Bodies Found Under Slab

Acting on a tip from a confidential informant, Colton police announced Wednesday that they had found the bodies of two men buried under a concrete slab in the backyard of a vacant home in an older neighborhood.

Colton Police Chief Kenneth Rulon said that detectives believed the killings were “narcotics-related,” and that Maryland law enforcement authorities are assisting with the investigation. The Maryland officials were at the home when the bodies were exhumed, Rulon said.

A San Bernardino County coroner’s official said the men were in their mid-20s and probably buried in the summer of 1999. The bodies were partly skeletonized when recovered.

Police did not release the identities of the two victims, although investigators have an idea who they are “based on who they are supposed to be,” said Deputy Coroner David Van Norman. Rulon said one of the men was an Inland Empire resident.

Rulon said the victims’ causes of death have yet to be determined and that the search for suspects was continuing. He said it was unclear whether the men were killed in Colton or brought to the home after being killed elsewhere.

“You usually don’t find dead bodies buried in a residential area,” Rulon said. “This usually happens in the desert or mountains.”

Rulon said police believed that whoever buried the men poured the concrete slab over the area immediately afterward.

The property, in the 400 block of West O Street, is owned by John Delgado, 84, but neigh- bors say Delgado moved out of the home in August to live with his daughter elsewhere in Colton.

Neighbors said Delgado had allowed his former caretaker, a woman known to neighbors as “Martha,” to rent the home.

Neighbors also said Colton police had evicted the woman, and several others she had invited to stay there, about two weeks ago.

“We didn’t bother with them, because they were the kind of people you just don’t want to know,” said Julie Gonzales, 31, a neighbor. “They were unpleasant people.”

Another neighbor, who didn’t want to be identified, said a lot of people had come and gone from the house, and it stood out in a neighborhood that was built in the 1940s and has many elderly residents.

“There were a lot of kids running in and out of there,” the neighbor said. “Most houses on this block have one or two cars outside. This one had a stream of traffic. The neighborhood was quiet. They made it loud.”

Several police cars and plainclothes detectives were at the one-story beige and yellow stucco home last week, she said. Two front windows were boarded up with plywood.