Police investigating after landscapers find car buried decades ago in yard of multimillion-dollar California home
Police are digging into why someone buried a car in the yard of a multimillion-dollar Northern California home in the 1990s and left unused bags of concrete inside. The car was discovered Thursday morning by landscapers in the affluent town of Atherton in Silicon Valley, police said in a news release titled "suspicious circumstances."
Cadaver dogs were brought in and "made a slight notification of possible human remains," but none had been found more than 12 hours after the car was recovered, according to Atherton Police Cmdr. Daniel Larsen.
The San Mateo Crime Lab was contacted and sent technicians to assist with excavating the vehicle, police said.
Police believe the car was buried 4 to 5 feet deep in the 1990s - before the current owners bought the home - but Larsen would not say what led detectives to that conclusion.
The unused bags of concrete were placed throughout the vehicle, though it was blanketed by dirt over the roof, he said.
The sprawling home and property is valued at $15 million, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. Larsen said the current homeowners were not under investigation.
"The motive and circumstances surrounding this incident are under investigation," police said in a statement.
Atherton is one of the wealthiest towns in the U.S., with about 7,000 residents within its nearly 5 square miles.