Police Say Killing of 2 Buried in Colton Yard Was Drug-Related

Local police and the FBI on Thursday continued their search for evidence and suspects involved in the slayings of two men whose decaying bodies were found buried under a concrete slab in the backyard of a home in Colton.

Authorities still had not determined how the men died, although Colton Police Chief Kenneth Rulon described the investigation into the Tuesday night discovery as a drug-related homicide case. The bodies were buried about 4 feet beneath the concrete, and authorities suspect they may have been killed in the summer of 1999.

Rulon said the confidential informant who told police about the bodies has not been dismissed as a suspect, adding that the “very initial” investigation is focused on finding out more details about what the former residents of the home knew about the victims.

Investigators from the Montgomery County Police in Maryland also are involved in the case and were in Colton when the bodies were exhumed, but Rulon would not discuss why that agency is involved.

Officials from the FBI and Montgomery County Police also declined to discuss the case; however, a law enforcement source said the bureau is leading the investigation.

The San Bernardino County coroner performed an autopsy on the bodies Thursday but did not release their identities. The men were clothed, a source close to the investigation said.

Residents living near the home where the bodies were found, which is on the 400 block of West O Street, said the home’s most recent resident, Martha Villareal, was a renter who first came to the home in 1999. She had been a caretaker to the home’s owner, John Delgado, 84.

Neighbors described her as an abrasive woman who lived a chaotic existence at the home.

Young men shuttled in and out of the house and exhibited angry, dangerous behavior, the neighbors said.

Neither Villareal nor Delgado could be reached for comment.