January 27, 2005

Car pulled from Almaden Lake raises questions about five-year-old unsolved murder

By Kymberli W. Brady
Staff Writer

What started out as an underwater training mission at Almaden Lake Thursday afternoon turned into a recovery effort that initially found San Jose police reaching for a five-year- old cold case file.

Ping Wang

“We found probably a 20-year-old car,” explained Lt. Dale Unger, commander of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office Underwater Search Unit (USU). “We don’t even know what type it is and haven’t been able to retrieve all of it. It was so corroded and so rusted out that we’ve only been able to bring up the hood and a quarter panel so far.”

The USU team had been using Almaden Lake for underwater Side Scan Sonar training when they came across the car. Unger admitted they locked on to it during their first training exercise last month, but passed it off as a shopping cart.

“This is actually the first opportunity we’ve had to get some professional training on the unit,” Unger noted. “We hit that car last month when we were trying out the Side Scan sonar, but we had it at the wrong resolution. We got an image, but after he taught us how to properly use the equipment, then we could clearly see that it was a car and that it was rusted out.”

In an eerie coincidence, the find comes just one week after the fifth anniversary of another, more gruesome discovery, when police and cadaver dogs found the body of 38-year-old Ping Wang in the thick reeds alongside the lake on Jan. 14, 2000, not far from her Almaden Valley apartment complex, near the intersection of Coleman Road and Almaden Expressway.

Initially, Unger said the San Jose Police Department took an interest in the discovery and whether or not it had any relevance to Wang’s case, which today, remains unsolved.

“They were inquiring about that,” Unger said. “But I don’t believe they are associated. This car has been in there probably 20 years or more—it is literally being torn apart as the tow truck tries to pull it out of the water.”

Although the condition of the car all but ruled out any connection to the Wang case, Unger said they still treated it like a crime scene until they were sure that it wasn’t. Four divers delicately searched around and inside the car before calling an all clear.

“There’s no evidence of any body or anything,” he said. “But we did search—we were considering that too.”

Looking back
According to reports, Wang, a 38-year old accountant for the Silicon Valley Capital Club left her office around 10:30 p.m. on Dec. 8, 2000 to attend a late night business meeting. She vanished without a trace and left a trail that was cold by daybreak.

Although police suspected foul play when Wang, a single mother failed to return home to her two children, the case garnered barely a mention in the local media, largely due to the high-profile disappearance of 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild just two days later.

Even a $5,000 reward offered by the Carole Sund Carrington Foundation failed to elicit vital media coverage or information that would shed more light on Wang’s disappearance. Within days, the case, already cold, slipped quietly off the radar, until more than a month later, when San Jose police decided on a hunch to search the lake areas surrounding Wang’s home and found her body less than 100 feet from her apartment.

Moving forward
Five years later—almost to the day, homicide detectives continue to follow leads and look as possible suspects, but stop short of giving any details, including her cause of death.

“Since the case is still open, we can’t give that information out as it could jeopardize it,” explained Sergeant Will Manion, who now oversees the homicide investigation. “When you have a who done it, you have to look at everybody as a suspect. No arrests have been made, but our homicide detectives have been looking at several people and it is ongoing.”

In 2000, Press Information Officer Enrique Garcia started with the department’s homicide division and was assigned to the Wang case. After five years, he looks forward to the day when he can make the call that will give the Wang family closure.

“It’s sad because I’ve kept in contact with them all this time,” he said. “It’s sad for the kids and the entire family.”

With just a few pieces of the puzzle missing, Garcia was quick to stress how important information—even rumors and speculation could be to a case like this.

“The more information we get the better,” he said. “Sometimes people have information that they’ll write off as not important, but it could make or break this case. Any information could be the piece of the puzzle that’s missing, that we need. Even if its hearsay, we want to know.”

“Right now the case is still open and we’re looking at several potential suspects,” reminded Manion. “And we’re not going to stop looking until we have him.”

Anyone with any information that might lead to solving the Ping Wang case is encouraged to call the San Jose Police Department Homicide Division at (408) 277-5283. All information, no matter how insignificant is welcomed.