Crime: Mass Murder in Soquel

A parked car blocked the dirt road to the burning hilltop home of Dr. Victor Ohta. Leaving his pickup truck, Soquel, Calif., Assistant Fire Chief Ernest Negro ran to the house to find "the roof was really going." As the local fire trucks screamed up to the main entrance, Negro looked and found that it also was blocked by Dr. Ohta's maroon Rolls-Royce. "I felt awfully funny for a second," Negro recalls. "Somebody seemed determined to prevent anybody from getting near the fire. If I knew then what I know now, I would have gotten out fast."

What Negro and...

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