Yard Dug Up in Search for Boy Missing Since ’77
Twenty Police Academy cadets Thursday began digging up a back yard in South-Central Los Angeles in search of the body of a 14-year-old retarded, epileptic boy who disappeared on Christmas Eve, 1977.
Southeast Division Detective Jim Dieli said Theodric Smith, 26, who lives in the home at 436 E. 93rd St., has been charged with sexually assaulting and then trying to murder the 12-year-old brother of Robert Thompson, the missing youth.
Dieli said the younger victim told officers that Smith threatened “to kill him like he did his brother seven years ago.”
Detectives obtained a warrant to search the suspect’s yard.
After several hours of what Dieli called “slow, patient digging,” the cadets turned up the bones of a small animal and a child’s shoe, but no body.
In attendance was Dr. Judy Suchey, a California State University, Fullerton, anthropologist representing the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.
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