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On the fourth day of the search, Doctor Stephens arrived at the
site and informed Ballard that the bones found near the driveway,
were definitely human. Shortly after he arrived, another bone
was found which appeared to have been cut neatly on both ends by a
saw or similar cutting tool. As the search progressed,
numerous items were unearthed from various locations. In the
trench that ran from the bunker to the entry road, police found a
plastic bag containing a letter addressed to Charles Ng and a
receipt in the name of Harvey Dubs. Next they unearthed
a shirt with the name "Scott" embroidered on it.
Literally hundreds of items, which had to be painstakingly
photographed and held for analysis, were removed from the site.
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| Paul Cosner |
Robin Stapley |
| Victims |
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It wasn't until the fifth day that the first bodies were found.
The skeletal remains of two people seemed to be complete but the
bones had been sawn into sections and badly burned.
Ironically, at 8.00pm on the same day the skeletons were found,
doctors at Kaiser Permanente Hospital switched off Leonard Lake's
life support - he died within seconds.
Later, a sealed five gallon bucket was uncovered which contained
a cheque book in the name of Robin Scott Stapley, jewelery, credit
cards, driver's licenses, wallets and two videotapes without labels
and a third marked "M. Ladies Kathy/Brenda." The
first two videos were later viewed, the first showing Lake and
Balasz at a Thanksgiving dinner. On the second, Lake had been
filmed discussing his greatest fantasy - kidnapping a woman and
enslaving her. The third video was the most disturbing, it
showed a young woman, identified only as Kathy, changed to a chair
and later forced to perform a striptease while being taunted by two
men, Lake and Ng. In another part of the video, Ng could be
seen clearly cavorting on a bed with Kathy while Lake took still
photographs.
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| Kathleen Allen, Victim |
The young woman was later identified as eighteen-year-old
Kathy Allen, a clerk at a supermarket in Milpitas. Allen was
apparently lured to the site by Lake, who told her that her boyfriend
had been shot. Police later revealed that Allen's boyfriend, a
known drug dealer named Michael Sean Carroll, had been Ng's cellmate
in Leavenworth. |
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| Brenda O'Connor, Lonnie Bond
and Lonnie Jr., Victims |
The tape also included footage of another young woman named
Brenda, which showed her begging for information regarding her baby.
In answer, Lake tells her "Your baby is sound asleep, like a
rock." Eventually, when the constant barrage of taunts
and threats breaks her resolve, Brenda agrees to cooperate.
Later in the tape she can be heard taking a shower with both men.
The second victim shown on the tape was nineteen-year-old Brenda
O'Connor, Lake's next-door neighbor. Police believe that her
common-law husband Lonnie Bond and their baby, Lonnie Jr. were
murdered by Lake and Ng prior to the tape being made.
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As the search progressed, the searchers uncovered a partial
skull, another plastic bucket containing personal items and a
complete, albeit burned body. Within minutes four more bodies,
including that of a child, were uncovered. Two were female,
the other a black male. A short time later another plastic
container and a long twelve-inch diameter metal tube were unearthed.
Inside the container, police found 1,863 silver dollars, more
wallets and credit cards. The tube contained a Colt AR-15
semi-automatic rifle. In another search of a mound of freshly
dug earth some distance from the cabin, two more bodies were
uncovered; both had been killed by a single, small calibre bullet to
the head. The bunker was later completely demolished in the
search for more bodies.
As the search wound down, the bodies of seven men, three women,
two baby boys and forty-five pounds of bone fragments had been
recovered, along with numerous amounts of property belonging to the
deceased. In all, police found evidence suggesting that up to
twenty-five people, who had previously been reported missing, may
have been murdered in or around the Wilseyville compound but the
fact that most of the bodies had been cut up, burnt and scattered
around the site made identification extremely difficult.
Eventually, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Charles Chitat Ng
for twelve murders.
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| The Dubs Family (AP) |
The victims would eventually be identified as Kathleen Allen,
her boyfriend Michael Carroll, Robin Scott Stapley, Randy Johnson,
Charles "The Fat Man" Gunnar (Lake's best man), Donald Lake
(Leonard's brother), Paul Cosner, (the owner of the Honda), Brenda
O'Connor, Lonnie Bond Snr., Lonnie Bond Jr., (Lake's next door
neighbors) and Harvey Dubs, Deborah Dubs and Sean Dubs. (The
Dubs family had been abducted and killed after Ng and Lake went to
their house in relation to audio equipment that Harvey Dubs had
advertised for sale.) |
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| Carroll |
Johnson |
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| Gunnar |
Donald Lake |
| Victims |
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