Handyman arrested after Cupertino investor present in shallow grave

CUPERTINO – A week after he mysteriously disappeared, a well-known Cupertino real estate investor and citizen leader was found in a shallow grave in the Central Valley, apparently strangled by a troubled craftsman he had taken under his wing, authorities said.

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When the suspect hastily planned how he would evade suspicion, he reportedly told his mother that “he buried a problem up in the mountains”.

Christopher Charles Ellebracht, 38

It was one of several acts in which investigators say 38-year-old Christopher Charles Ellebracht connected the dots to himself. Prior to his mother’s tacit confession, he attempted to cash a check for the victim’s $ 10,000 at an ATM that photographed him and his delivery truck. When he was arrested for brandishing a knife near the burial site, he was still carrying 70-year-old Gin Lu “Tommy” Shwe’s wallet.

“This is a callous and cold-blooded murder,” Sheriff Laurie Smith said at a press conference in Cupertino on Monday. “Any loss of life is tragic, but the strangulation and soulless burial to hide and evade the pursuit of justice is particularly troubling.”

But Joanne Ellebracht offers a different portrayal of her son and says that he has had paranoid schizophrenia for a long time and that at the end of their wisdom both tried to provide him with services that he urgently needed.

“I’ve been fighting for my son for 30 years to give him psychological support,” said Joanne Ellebracht. “I pleaded with people and pleaded, ‘Please help him.’ The system doesn’t work. “

The mental illness, she said, fueled her son’s criminal record, including a 2004 encounter in Fontana where he was shot by police while partially dragging her in his truck during a vehicle stop, and a case last fall in Santa Cruz, where he reportedly hit over a dozen cars before he was stopped on Highway 17. On January 14, four days before he was believed to have killed Shwe, he was charged with a crime of drug driving in South Lake Tahoe.

She added that she was devastated by the death of Shwe, to whom she owed credit for giving her son a job and out of sheer compassion helping him find an apartment for the past two years.

“I loved Tommy, he helped Christopher a lot,” she said. “I am very sorry for his family.”

Chistopher Ellebracht was charged Monday with the murder of Shwe. The mountains he allegedly mentioned turned out to be the area near Three Rivers, a small town east of Visalia that leads to Sequoia National Park. On a remote country road Wednesday, corpse sniffing dogs with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s search and rescue team found a hastily excavated grave containing Shwe’s body.

Gin Lu “Tommy” Shwe, 70, from Cupertino Polite photo

An autopsy on Friday officially confirmed that Shwe was indeed Shwe and that he had been strangled with a rope or something similar. Shwe, a former school board member and prominent Cupertino civic presence, was reported missing on January 18 after failing to return from the 24-hour gym in Sunnyvale the night before and then missing a work meeting that morning.

Huei-Saint Shwe, the victim’s son, made brief remarks before asking the public to respect his family’s privacy.

“When the details of my father’s disappearance became known, we were shocked and saddened that my father’s life story had come to such a tragic end,” he said. “It is incomprehensible to us how something like this could happen to such a kind and devoted soul as my father’s.”

Huei-Saint Shwe speaks during the announcement of the arrest of suspect Christopher Ellebracht in the murder of Shwe’s father Gin Lu “Tommy” Shwe during a press conference at the Cupertino Community Hall in Cupertino, Calif., On Monday, January 30, 2017. (Gary Reyes / Bay Area News Group)

Cupertino Mayor Savita Vaidhyanathan honored Tommy Shwe for many years of service to the city, which included serving on the school council in the 1980s and various philanthropic activities since.

“We lost a loved one and community leader who worked to improve the lives of our residents,” she said.

The morning Shwe was reported missing, his family noticed strange activity, beginning with a check signed in his name for $ 10,000 deposited at an ATM in Morgan Hill.

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But the big break in the case came on January 20 when Ellebracht’s white truck was found abandoned near Three Rivers, which sparked a reaction from a Tulare County sheriff’s deputy and a California Highway Patrol officer. An examination of the area around the van revealed a cell phone that fell into a puddle and determined that it belonged to Shwe.

They contacted the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, which obtained a search warrant to take the van and investigate, which led them to formally link it to Ellebracht. Inside the vehicle, investigators found bloody clothing and a receipt for a shovel bought at a Home Depot in Morgan Hill shortly after the check was deposited.

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s investigators say this surveillance picture at a Morgan Hill Home Depot shows Christopher Ellebracht buying a shovel allegedly used to bury Gin Lu “Tommy” Shwe, whose body was in. January 25, 2017 was discovered in a shallow grave outside Visalia.

At this point, Ellebracht was already in Tulare County Jail after being arrested in Visalia on Jan. 22 for allegedly waving a knife at someone near a fast food restaurant. During the arrest, local police found him with Shwe’s wallet.

The next day, Joanne Ellebracht informed Visalia police that her son had contacted her and told her that he “buried a problem” in a mountainous area and that he wandered into town after his van got stuck in a river be. That prompted authorities to return to Three Rivers and search the area where they found the van, and the search dogs found the shallow grave.

Joanne Ellebracht denies the context in which the authorities presented her son’s statements, claiming that it was more of ranting a mentally ill man than an admission of guilt. She said that some of his beliefs include that he is both part and targeted by the CIA.

“He’s so insane, that’s a normal comment,” she said. “The police used my emotions to their advantage.”

Investigators countered this claim with the fact that the suspect’s mountain hikes effectively provided a road map to Shwe’s body. But they haven’t found a motive, any clarity that his family will wait for as they prepare to lay their father to rest.

“We also ask that you contact the authorities if anyone has additional information on my father’s case.”