Police Dig Up Evidence in Insurance Fraud Case : Crime: Investigators are tipped that a car reported stolen was buried in a huge woodpile at the owner’s business.

It was one of those police cases that took a little digging--actually a lot of digging.

Using the equipment and employees of a Pacoima wood-grinding operation, police from the Valley’s Auto Theft Task Force spent the better part of Tuesday and Wednesday delving through tens of tons of decomposing branches and leaves in search of a 1988 Cadillac Allante convertible that was reported stolen in July, 1992.

And they found it, or what was left of it anyway: a hunk of twisted black metal.

Police say William Dunlap, the car’s owner and a co-owner of the Wood Yard, will be arrested for insurance fraud when he returns today from a business trip.

Detectives acknowledged that they had gone to extremes in searching for the missing car.

“It’s a lot of effort for a single case, but it puts out the message to people who are committing insurance fraud that they’re not safe to do these things,” said Los Angeles Police Detective William Fulton. “But I’ve never done anything quite like this.”

Dunlap could not be reached for comment. Carol Burks, office manager at the Wood Yard, said Dunlap told her by telephone Wednesday that he knew nothing about how the car got onto the property.

Gregory A. Hutchinson, a senior special agent with the National Insurance Crime Bureau, said the Farmers Insurance Exchange paid Dunlap $24,000 when he reported more than a year ago that his black luxury car was stolen from Big Jim’s Family Restaurant in Sun Valley.

And that probably would have been that, had it not been for the tip.

Last Friday, the insurance company received a tip that Dunlap’s car was buried beneath the rotting tree branches of his Pacoima company, which grinds tree clippings into chips that can be burned as an energy source. The company called police.

Working with Hutchinson, police then found a few other tidbits that they found curious, Hutchinson said.

For instance, Dunlap had waited a day and a half before reporting his car missing, Hutchinson said. The day after that, Hutchinson said, Dunlap was supposed to pay the vehicle’s registration fees.

So, armed with a search warrant Tuesday, Fulton and Hutchinson persuaded another owner of the Wood Yard to cooperate, and dig in. After cutting a 30-foot swath through the steaming heap, however, the group had found nothing.

But workers at the yard said they had long heard rumors that the car was indeed somewhere under the 2 1/2-acre pile, and the investigators resolved to try again after going back to their informant for more precise mapping.

Wrinkling their noses Wednesday at the smell of sewage and rotting plants, Fulton and Hutchinson perched at the edge of the pit as a front loader with a large scoop dug through the muck.

Finally, a twisted black rear fender with a trace of a red pin stripe told the investigators that they were in the right place. Within 30 minutes, they had exhumed the gnarled shell of a car with an identification number that matched the stolen vehicle.

“If somebody didn’t come forward and tell us something, that car would never be found,” Fulton said. “Some of these guys just get a little too brazen about their crimes.”