found dead.

Blaze Bernstein, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, went missing from his parents’ home a week ago.

His mother Jeanne Pepper described her son’s death as “tragic and senseless.”

She has asked members of a Facebook group set up to find Mr Bernstein to vote on different ways to remember him.

According to CBS News, his body was found on Tuesday in an area surrounding Borrego Park in Lake Forest.

Police are investigating his death as a murder.

On January 2, the night of his disappearance, he was picked up by a friend in a car from his parents’ Orange County home.

A lawyer and friend of the family told CBS Mr Bernstein and the friend drove to the park at 10.30pm.

Mr Bernstein is believed to have left his friend there to meet another unidentified person there alone. 

When he did not return the driver texted Mr Bernstein without response and was unable to find him in the park.