PHOTOS: Left behind
Craig Hendrickson, an operations chief for the Los Angeles County public administrator, displays a stagecoach gun stored inside a vault. Inside are high-value items, dangerous and bladed weapons belonging to people who have died and those in conservatorship whose affairs Los Angeles County is managing. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Frank Baca, an estate property custodian at the Los Angeles County public administrator’s warehouse in the City of Industry, moves some of the personal effects and keepsakes of the late Bill Davies, a bandleader from the 1930s and ‘40s, that his heirs have requested be returned to them. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Craig Hendrickson, operations chief for the county public administrator’s warehouse, looks at an old Harley Davidson motorcycle and an automobile that will be sold at auction. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Caren Alvarez of the county public administrator’s office makes a cursory search of the apartment of Jean Comstock in Long Beach. Comstock died at a neighbor’s apartment down the hall of natural causes, and had no living heirs. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Caren Alvarez, a deputy with the county public administrator, investigates the assets of decedent Jean Comstock inside Comstock’s apartment in Long Beach. The photograph is of Comstock. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
People examine jewelry at a monthly county auction of the possessions of those who died without heirs. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Jose Cerda of Glendale checks out jewelry at the auction. The items from hundreds of estates are housed in a county warehouse in the City of Industry where the auctions are held. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
People pick through boxes filled with items before an auction at the public administrator’s office. About half the estates in the county vault and warehouse are worth $30,000 or less. About a third are worth more than $100,000, including the estates of some celebrities. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Hector Catellanos of Van Nuys bids at the auction. Auction regulars stake out artwork and memorabilia with a discerning and wary eye. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)