Investigators Fear Trail Cold in Storage Unit Corpses Case

Forensic experts began the grisly task Thursday of trying to identify three corpses found decomposing in steamer trunks in a Northridge storage facility, while police were stuck with few clues to determine how they got there except that detectives presumed they were murdered.

Investigators, however, feared that the trail of a killer--if there is one--may have grown cold.

The bodies, which coroner’s investigators tentatively identified as those of two men and a woman, were discovered Wednesday by police investigating complaints of a foul odor coming from a U-Haul Co. public storage room shortly after the room’s contents had been sold at auction.

The bodies had been rotting in the two trunks and a large cardboard box for more than a year, authorities believe, and were so nearly liquefied that their race and age could not be determined. Some said cause of death may never be known; autopsies could be performed as early as Friday.

“It is being treated, of course, as homicide,” said Officer Rigo Romero, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman.

Working through the night and into the day, police searched through the cluttered rental unit, filled with a nauseating stench, in the building in the 18100 block of Parthenia Street. So far, they said, they have found no wallets or other indications of who the corpses were or who placed them in the large trunks and then wrapped the trunks in layers of black plastic and sealed them with silver duct tape.

Deodorizers and mothballs had been placed about the room, apparently to conceal the smell, said Ed Zaharoff, 46, of Los Feliz, who bought the room’s contents for $2,300.

And when they tried to track down the man who had last rented the storage unit, police said, they found a trail of fake identities, addresses and other useless information--heightening their concerns that they were on the trail of a killer who stashed his victims away in the obscurity of a locked storage room next to a roller rink, just off a busy thoroughfare.

“The things that we have found seem to be fictitious; addresses and those sorts of things,” said Police Lt. Al Moen of the robbery-homicide division. “We don’t have anticipation of any arrests any time soon.”

For now, authorities say they hope to solve the mystery by determining the identities of the corpses and interviewing their friends and associates.

Said one detective: “Now, it’s a matter of playing catch-up.”

The bodies were discovered after Zaharoff bought the contents of the abandoned storage unit sight unseen at an auction Wednesday and began removing the items. Alarmed by the smell coming from one of the trunks, he and a friend called police.

After patrol officers found what appeared to be human remains in one trunk, the other trunk and the cardboard box were shipped to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, where they too were opened and found to contain bodies, Romero said.

Zaharoff is a professional scavenger who supplements his income bidding on such abandoned goods at auctions. Because he was allowed only a quick peek inside the rooms, he did not smell the decaying bodies until the leaking trunks were moved, he said.

Police said Zaharoff had been ruled out as a suspect for now.

U-Haul company representatives had no comment except to say they were cooperating with police.

Police said they can do little until they receive the results of the autopsies. But they cautioned that the bodies are in such an advanced state of decomposition that it may be impossible to get fingerprints from them, although teeth and dental work should have survived.

Police said they would probably interview Zaharoff again, and those who rented storage units in the building, to see if any of them had seen or knew the person who rented the cubicle where the bodies were found.

Investigators also said they will continue to pick through the contents of the rental unit for clues.

Inside the unit, Moen said, were items such as dishes, silk clothes and stereo equipment and several sealed boxes.

“That will be gone through methodically,” Moen said, “but probably not until after the autopsy.”