Police Stuck for Leads in Wienerschnitzel Slayings

With a local Wienerschnitzel still closed for business, police got preliminary autopsy results back Thursday but said they still had few leads in the execution-style murders of two employees at the restaurant this week.

“Because there were not any witnesses,” said police spokeswoman Maureen Haacker, “we have very little to go on, so it makes it a very difficult case.”

The president of the restaurant’s parent company, meanwhile, called on community members to offer financial support for the families of the two slain men, Andres Bello, 29, a manager and father of two, and Antonio Cabral, 18, a cook. Bello’s wife was Cabral’s aunt.

The two men were shot and killed while closing the store sometime around 10 p.m. Tuesday, apparently by robbers who took an undisclosed amount of cash, police said.

The fatally wounded employees were left in the restaurant’s walk-in refrigerator, according to sources who have spoken with the restaurant’s management. Police have declined to confirm these and other details of the crime.

Dennis Tase, president of the Galardi Group, the Newport Beach-based holding company that owns the Wienerschnitzel chain and other restaurants in 11 states, said the company asked people to send checks to the Bell-Cabral Family Support Fund, care of the Galardi Group at P.O. Box 7460, 4440 Von Karman Ave., Newport Beach, Calif. 92658-7470.

He said the fund would be overseen by Bank of America and that the company will be making a contribution, although he would not say how much.

“We’re going to take care of the family,” Tase said. “We want to make sure they get through this.”

Tase also said the company is intent on avoiding a repeat of the Tuesday night tragedy by reviewing security at its restaurants.

“It’s never happened before in the 12 years I’ve been here (at the company) and I don’t want it to ever happen again,” he said. Times staff writers Jim Gomez and David Reyes contributed to this report.