Elmore Kittower, 80

Died Nov. 5, 2007

Elmore Kittower, an 80-year-old white man, was listed as a homicide victim in coroner's records — time of death, 12:10 a.m., Monday, Nov. 5.

Although coroner's officials placed a security hold on the case, details of his death were reported by The Times' Scott Glover in December 2007:

On Sunday, Oct. 28, the Kittower family gathered at Silverado Senior Living in Calabasas to celebrate Elmore's 80th birthday. The following Sunday, his wife Rita and daughter Elise came back for their weekly visit. 

It was the last time they saw Elmore alive.

The assisted living facility specialized in taking care of memory-impaired patients such as Elmore. Rita said she warned the staff that her husband could be combative and refuse to take his medication but was told that wouldn't be a problem.

The price for such service wasn't cheap. Rita said she paid nearly $75,000 a year for her husband to share a room with another patient.

Rita learned that her husband of 49 years had died when a sheriff's deputy knocked on her door. He told her that her husband had died at 8:30 that morning. When Rita called the nursing home she was told that Elmore had "just stopped breathing."

On Nov. 10, the day after her husband was buried, Rita received a mysterious call from a woman who identified herself only as Maria. The woman said she hadn't slept in three days.

"She just couldn't stand what she saw," Rita said. "She had to tell me what happened."

The woman said a staff member had punched Elmore in the eye and wrapped a towel around his head in an apparent attempt to suffocate him.

"I felt like I was going to throw up" Rita recalled. "I said I can't listen to this."

She hung up the phone, but not before getting the woman's number. Rita asked her son to call the woman back. He elicited more details from the caller. When Rita asked about it, he said, "You don't want to know."

Rita asked her nephew, Paul Zwerdling, an attorney, to call the Sheriff's Department.

As it turned out, sheriff's officials already had their suspicions about Elmore Kittower's death. The woman who called Rita Kittower also made an anonymous call to the Lost Hills sheriff's station and mailed an anonymous letter to a nearby fire station.

Lt. Al Grotefend, a supervisor in the sheriff's homicide unit, declined to discuss the case in detail. But he said detectives gathered sufficient evidence to warrant an exhumation. Authorities can dig up a body with a court order even if family members are opposed, but detectives sought Rita Kittower's approval as a matter of courtesy and to make the process quicker.

Rita said she shuddered at the thought of her husband being cut up on an autopsy table and had a nightmare in which he was wheeled to the front door of their home in a casket.

But after consulting with family members, she agreed to the exhumation in order to "find out the truth" and protect any other potential victims.

Read Glover's complete story: A nursing home death, and a shocking phone call