Bodies Found in Boarding Home Yard Now at 5

Three more bodies were unearthed from the grounds of a boarding home here late Saturday and Sunday, bringing to five the number of victims police believe were killed for their Social Security checks by the home’s manager.

As investigators hunted for manager Dorthea Montalvo Puente, 59, others continued probing about the two-story Victorian house where it is feared that as many as eight bodies may be found.

Police on Sunday morning arrested a long-time resident of the house, John McCauley, 59, and said they will ask that he be charged as an accessory to homicide. He was taken to the Sacramento County Jail.

May Have Known

McCauley is not believed to have participated directly in the slayings, but is alleged to have lied to investigators about what he may know of them, said Lt. Joe Enloe, a police spokesman. Enloe said that McCauley and Montalvo have been close friends for more than three years.

Authorities predicted that it will be days before they complete their search of the tree-shaded grounds around the house, located 10 blocks from the state Capitol in an area favored by transients and the elderly.

By mid-afternoon Sunday, the yard had been pock-marked by dozens of excavations and made muddy by a cold, sporadic rain.

“We’re confirming our worst suspicions,” Enloe told reporters at a briefing near the house.

He added that other arrests are expected.

“We do not believe this could have been done solely by (Montalvo),” Enloe said. “I have to make the assumption that it’s pretty hard for a woman her size to pick up somebody. . . . But we don’t know what happened.”

The identities of those killed were not immediately known. Four of the five were wrapped in what appeared to be bed sheeting or plastic bags. Only the sex of one, an elderly woman, could be determined after on-site examination by experts. Four of the five victims were in fetal positions when found.

Death Causes Unclear

Enloe said investigators are not certain how the victims died, but none appeared to have met violent deaths. There was speculation that they may have been poisoned, and Enloe said autopsies will focus on that possibility.

Montalvo was charged with grand theft in 1982 and served time in prison after she was found guilty of drugging and robbing three elderly people whom she had met in bars, according to authorities.

Enloe said Montalvo consented to a search of the grounds last week, after a social worker reported that a client living in the eight-bedroom house had disappeared inexplicably. There were unconfirmed reports that police were tipped to bodies having been buried in the yard.

Montalvo was questioned early Saturday, but not arrested because of insufficient evidence at the time, Enloe said. She could not be found Sunday.

“We will charge her with homicide when we find her,” the lieutenant vowed.

Authorities said they believe that Montalvo cashed Social Security checks that were mailed to her tenants after they were dead. Enloe said that detectives today intend to scour the boarding house and Montalvo’s bank accounts for possible evidence to support their premise.

Bone Found in Yard

On Friday, investigators dug up a human leg bone in the yard and on Saturday found three corpses, one of which was that of the elderly woman wrapped in a table cloth. Without elaborating, police said they believe that she may have been buried in April.

Several recently planted trees had to be removed and a gazebo in the back yard torn down to uncover the graves.

More than 20 police officers, forensic anthropologists and other authorities resumed their digging Sunday morning and by noon found two more bodies in shallow graves. The fourth was found in the back yard, the fifth beneath a grass driveway over which two strips of concrete had been poured.

Enloe said that one reason McCauley was arrested as an accessory was because “he told us the cement was there a long time ago and we’ve confirmed it wasn’t there a long time.”

Asked why authorities chose to dig under the driveway where the fifth body was found, Enloe said, “We’re just guessing. We’re kind of going by intuition.”

Neighborhood residents, meanwhile, said that in May and again in September, they smelled a sickening odor coming from the grounds of the blue and white boarding home.

‘Something Dead’

“It definitely was something dead,” said Will McIntyre, who runs a rooming house next door.

Other residents of the area said that Montalvo appeared to be an avid gardener. When they said they complained to her about the stench emanating from her yard, she told them it was because of fertilizer.

“If someone stepped on the grass,” McIntyre said, “she would curse them out with language that would make a sailor blush.

“It seems likes the Bates Motel,” he commented as police and reporters prowled about the house Sunday. “People check in and never check out.”