A Mysterious Mercedes Benz convertible filled with bags of cement mix was uncovered on the grounds of a Silicon Valley mansion, proving you never know what you’ll dig up on a landscape project.
Mercedes with a story
When police got to the $15 million-dollar mansion in the 300 block of Stockbridge Avenue they identified the body of a Mercedes Benz 560 SL.
On Thursday morning, October 20, police in Atherton, California got a call from some homeowners who discovered a car “while working on a landscaping project.” Well, their landscapers discovered it, they just called it in.
After a little digging, the officers confirmed that the Mercedes had been “reported stolen three decades ago.” It was also “tied to a man with a criminal record.” It was pretty well buried, Mayor Rick DeGolia observes.
Landscapers working on a project at an Atherton mansion discovered a car buried in the yard on Thursday, police say. https://t.co/GMWc4xVPEb
— FOX 5 Atlanta (@FOX5Atlanta) October 22, 2022
“The car was approximately four to five feet underground, and contained unused bags of concrete.” It was a convertible and was buried with the top down.
Police brought in cadaver dogs and they gave an alert but no “possible human remains” had been found.
An update Friday from the San Mateo County Crime relates that they “began excavating the car” but haven’t found anything interesting in the Mercedes yet. All they can say for certain is the car was buried long before the current owners came along, so they’re in the clear.
Buried in the 1990s
Piecing the clues together leads detectives to think the car was buried “sometime in the 1990s.” It was “reported stolen in September 1992 in Palo Alto, nearby Stanford University.” Technicians have already been inside the trunk and haven’t found more than a spare tire.
According to Atherton Police Commander Daniel Larsen, “the possible owner of the Mercedes is believed to be deceased but that officials are waiting for DMV records to confirm that.”
It turns out that the original owner, “Johnny Lew, reportedly has a history of arrests for murder, attempted murder and insurance fraud.”
That would explain how he knew to leave the top down on the Mercedes and fill the space with something which wouldn’t leave an embarrassing sinkhole later. From the pro way he did it, there may be more cars buried around Silicon Valley.
Lew’s daughter filled in local reporters on the story. She explained “the family lived at the property in the 1990s and that her father had died in 2015 in Washington state.” Back in 1966, long before he owned the Mercedes, “Lew was found guilty of murdering a 21-year-old woman in Los Angeles County and he was released from prison after the state’s Supreme Court reversed the conviction two years later.” He got out on a technicality.
“Over a decade later, in 1977, he was convicted of two counts of attempted murder and spent three years in prison.” That’s when he switched careers to insurance fraud. “in the late 1990s, Lew was arrested for insurance fraud after he hired undercover police officers to take a $1.2 million yacht ‘out west of the Golden Gate Bridge into international waters and put it on the bottom.‘“
