Suspect in 3 Killings Arrested in Indonesia : Crime: The bodies were found last August in a Northridge storage locker. The country has no extradition treaty with the United States.

Los Angeles police got a break in a gruesome murder case, announcing Friday that authorities in Indonesia have arrested a suspect wanted in the slayings of two men and a woman whose decomposing bodies were discovered last summer in a Northridge storage locker.

The suspect, Harnoko (Oki) Dewantono, 30, was arrested by Indonesian authorities in Jakarta, the country’s capital, said Lt. Al Moen, head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s major crimes investigation section.

Moen said authorities are working to return Dewantono to the United States to face triple murder charges in the deaths of Eri Tri Harto Darmawan, 26; Gina Sutan Aswar, 30, and Surish Michandani, 40, whose bodies were discovered Aug. 10. Police are trying to confirm a report by Dewantono’s mother, who lives in Jakarta, that Dewantono and Darmawan are brothers.

Police Detective Ted Ball, who is heading the investigation, said it remains unclear whether Dewantono will stand trial in Los Angeles because no extradition treaty exists between the United States and Indonesia.

U.S. Justice Department spokesman John Russell said his office is aware of the case, but he would say only that it is possible to “work through diplomatic channels to effect an extradition” of individuals.

Police began making progress in their murder investigation last month, after holding a news conference in Los Angeles to identify the victims and announce that Dewantono had been charged with three counts of murder.

Word of the killings spread rapidly through the Indonesian community in Los Angeles, and reports of the crime were carried widely in Indonesia. That publicity helped police in their investigation, Ball said.

“It’s a huge story there,” Ball said. “It’s the O.J. Simpson case of Indonesia.”

Sunten Manurung, a spokesman for the Indonesian consulate in Los Angeles, agreed the story was “a big headline in Indonesia.”

After news of the investigation was reported in the Indonesian media last month, Ball said he was informed by the victims’ relatives that Dewantono was in Jakarta. Ball said there may have been people who either knew Dewantono or the victims in Los Angeles but who had since returned to Indonesia.

Law enforcement authorities in Jakarta were alerted to the case through Interpol, an international police organization headquartered in Paris. They arrested Dewantono Saturday at a relative’s home in Jakarta, according to Ball and Manurung.

Ball said he believes Dewantono returned to Indonesia in 1993 and that he has used numerous aliases and passports to hide from authorities. He was last seen in the United States in February, 1993, when he was living in an apartment in the Lake Forest area of Orange County.

Dewantono’s uncle and another brother are expected to arrive in Los Angeles from Jakarta early next week to meet with police.

No motive has been released in the slayings and no connection has been made among the victims, who police believe were killed at different times between 1991 and 1993, Ball said. They were badly beaten on their heads, and Michandani had also been shot.

The victims were reported missing in 1991 and 1992. Darmawan and Aswar were Indonesians traveling on student visas and Michandani was from India, but had spent most of his life in Kuwait. All were Los Angeles residents.

Investigators have said that Dewantono knew Aswar through business dealings related to financial investments and at one time may have been her roommate. Aswar’s family was in Los Angeles this week to claim her body and take it back to Jakarta, Ball said.

Dewantono is also believed to have sold Michandani a Woodland Hills dry-cleaning business, now closed.

The discovery of the three bodies on a hot August day shocked San Fernando Valley residents. The remains were discovered by a storage room speculator who had purchased the contents of a storage room at a public auction after the owner failed to pay his rent.

The buyer noticed a foul smell and found one body wrapped in plastic and duct tape. Later, police found the two other bodies.

The bodies were so badly decayed that it took coroners a month to identify them.