Police Assure The Car Buried At The Atherton Home Is A Mercedes: Police are unearthing the stolen convertible from the yard of a $15 million estate built by a guy who has already been arrested for murder, attempted murder, and insurance fraud, three decades after a car was reported stolen in Northern California.
According to a statement from police, landscapers in the wealthy community of Atherton in Silicon Valley discovered the convertible Mercedes-Benz on Thursday. It was stuffed with bags of leftover concrete.
Despite cadaver dogs alerting to probable human remains on Thursday, more than 24 hours after experts with the San Mateo County Crime Lab started digging the automobile, no remains had been discovered, according to DeGolia. Before the current owners purchased the house in the 1990s, police believe the automobile was buried 4 to 5 feet deep in the backyard of the house.
He said that adjacent Palo Alto received a complaint of the car’s theft in September 1992. By Friday, the engineers had managed to unearth the convertible’s passenger side, which was buried with its top down. More empty cement sacks were discovered when they opened the trunk.
Once more brought to the residence, the cadaver dogs “made a modest notification of suspected human remains,” according to DeGolia. The canines may be reacting to human remains, decaying bones, blood, vomit, or a mix of those things, according to Atherton Police Cmdr.
He claimed that although authorities are awaiting DMV data to confirm it, they believe the potential owner of the car to be deceased. Larsen said that no inquiries were being made into the current owners.
According to his daughter, Jacq Searle, who spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle, Johnny Lew, a guy with a history of arrests for murder, attempted murder, and insurance fraud, built the expansive mansion with a pool and tennis court.
She stated that her father had passed away in Washington state in 2015 and that the family had been on the property in the 1990s, which is the time period when Atherton police believe the automobile was buried.
Lew was convicted of killing a lady in her twenties in Los Angeles County in 1966. After the California Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 1968 based on hearsay evidence that shouldn’t have been admitted at trial, according to The Chronicle’s citation of court documents, he was released from prison.
According to records, Lew was sentenced to three years in jail after being found guilty on two charges of attempted murder in 1977, also in Los Angeles County. In the late 1990s, Lew hired undercover police agents to take a $1.2 million boat “out west of the Golden Gate Bridge into international seas and put it on the bottom,” according to The Chronicle.
Lew was then detained for insurance fraud. If the police think Lew registered the car, Larsen wouldn’t tell. Larsen stated, “We have heard that name mentioned, but we have not independently verified through our sources that he actually owned that vehicle.” According to online real estate listings, the expansive home and acreage are worth at least $15 million.
#BREAKING Landscapers discover buried car on the property of Atherton mansion. Police say the current homeowner had no idea it was there. Sources tell our @nbcbayarea investigative team that cadaver dogs got a hit. Officers carefully excavating the car. https://t.co/euHw9IuH4q pic.twitter.com/smbcb2AOGy
— Janelle Wang (@janellewang) October 21, 2022
With around 7,000 people living there inside its nearly 5 square miles, Atherton is one of the wealthiest communities in the United States (13 square kilometers). 2022 The Associated Press Copyright. Toutes droits réservés. This content cannot be written over, aired, published, or transmitted again.
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