Blacktop Dug Up in Search of 4 Bodies : Police Find No Bones Under Garage

Acting on a tip that four bodies were buried behind a Reseda automotive garage, Los Angeles police and city workers dug up a 400-square-foot parking area there Thursday--and found nothing.

The garage is owned by Harvey Rader, 45, an Englishman who was once arrested in the 1982 disappearances of two San Fernando Valley families. Rader has denied being involved.

The tip came shortly after four members of the Sol Salomon family of Northridge and Peter and Joan Davis of Granada Hills disappeared and were presumed by detectives to have been slain, Lt. Ed Henderson said.

“There was some new pavement put down at the location there” shortly after the Salomon disappearances, Henderson said. “The information we had was that they were underneath the pavement.”

Detectives had been unable to act on the tip earlier because they lacked enough evidence to obtain a search warrant, he said.

Police had a four-foot hole dug on Thursday without a search warrant but with permission of Ron Katz, who recently leased the garage in the 7300 block of Reseda Boulevard from Rader, the lieutenant said.

Praise for Rader

Katz, who operates an auto repair shop there, described Rader as “one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met.”

He said he allowed the search on condition that the city would promptly restore the blacktop to its original condition. Workers replaced the dirt Thursday. There was no estimate on the cost of digging up the lot and restoring it.

“The information was no good, but we didn’t know that going in,” Henderson said. “It was something we had to look into.” He would not disclose the source of the tip.

Rader formerly used the garage for his own foreign-car repair shop, which was patronized by the Davises and the Salomons, investigators have said.

Rader and a cousin were arrested in 1983 on suspicion of killing Salomon, his wife, Elaine, her daughter Michalle Hochman, 15, and the couple’s son, Mitchell, 9, along with the Davises.

No bodies have been recovered, and Rader, who apparently had been implicated by statements the cousin made to police, was not prosecuted after the statements were ruled inadmissible by a Los Angeles municipal judge. The cousin, Ashley Paulle, who Henderson said is living in England, was not prosecuted either.

Theft of Art

Detectives have speculated that the Davises were slain in connection with the theft of art from their home. Rader was granted immunity from prosecution in an earlier case involving stolen art.

Detectives have not speculated on a motive for the suspected killings of the Salomons, and Henderson would offer no elaboration Thursday.

In an unrelated case, Rader is awaiting trial on a federal charge of entering the United States illegally. He was deported last year for concealing a criminal record that included burglaries and car thefts in the United Kingdom. Los Angeles police arrested him for immigration authorities April 9 in Granada Hills, after learning that he had returned to this country.