Former SFPD Lt. Oberhoffer - Trail of bodies in S.F. flat

Trail of bodies in S.F. flat

Larry D. Hatfield and Justino Aguila, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Monday, October 11, 1999

1999-10-11 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- In a what a veteran police lieutenant described as one of the worst crimes he's ever seen, a 62-year-old airport security guard described by family as "scared of everything" apparently shot and killed three people, two of them San Francisco high school teachers, inside their Ingleside District home and wounded a toddler before taking his own life.

"I've been a cop for 21 years and this is probably one of the top five of the worst ones I've seen," said Lt. David Oberhoffer, platoon commander at Taraval Station, who also is a former investigator on the tough night crime investigations unit and a beat cop in the Inner Mission.

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About Oberhoffer:

• Lt. David Oberhoffer San Francisco Police Department just before he retired was in my offices.
• Read "The Relationships" - The what's Missing Primer ~ Killing the Investigation
• His connection to the loss of my Pleasant Hill Business 
• His connection to the Walnut Creek Police, CNET, Bomb Squad and SWAT 
• How Mayor Newsome and many elected officials are well aware of my story and have sat back while I've narrowly escaped death many times since 2010
• How my story connects to the San Bruno Fire.  

"A whole family wiped out, just like that." (really Dave? you had to say that?)


Police said they had yet to establish a motive for the Sunday afternoon shooting, but relatives of Lorenzo


"Sol" Silva - a gun collector and San Francisco International Airport guard - said he was on medication (THEY ALWAYS SAY THAT) and they had feared for his mental health in recent years.






The Really Weird Part
POETS CORNERS
Pleasant Hill CA

The dead were identified as Noel and Josephine Ridual, both 28, Maria Teresa "Ola" Marquicias, 32, and Silva, the apparent shooter. Riduals' 18-month-old daughter, Jessica, was in critical but stable condition at San Francisco General Hospital from a large-caliber gunshot wound that apparently passed through her body back to front.

Oberhoffer, among the first to arrive at the cream-colored home at 33 De Montfort Ave. after victims' relatives called police at 1:20 p.m. Sunday, said officers found a scene of "incredible carnage."

"When I went inside, there were four bodies on the main floor of the upstairs flat, all within 15 feet of each other," Oberhoffer said. "The baby had already been taken to the hospital. She was sitting in one of those child chairs at the dining room table. She was shot while in the chair. It appeared to be an interrupted dinner scene with the bodies leading to the back bedroom."

The body of Josephine Ridual was face up on the dining room floor, shot in the head. Noel Ridual, who taught math at Abraham Lincoln High School, was dead inside the back bedroom door, also face up and shot in the head. The body of Marquicias, who taught special education at Balboa High, was found face up in the bed in the bedroom. She was believed to have been shot in the chest or head.

SFPD, and Former Mayor Newsom, Walnut Creek PD, and the District Attorneys offices are well aware of events near me that connect to Oberhoffer.

Also in the bedroom was Silva's body, "with his head blown off and a gun at his feet," Oberhoffer said. The wound appeared to be self-inflicted, he said.

The apparent murder and suicide weapon was a .357 Magnum revolver found with Silva's body.

Other members of the extended family living in the two-story house said they heard five or six shots. Silva's mother, Maria Silva, went to the second-floor flat, discovered the bodies and called police, as did another relative in the house, police said.

Oberhoffer said the scene inside and outside the house quickly became chaotic as grieving relatives, friends and neighbors converged.

"There were lots of heated emotions and grieving," he said. "Here was a whole family gone. It was bad, more so because of the proximity of family and the youth of the victims."

The entire block of De Montfort Avenue in this working class neighborhood was cordoned off for several hours as investigators worked inside the home. Outside, gawkers lined the streets as family and friends of the dead arrived on the scene.

Family in disbelief

"I can't believe it," said Silva's tearful brother Silvestre, who lives in Hercules but since 1975 has owned the home where the deaths occurred. "My brother was nervous for a long time. I'm not sure what really happened."

Lorenzo Silva, his mother, sister and brother-in-law, Buenventura Lirios, lived in the downstairs unit, while the Riduals and Marquicias rented the flat upstairs.

During the summer, Noel Ridual brought his wife Josephine and daughter Jessica from the Philippines. His wife had been hoping to eventually become a teacher as well, friends said.

Marquicias and Ridual were in the same teaching program, which brings educators from other countries into San Francisco classrooms for a five-year teaching stint. She moved into the Riduals' unit in February.

The Silva family, including Lorenzo Silva's wife, came to San Francisco from the Philippines in 1972. Lorenzo Silva's wife moved back to the Philippines last year for undisclosed reasons.

Silvestre Silva said his brother recently had suffered anxiety attacks. "He was so sick. (At times) he sounded like he was drowning.

"I couldn't believe he would do this. He's not aggressive. He's very cool. I don't know why he did this. The people upstairs were his friends."

For several months, Silvestre Silva - a devout Catholic - tried to persuade his brother to go to a priest who he thought could rescue him from his mental problems.

"He was on medications," Silva said. "It's weird. He was like a guy who was scared of everything."

At the urging of his family, Lorenzo Silva went to the Philippines last year in hopes of finding a healer to alleviate his emotional turmoil. "He went there, but didn't get treatment," Silvestre Silva said.

Relatives said Silva kept several weapons in his flat, but apparently only one gun was used in the slayings. Guards at SFO, where Silva had worked for about 20 years, do not carry weapons. The airport is patrolled by armed members of the San Francisco Police Department's airport unit. Silva had worked the graveyard shift before returning home Sunday morning.

Airport officials were not available Monday morning to discuss whether they knew of Silva's alleged mental troubles or if he had had any job problems.

Silva apparently did not have any police record. Oberhoffer said a computer search of police records revealed no previous trouble calls to the family's home near City College.

Victims remembered

Shortly after 4 p.m. Sunday, coroner's aides carried out the four bodies as neighbors, family and friends looked on. Throughout the evening friends continued to arrive, wanting to know more about what had taken place.

"Ola was vivacious," said former Balboa High School Dean Fay Vickroy, whom Marquicias lived with when she first arrived from the Philippines in 1998. "She has two kids in the Philippines."

The Vickroys often saw the Riduals on Sundays at St. Emydius Church, about a block away from the De Montfort address.

Lirios, 67, Lorenzo Silva's brother-in-law, was downstairs watching TV with his mother-in-law when he heard about half a dozen gunshots.

"I didn't think it was Lorenzo," Lirios said. "I was scared. I knew they were gunshots. Lorenzo was himself (in the morning). I knew he was taking medications."

Neighbor Michael Gorley, who has lived next door for seven months, said the shots came in two groups about 30 seconds apart.

According to Silva's family and friends, he had been married 35 years but his wife, Luz Silva, recently returned to the Philippines. Family said the couple had been separated for some time.

Diane Alexander said she didn't even look outside when she heard the fire engines racing down the street because there is a station so close to their home she figured they must be going out on a nearby call. When the sirens continued to blare, she looked out the window and knew it was something serious. Shootings happen "over the hill where they sell drugs."

"But here, it's always cool," Alexander said. "It's a good neighborhood." <