Suspect Leads Police to S.D. County Graves of Ex-Wife, Husband

A Romanian immigrant who police said led them to the shallow San Diego County graves of his former wife and her second husband was arraigned Wednesday on murder charges.

Dumitru Pop reportedly directed Burbank police Tuesday night to the graves of Burbank residents Violeta, 24, and Constantin Cirdei, 27. The graves were in the Cleveland National Forest near Julian, just off California 76.

Pop, 35, who had his scheduled Tuesday arraignment in Pasadena Municipal Court postponed after offering to lead police to the bodies, was also charged with burglary and grand theft at Wednesday’s arraignment. He is being held in Los Angeles County Jail.

The San Diego County coroner’s office, which will perform autopsies today, has not yet positively identified the bodies or their causes of death. However, Sgt. Don Goldberg of the Burbank Police Department identified the bodies as those of the Cirdeis. He said they had been shot.

History of Abuse

Goldberg said that Pop, who had a record of threatening his ex-wife, was convicted in June, 1987, of spousal abuse. Pop had also received counseling concerning the incidents.

On Friday, a neighbor alerted police that something was amiss after she found the 18-month-old daughter of Violeta Cirdei and Pop unattended in the driveway of the Cirdei home in Burbank.

“The neighbor didn’t see the parents anywhere and she got suspicious,” Goldberg said. “She noticed the car was missing, too, and called the police.”

When police checked the Cirdei home they found blood and a spent cartridge in a bedroom. There were indications of forced entry, police said.

Pop, a Los Angeles carpenter, was arrested Saturday in Tijuana while driving Violeta’s 1984 Datsun. When Tijuana police stopped him for driving erratically they noticed bloodstains in the car, Goldberg said.

Suspect Held

After learning from U.S. authorities that the car had been reported stolen, Tijuana police held Pop until he was turned over Sunday to Burbank police.

Just before his scheduled arraignment on Tuesday, Pop told police he would lead them to the makeshift grave, Goldberg said. Goldberg said the police offered Pop nothing in exchange for his aid in recovering the bodies.

“There were no agreements made,” Goldberg said. “On the day of his arraignment, he just decided to show us where the bodies were buried.”

Goldberg said he wasn’t sure why the bodies were dumped in San Diego County.

“It looks as if it wasn’t pre-planned,” he said. “I would assume that (whoever placed the bodies in the grave) just arbitrarily decided to leave them there.”

Violeta emigrated from Romania about two years ago and met Pop months later. They married in June, 1987, and were divorced in October, 1988. She married Cirdei, a contractor who had been in the United States less than a year, in February.