Two skeletal remains
found in Somerton home

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

Something was leaking from a quaint brick rancher on the corner of Bustleton Avenue and Larkspur Road last Thursday.
If neighbors hadn’t detected the water problem, there’s no telling how long it might have taken for someone to discover the skeletal remains of two people inside the home.
Police were called to 11520 Bustleton Ave. at about 10:30 that morning after a Philadelphia Water Department worker found the badly decomposed bodies. One was lying on a bed, while the other was sitting on a nearby chair with a gun at its side, according to Chief Inspector Scott Small.
The water employee had entered the home to investigate a complaint by a neighbor of a water leak.
At the scene, police speculated that the two occupants of the home had been dead for months at least.
"The bodies were skeletons. They were skeletal remains," Small said. "Therefore, we couldn’t identify whether they were male or female or what race they were."
The medical examiner’s office was able to remove the remains and transport them essentially intact. Police found a note in the bedroom, but did not disclose its contents.
It had been more than a year, perhaps even two years, since neighbors last saw an elderly mother and middle-aged son believed to have lived there, according to Kim Parcella, a longtime resident of the block.
The city’s property database lists John D. Connor as the owner. He bought the place in October 1979.
According to Parcella, the last activity she saw at the home was about two years ago when a motorist sideswiped the son’s green Pontiac, which was parked along Larkspur Road. Parcella didn’t speak with the son about the incident, but she later saw that his car had been repaired.
The same vehicle has been parked outside of the home for many months now without moving, Parcella said. Registration and inspection stickers on the vehicle expired last September.
The car’s license plate has a Fraternal Order of Police frame. Parcella believes that the man who lived in the home was a retired police officer in his 50s or 60s.
Small acknowledged that police were investigating the possibility that one of the skeletons is that of a retired officer.
The abandoned car wasn’t the only sign of suspicious inactivity at the home. Grass and shrubs throughout the small yard were severely overgrown. They got that way last spring and summer, too, prompting the city’s Community Life Improvement Program to mow the property, according to Parcella.
"I think they came out twice," she said of CLIP.
Usually, CLIP bills the homeowner for any work performed by the city on private property.
Though Parcella never saw large piles of unopened mail outside the home, she did notice that supermarket circulars collected on occasion in a side driveway.
Inside the home, Small said, the floor was severely warped and buckling from apparent long-term water damage.
Parcella knew of no conflict or disturbances at the home during the 14 years she has lived nearby.
"In all of the years we’ve lived here, they always kept to themselves," she said. ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com