Search for Stolen Items Yields Huge Arms Cache

A routine theft investigation triggered one of the largest weapons busts in Orange County history Wednesday when sheriff’s deputies raided the home of a Capistrano Unified School District worker and discovered a cache of more than 80 assault rifles and handguns.

Deputies found the arsenal stored inside two safes at the San Clemente home of Jerry Peacock, a district groundskeeper under investigation in connection with some missing maintenance equipment, according to Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino.

The haul included eight machine guns, dozens of military-style assault rifles, several World War II vintage carbines and 50,000 rounds of ammunition, Amormino said.

Deputies said Peacock, 43, was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen property and violating numerous weapons laws. Officials did not specify which laws they believe he broke but said some of the automatic firearms discovered at his home are banned under state law.

Peacock was held in Orange County Jail late Wednesday in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Peacock did not disclose to investigators how he obtained his collection or why he kept the firearms, Amormino said. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is helping local investigators trace the origin of the guns.

“Finding the way that these weapons were purchased is definitely a primary issue for us,” Amormino said. “There’s no real reason for someone to have this kind of arsenal. Certainly, it would not be for personal or home protection.”

Peacock, 43, was hired at the Capistrano Unified School District in 1993 and has been on disability for five months, according to district spokeswoman Julie Jennings. An employee of the landscaping department, he was not assigned to any one school but worked at the district’s 41 campuses as needed, she said.

The district conducted a routine background check on Peacock when he was hired, sending his fingerprints to be checked by state authorities. No problems surfaced during the check, Jennings said.

Sheriff’s investigators had been following a tip for several weeks linking Peacock with an array of items stolen from the school district, including rakes, ladders, power tools, tree trimmers and trash cans, officials said.

In the groundskeeper’s backyard, Amormino said, deputies on Wednesday discovered a red trash can with the district’s initials, CUSD, and found other district property inside the home.

Before the 7 a.m. raid, another tipster alerted deputies that Peacock kept a large number of weapons at his duplex in the 100 block of Marquita. But nothing prepared the Special Weapons and Tactics team for what Peacock would unveil when he opened his safes for deputies.

“Even with that tip, we were surprised ourselves to find what we found in there,” Amormino said, adding that Peacock had never threatened school district students or employees.

“That said, I think it’s safe to say that this kind of situation is out of the ordinary, and when you have this number of weapons there’s always a danger to some degree to the public.”

As investigators displayed the haul at Peacock’s home--his stack of gun magazines spread out on his back patio--neighbors expressed shock at news of the discovery.

Claire Zwicker, who has lived in the neighborhood for 35 years, said Peacock moved into the blue-and-white duplex about 18 months ago. She said she never heard any noise from the home.

“He didn’t look like an army militia man to me,” Zwicker said. “He was always very pleasant and talked about our plants.”

Few others had ever met Peacock, who neighbors said kept to himself. But some, like Suzanne Reynolds, expressed relief that the weapons had been unearthed and that her neighbor had never used the guns close to home.

Times staff writer Lisa Richardson, correspondent Eric Sanitate and librarian Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.