After a lengthy investigation, investigators determined the vehicle was buried for insurance fraud, they wrote in a statement Thursday. The car’s owner, Johnny Bocktune Lew, was the former owner of the mansion at 351 Stockbridge Ave. He was accused in 1999 of hiring people to sink a $1.2 million yacht to cash in on the insurance. Liu, who is dead, also served time in prison for murder and attempted murder in Los Angeles County decades ago. Atherton police had previously refused to confirm any links in their investigation to Lew, who also built the property in 1990 and whose family lived there until 2014. Investigators said the car was buried “sometime in the 1990s” about five feet into the ground, around the time Lew reported the car stolen to the Palo Alto Police Department and filed an insurance claim on the car. The car was a 1991 Mercedes Benz 500 SL, and it was registered to Lew, who was described by his daughter as someone who was “programmed” and had “emotional problems”. According to the Los Angeles Times, Lew collected $87,000 in money from the buried car. Annie Vainshtein (she/her) is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @annievain
