Ex-Suspect in Disappearances Seized on Immigration Charges

An Englishman who was a suspect in the disappearance of six San Fernando Valley residents in 1982 and who was deported from the United States last year has been arrested in Granada Hills, Los Angeles police said Saturday.

Harvey Rader, 45, was arrested Thursday night on a federal warrant charging him with entering the United States illegally, Lt. Harvie Eubank said.

Police located Rader at a home where he was staying after the U. S. Department of Justice notified them that he was wanted for immigration-law violations, Detective Richard Wittner said.

Rader tried to escape out the back door but he was captured in the backyard, Eubank said.

Rader appeared Friday before a federal magistrate in Los Angeles, Eubank said.

Immigration officials, who have the authority to deport Rader again, could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Rader, who emigrated to the United States in the late 1970s, was deported last year after immigration officials said he failed to tell them about a 1977 robbery conviction in Maidenstone, England.

He was a suspect in the 1982 disappearances of Peter and Joan Davis of Granada Hills and four members of the Sol Salomon family of Northridge, police said. No bodies were found.

In 1983 Rader was arrested with a boyhood friend, London cab driver Ashley Paulle, 44, on suspicion of killing the six people.

Paulle’s statements to authorities, which apparently were the basis for Rader’s arrest, were ruled inadmissible by a Los Angeles municipal judge and both men were released.

Police said the theft of artwork appeared to be the motive for the suspected killings of the Davises, who were Paulle’s neighbors. Police have not speculated publicly on a motive for the disappearance of the Salomon family.

In a civil case last August, a federal judge ordered Rader to pay $25,000 in punitive damages after a jury found that he and a physician, Dr. Kurt J. Wagner, conspired in 1980 to stage the thefts of lithographs and Oriental artwork from Wagner’s Sherman Oaks home. The two also were ordered to return a $180,000 insurance payment.