Discovery of 4 Bodies Raises Toll

In a grisly reminder that there would be no cap on the quake’s death toll until the rubble is cleared and the ground is still, authorities found four more bodies Tuesday night and Wednesday, bringing the number of earthquake victims to 47.

At what was once a majestic Studio City home, rescue teams returned early Wednesday for a third day of cutting and carving through crumbled walls and 8,000 pounds of smashed Spanish tile in search of a 69-year-old woman, who authorities said was probably crushed in the initial quake.

They found the body of Beatrice Baitman on Wednesday night, buried under 20 feet of rubble at her Sunswept Drive home. She was still in bed, said Rick Warford, Los Angeles City Fire Department battalion chief, and was still covered in blankets.

“My guess is that it was really quick,” Warford said. “The ceiling and part of a wall came right down on top of her.”

Aftershocks had hampered the search. The house, which collapsed and slid 30 feet down a hillside in the Monday shock, shifted farther downward with each new jolt.

Three other members of the household had been rescued Monday. Using flashlights, neighbors took advantage of a lull in the house’s lurching slide and pulled Michael Minkow, 49, and his wife, Lola Minkow, 46, from the imploded structure. Michael Minkow’s mother, Rose Minkow, 75, was pinned in the rubble for four hours and suffered minor injuries.

Despite rescue workers’ belief that Baitman--who was Lola Minkow’s mother--was dead, they wheeled in lights Wednesday and used chain saws and hydraulic lifts to try to find Baitman. They also used two kinds of dogs--one trained to find the living and the other to locate the dead.

The house was the younger Minkows’ dream house. The couple and their mothers moved in three years ago.

“We wanted to see as much as we could of our parents in their older years,” Michael Minkow said. “They (were) not going to be around forever.”

The family pets, a dog and a cat, probably suffered the same fate as Baitman, Michael Minkow said.

In Van Nuys, two other quake victims were dug out Tuesday from beneath hundreds of pounds of collectibles that littered the couple’s home.

Robert (Sarge) Pauline and Judith Ng ended up as victims of their hobbies: the ceiling-high piles of books, model trains, video equipment and papers that toppled onto their bed during Monday’s quake. Neighbors and relatives became concerned and called police after Pauline and Ng had not returned phone calls. The quake had caused only moderate damage to their home.

“They were eccentric, but they were kind, friendly people,” said Jeff Ng, the victim’s brother, as he delved through hundreds of videocassette tapes, hoping to find a recorded will. “They collected things, stacks of stuff.”

Pauline, 72, and Ng, 42, stood out in their neat, well-kept Van Nuys neighborhood. Neighbors ignored the overgrown shrubs and vines that shielded the house from the street; Pauline watched over them and their children. Neighborhood young people, referring to his long white beard, called Pauline “Santa.”

The couple met at Riverside City College. Ng had just graduated from high school and Pauline had retired from a 20-year career in the Marines, Jeff Ng said. They were married shortly after they met.

They were private, keeping their shelves of old letters, out-of-date calendars, stereo equipment and cameras hidden. Friends and even Ng’s close-knit family were not invited inside, relatives said.

“If any of us had known about the mess, we’d have been breaking the door down a lot sooner to get them to clean up,” Jeff Ng said.

“It hits like lightning what a tragedy this is,” Ng said. “You watch the news and you don’t realize.”

Authorities also discovered the body of an unidentified 62-year-old Northridge man sitting in a parked car in front of a partially collapsed house. Although the official cause of death had not been established Wednesday evening, coroner’s investigators listed it as quake-related and speculate that the man died of a heart attack, said LAPD Sgt. Richard Todd.

Another death, that of Olga Uribe, 26, of Pasadena, was reclassified as quake-related. Uribe was in the passenger seat of a car traveling through Sylmar when the driver lost control during the quake, said coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier.

In Studio City, Mindy Minkow, 20, watched as workers dug through the family home in search of her grandmother. Mindy Minkow had moved out of the house a month earlier and now lives in Burbank.

“Everyone was begging me to come back home,” she said. “For once, I guess not listening paid off.”