Landscapers discovered a automotive buried within the yard of a $15-million mansion within the Bay Space metropolis of Atherton on Thursday, prompting a police investigation and elevating questions in regards to the property’s earlier and long-deceased proprietor and his violent previous.
The automotive was found 4 to five ft deep within the floor behind the house within the 300 block of Stockbridge Avenue, police stated. Unused luggage of concrete have been discovered inside.
Cadaver canine have been introduced in to scour the scene and “made a slight notification of attainable human stays,” police stated. However thus far no stays have been discovered.
In a information launch, the Atherton Police Division stated the automotive could have been buried someday within the Nineties, earlier than the present proprietor occupied the house. Authorities didn’t give an outline of the automotive or its situation.
New info from the property’s neighbors revealed a darkish and sophisticated historical past of the earlier proprietor’s previous and piqued their curiosity in regards to the automotive.
Neighbors instructed the Mercury Information that the mansion’s earlier proprietor, Johnny Bocktune Lew, had a historical past of violence. Courtroom paperwork revealed Lew, who died years in the past, was convicted of second-degree homicide within the Sixties in Los Angeles within the deadly capturing of his ex-girlfriend, Karen Gervasi. He was later convicted on two counts of tried homicide within the Seventies, however particulars in that case weren’t available.
Within the Nineties, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Lew was arrested once more, this time for insurance coverage fraud after he tried to rent folks — who later turned out to be undercover brokers — to sink his $1.2-million twin-engine yacht off the Golden Gate, claiming it belonged to an Asian crime mob.
One nameless neighbor, who has lived close to the property because the Seventies, instructed the Mercury Information that the world of the yard the place the buried automotive was found was once open land with a secure atop a small hill. When Lew started development of the French-style mansion, he dug out the hill, which prompted complaints from residents, in accordance with the neighbor. However residents stay uncertain whether or not the timeline matches when the automotive was buried.
A brief drive from Silicon Valley, Atherton is without doubt one of the nation’s most well-heeled cities, with a inhabitants of roughly 7,000 folks and a median revenue above $250,000, in accordance with U.S. census information.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday that Zillow data confirmed the 12,000-square-foot dwelling was bought by the present house owners in 2020 for $15 million, and was bought beforehand in 2014.
