Link to Vegas Blast Sought in Arco Plaza TNT Cache

Los Angeles police were trying to determine Friday whether explosives found in an Arco Plaza barbershop were connected with the Las Vegas car bombing four years ago that almost killed reputed mob figure Frank (Lefty) Rosenthal.

Detectives discovered 26 packages of TNT, 50 blasting caps and four weapons when they served a search warrant at M’Lords Ltd. on Thursday as part of an investigation into the September, 1985, murders of Gerald Woodman, 67, and his wife, Vera, 66.

Police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth denied that a definite link had yet been found between that find and the attempt on Rosenthal in October, 1982. “Some of the suspects in the Woodman murders have a Las Vegas connection,” he said, “so of course we’re going to look into that possibility.”

Facing trial in the Woodman case are the slain Brentwood couple’s two sons, Neil, 42, and Stewart, 36, who are believed by authorities to have had their parents killed to collect on a $500,000 insurance policy.

Also charged are accused hired killers Steven M. Homick, Robert T. Homick and Anthony J. Majoy. Another man, Michael Lee Dominguez, has pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder.

An officer close to the Woodman investigation said officers who went to the Arco Plaza barbershop Thursday were looking for evidence that might have tied Stephen Homick, a former Los Angeles police officer, to three Las Vegas murders.

Their discovery of the explosives and weapons prompted a fast evacuation of the three-level underground shopping center at the 52-floor, twin-tower Arco Plaza and closure of surrounding streets until the bomb squad could remove the danger.

The 1982 Las Vegas car bombing that almost killed Rosenthal was believed by police to have been the work of his former Chicago underworld associates.