New search for human remains begins at San Marino home
With TV helicopters hovering overhead, photos, cadaver-sniffing dogs and ground-penetrating radar are being used to search the backyard of a home where a young couple vanished in 1985.
Investigators this morning converged on a San Marino home that is at the center of a bizarre international mystery to begin a new search for human remains.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said authorities will perform a "photo scan" of the grounds, in which officials take numerous photographs and videos of the property.
At about 7:30 a.m., cadaver-sniffing dogs were sent into the home to begin a search. After that, experts will use ground-penetrating radar to search for remains. It is unclear how long the operation will take, but officials speculated earlier it could occur over several days.
At 6 a.m., authorities closed down part of the street near the house as the search began.
Neighbors were awakened to TV helicopters hovering overhead.
"Our china was shaking," complained one resident of the upscale neighborhood, who declined to give her name.
A young couple who lived at the home vanished in 1985, and nine years later the remains of an unidentified man were found buried in the backyard.
The cold case generated new interest this month after the Sheriff's Department named a Boston man, Clark Rockefeller, as a "person of interest" in the disappearance and suspected deaths of the couple, Jonathan and Linda Sohus.
Los Angeles County sheriff's homicide detectives are bringing in a Denver geophysicist to examine the property where the Sohuses lived, said Capt. Dave Smith, who leads the department's homicide bureau.
Smith said the examination may take several days. One reason for using radar is that investigators do not want to disturb the grounds, he said, where the new owners have been mobbed by national media.
"Hopefully we can see something that will allow us to concentrate on one particular area" to dig, Smith said.
Investigators last staged a massive excavation at the yard in 1994, after new residents uncovered bones while digging a backyard swimming pool. The bones, later identified as those of a small-framed man, had been separated into three parts and wrapped in plastic.
Investigators also discovered bloodstains in a guest house on the property. While the remains have not been formally identified, detectives suspect they are those of Jonathan Sohus.
Smith said ground-penetrating radar has not been used on the yard before, probably because the technology did not exist in 1994. Experts say more recent advances in associated computer software, also used for medical imaging such as X-rays and CAT scans, have made it more popular.
Experts say investigators have successfully used ground-penetrating radar to unearth remains in other cold cases and homicide investigations.
Rockefeller, who is being investigated by law enforcement agencies on two coasts, the FBI and German authorities, came to the attention of Los Angeles authorities when he was arrested earlier this month in Boston on charges of kidnapping his young daughter.
His attorney, Stephen Hrones, has acknowledged that he is the same man who used the name Christopher Chichester when he lived in the Sohus's back house, one of several aliases he has used, but said his client had nothing to do with their disappearance.
richard.winton@latimes.com
