THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 22, 1996 TAG: 9603220520
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
A badly decomposed body found stuffed in a cardboard box in an apartment closet may be that of missing 16-year-old Adam Wese, police said Thursday night.
And the 18-year-old man who called police to report that the body was in his apartment was taken into custody.
Late Thursday night Louis Pino was charged with murder and was being held at the City Jail.
Official confirmation of the victim's identity will not come until today, said police spokesman Larry Hill, after the State Medical Examiner's office examines the body both to determine the identity and to set a cause of death.
Detectives were sure enough of the victim's identity Thursday night, however, that police took the unusual step of saying they believe the body is that of Wese.
``We have spoken to the Wese family and have advised them of the possibility that it may be their son,'' Hill said.
The family has been asked to provide dental records for use by the medical examiner.
The family was shown a picture of the suspect late Thursday but did not recognize the man, Hill said.
Police dispatchers received a call about 3:15 p.m. from a man who said there was a body in his home, Hill said. When investigators arrived at his apartment in the 1000 block of Little Bay Ave. - just three blocks from Wese's home - the man led them to a bedroom closet and a cardboard box inside.
After removing the body, police sealed the apartment pending further investigation.
Hill declined, for investigative reasons, to say why police were so certain that the remains are Wese's. But detectives D.M. Goldberg and J.P. Baron, who are handling the case, did question Pino extensively Thursday night.
Investigators were offering no details about any motive in the death, but Hill said they were pulling together a scenario.
Wese was reported missing Jan. 18 after being last seen at a bus stop near his home in the 800 block of Little Bay Ave. in Norfolk. Robert Wese, the boy's father, said he last saw his son about 6 a.m. that day.
Robert Wese said his son was depressed at the time of his disappearance. A day before he vanished, he had broken up with a girlfriend from Bayside High School in Virginia Beach.
The boy, who had enrolled in the ninth grade at Granby High School in Norfolk, moved in with his father in October after living with his mother in Virginia Beach. His parents divorced in 1990.
Desperate to find his son, the elder Wese had posted fliers with the boy's picture and description around the Ocean View area and even on pizza delivery boxes.
He hired an airplane to fly over Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, where his son had attended classes, towing a banner: ``ADAM WESE . . . COME HOME . . . WE LOVE YOU . . . DAD.''
He even consulted two psychics. One said his son was alive but 50 miles away. They other said the boy was dead.
Shortly after the boy was reported missing, Norfolk police said they were looking for possible ties between the disappearance and the arrest of self-proclaimed vampire Jon C. Bush of Virginia Beach.
Police initially found no evidence to connect the two. But Hill said Thursday night that he could not say with certainty whether or not there are links. ILLUSTRATION: 16-year-old Adam Wese was last seen Jan. 18 at a bus stop near
his Norfolk home.
KEYWORDS: MURDER ARREST by CNB