More Bones Found at Death Site

Hunting dogs combing thick underbrush at a suspected mass-murder site near here have sniffed out more bone fragments, a Calaveras County official said Thursday.

Chief Deputy Coroner George Popovich said the bones were found scattered down a steep embankment along a driveway leading to the remote mountain cabin used by suspected mass murderer Leonard T. Lake.

The discovery, the first new evidence of human burials uncovered at the site in a week, sent investigators scurrying to inspect the roadside along California 26, which runs past Lake’s cabin in Wilseyville, about 25 miles northeast of here and 125 miles west of San Francisco.

Contradicts Reports

Popovich contradicted Sheriff’s Department reports that only two bodies had been found last week. He said investigators had unearthed the remains of two black males and a white woman.

The official said the newly discovered fragments, at about two inches in length, were “a lot bigger” than those discovered last week under several “burn sites” near the cabin.

He described the bones as “probably burned and crushed,” but said not all of them have been gathered because they are covered by a thick ground cover known locally as “mountain misery.” He said excavation probably will resume today.

Popovich also played down a sheriff’s spokesman’s comment that authorities are not sure if the bone fragments are human.

“I am pretty sure they’re human,” he said. “I think we would have heard by now if they weren’t.”

Perhaps 25 Deaths

Both Calaveras County and San Francisco police officials have said that Lake and his suspected accomplice, Charles C. Ng, could be responsible for the disappearance of as many as 25 people.

Spokesman at both places, however, have said that they are not sure how many of those people may have been murdered or buried at the Wilseyville site.

Lake apparently committed suicide shortly after being arrested June 2 in South San Francisco for possessing an illegal handgun. At the time, he was driving the car of a San Francisco man who disappeared last November. Ng, who police believe was with Lake at the time of the arrest, has escaped and is the subject of an international manhunt.