Two Missing San Diego Boys Found Strangled : Crime: Police are mystified at motive for killing of 9- and 13-year-old youths, who were last seen riding bicycles. The two had no links to gangs, officers say.

They were the best of friends, almost inseparable companions who loved riding their bicycles along the banks of the Otay River to a makeshift fort in the marshy underbrush not far from their homes.

It was there that an adult riding his bike made a grisly discovery, prompting San Diego police to announce Tuesday that Charles Keever, 13, and Jonathan Sellers, 9, apparently had been strangled and left beside the river.

The slayings of the boys, who disappeared Saturday afternoon, have baffled police and left South San Diego parents groping for explanations while fearing for the safety their children.

Police were guarded in their comments Tuesday, calling the crimes gruesome but giving few details. Homicide Lt. Greg Clark did say that drugs did not appear to have played a role.

Nor is there reason to believe the slayings are linked to the murders of other children in the area dating back to 1991, Clark said.

In the boys’ ethnically mixed neighborhood, one of the city’s poorest in an area five miles north of the international border, gang activity is as common as the crude graffiti on the bridge near where the slayings took place.

But these boys were not gang members, Clark said, nor were any of their siblings, nor is there any reason to believe gangs were involved. Part of the shocking nature of the crime, police said, was how utterly ordinary and innocent both boys were.

No one, Clark said, can imagine a motive.

“Charlie loved to ride his bike everywhere, and he always had a great big smile on his face,” said a weeping Eric Robles, 12, a classmate of Charles’ at Montgomery Junior High School, where students wrote their feelings Tuesday in a card they mailed to the family.

With his voice breaking, Eric read the thoughts aloud. Other children stood quietly by, tears staining their faces. Outside the window, flags flew at half-staff.

“Dear Mr. and Mrs. Keever, I’m so sorry it happened,” read one. “May you always think good thoughts about Charlie. May God be with you for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t know how you spell sincere,” wrote one of the girls from Charles’ seventh-grade class. “I just want to get my feelings out . . . to say how bad we feel about losing him, about never getting to see him again.”

Administrators at Charles’ school and at nearby Juarez Lincoln Elementary School, where Jonathan was a fourth-grader, made teams of psychologists and counselors available to meet with grieving parents and classmates.

Juarez Lincoln students were home on spring break, but at Montgomery, Principal Ramon Leyba said the news had shocked both schools, “where nothing like this has ever happened. We’re just stunned. It’s incredible.”

Leyba said Charles’ mother had come to the school Monday morning. Frantic, she was asking anyone for information, he said, telling them her son had been missing since Saturday, when he and his friend left on bicycles bound for a fast-food restaurant for lunch.

The discovery of the bodies was reported about 11 a.m. Monday. The bicycles were found about 10 yards away. Police said the boys had made it to Rally’s hamburger outlet and were last seen there about 1 p.m. Saturday.

“His favorite teacher had given Charlie a chocolate Friday afternoon as he left for home,” Leyba said. “She told him, ‘You’ve done such a good job. You’re becoming such a good student.’ ”

Charles was “an A-B student,” Leyba said. He was “well-liked but a little shy. Just a really decent, normal boy that everyone liked. I can’t imagine anyone killing him.”

Elayne Poston, Jonathan’s aunt, said Tuesday that her nephew and his best friend “both liked basketball--and each other--a lot. They rode their bikes a lot. They just loved to do boys’ stuff. Believe me, this is so hard. . . . Everybody here is taking this so hard.”