Stolen Merc found buried behind killer’s mansion
A MERCEDES-BENZ reported stolen decades ago was found filled with bags of unused concrete and buried about 1.5m underground on a Silicon Valley mansion property.
Cadaver dogs searched the Atherton property and authorities used groundpenetrating radar to search for “anything unusual”, the Atherton Police Department said in a news release.
The Mercedes, a convertible, was reported stolen in 1992 in nearby Palo Alto. The car, police said, may have been buried on the property sometime that decade.
Police have not said to whom the car belonged. They said they believed
the owner was dead, though they were awaiting confirmation from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. Police added that they believed the vehicle was buried long before the current owners moved into the $15 million (R270m) home. The owners notified police when the landscapers made the discovery.
The owner of the house at the time the car was reported stolen in 1992 was Johnny Bocktune Lew, who sold the house in 2014. Lew had a criminal history and spent time in prison after convictions for
murder and attempted murder.
Lew built the Atherton house in 1990, the Chronicle reported. His daughter, 34-year-old Jacq Searle, who once lived there with Lew and her mother, told the paper she was shocked to learn the car was buried on the property. Her father died in 2015.
The Mercedes was removed from the property last weekend. Atherton police said it had not been determined whether their investigation was “criminal or non-criminal”. | THE WASHINGTON POST