Explosives turned up Sunday in a former daycare shuttered by
state regulators months ago, forcing police to evacuate neighbors
within 300 feet of the empty home.
Gilroy – Explosives turned up Sunday in a former daycare shuttered by state regulators months ago, forcing police to evacuate neighbors within 300 feet of the empty home.
Salinas resident Eric Duell said he was collecting his kids’ bikes from the former Gilroy home of his ex-wife Jody Duell when he found a gunnysack of homemade bombs in the laundry room. He described the explosives as bricks wrapped in flammable soaked rags, with a roughly eight-inch tube running along the sides.
Gilroy Police Sgt. Jim Gillio declined to comment on what the bombs were, but said they weren’t plastic explosives or military-grade bombs. The devices have “minor explosive capability” and could cause injury, though they were not evidently planted to hurt someone, he added. No arrests had been made by press time Monday, but Gilroy police are actively investigating the case, Sgt. Gillio said. Possession of illegal explosives is a misdemeanor punishable by one year in jail or state prison, or a $10,000 fine.
The home on Lone Deer Way was vacant Sunday afternoon, but Eric Duell had gained access along with the property manager, who accompanied him to retrieve his kids’ belongings, he said. Jody Duell had been evicted from the home in April. Alarmed by Eric Duell’s find, the manager phoned Gilroy police, who closed off the block and called the Sheriff’s bomb squad.
“We had no idea what was going on,” said neighbor Pat Leake. “They told us to leave – so we left.”
Using a robot, the squad safely removed and defused the bombs, a four-hour process that had some neighbors wondering if they’d have to spend the night elsewhere. About 5pm, the block was re-opened, said Sgt. Gillio, who estimated that between 10 and 20 homes were evacuated.
Former daycare had troubled past
The incident spooked neighbors, who were already leery of the home. Investigators from the state Community Care Licensing Division shut down Jody Duell’s home childcare, Gigglebox, in March after the Gilroy woman disappeared for several weeks, stranding parents who relied on the business. That morning, her assistant Angelica Medina encountered an empty home and a dozen shocked parents, soon surrounded by police cruisers.
“I was so scared,” said Medina. “I thought maybe she’d done something to herself.”
Gilroy police referred the case to the district attorney’s Child Abduction Unit, who told Sgt. Gillio that the Gilroy woman returned home April 3 with her kids. After Jody Duell’s disappearance and the loss of her childcare license, Eric Duell says he obtained full custody of their two children.
Investigator Jeffrey Hiratsuka claimed Duell had also allowed two convicts, Mark Tomasello and Beau Ramsay, access to the facility, had been convicted of resisting arrest in June 2006, and was booked for drug possession the following December, when she tried to walk into the South County Courthouse with a 2-gram baggie of crystal methamphetamine. Hiratsuka requested that Jody Duell be banned from holding a childcare license for life.
Two parents who sent their children to Jody Duell’s daycare said she began behaving strangely in the weeks before her disappearance. She claimed she was a princess, and that the FBI was watching her, they said. Both declined to give their names, afraid that Duell might harm them.
“She stopped showering. She didn’t do her hair. She wore the same clothes as the day before,” said Medina, describing Duell’s behavior the week before she vanished. “I wasn’t sure what was going on. I just let the parents know that I was taking care of the kids, so there was nothing to worry about.”
Medina said she has no childcare training, had never undergone the criminal background check required to work in a licensed childcare, and was always paid in cash. She applied to help clean the facility, she said, and ended up spending several hours each day caring for the children.
Renter evicted months ago
Jody Duell was evicted from the Lone Deer Way home in April, after she gave her 30-day notice, then failed to move out, said homeowner Ariel Rodeo.
“Up to this day we have not been able to get into the home,” Rodeo complained. The eviction was a bizarre cap to Duell’s flawless two-and-a-half year rental history, he said: Duell had never missed a rental payment, nor paid late. Eric Duell said the home was filthy when he stopped by Sunday afternoon, with unflushed toilets and maggots littering the kitchen, and a faint chemical smell.
Medina recalled the smell too.
“I wasn’t sure what it was – maybe sewage,” she said. “It was all over the place sometimes.”
Sunday afternoon, as the bomb squad worked to secure the Lone Deer Way home, neighbors took their kids to play in a nearby park, and tried to calm their rattled children.
“The kids were pretty shaken up,” said one neighbor, who asked that his name not be used. “It’s all been so weird.”
