Neighbor: Foster City Homicide Victim Found 'In a Pool of Blood'

It took authorities several hours from the time they discovered a man’s body on a tranquil Foster City cul de sac Friday afternoon to officially rule the case a homicide.

But if details that have emerged from the frantic sequence that led to police being dispatched to the 600 block of Waterbury Lane are any indication, investigators had to have known in an instant that the yet-to-be officially identified victim didn’t die of natural causes.

According to a neighbor who asked not to be identified, a distraught maid who discovered the body at about 3 p.m. rushed to a nearby home where a man called police. The man, who went to the victim’s home, told the neighbor the victim was “lying face down in a pool of blood” with no apparent head injuries.

Foster City’s first reported homicide in nearly six years has shattered a sense of security local residents take for granted in this isolated Peninsula community that from a statistical standpoint boasts some of the Bay Area’s safest streets.

“Kind of shocking,” said the neighbor, who is a father of five. “I’d never really considered getting an alarm in my house but now I’m having second thoughts.”

“I am incredibly concerned,” a single mother raising a daughter in Foster City wrote on Patch on Sunday morning, noting that her neighbors have expressed similar concerns.

Police have been mum on the details surrounding the case. They haven’t yet released the victim’s name or publicly stated whether they’ve identified any suspects or persons of interest.

Police Chief Craig Courtin hinted in a press release issued Saturday that the victim was likely targeted by his killer or killers.

“This homicide does not appear to be a random act of violence,” Courtin’s statement said.

Although police haven’t yet identified the victim, all indications are that the man whose body was found was Klaus Gachter, 71, who according to published reports is listed as the home’s owner.

The neighbor said the man who saw the body told him it was Gachter.

Few on the block knew Gachter well, but he was described as a man of means who drove an almost new Ferrari, the neighbor said.

Gachter’s Facebook page indicates he is an adventure-lover who financed venture capital endeavors and charitable anti-poverty initiatives. He describes preparing to go to a San Francisco 49ers game on a Nov. 20 status update as being like “… going to Antarctica or like I was last month in the Himalayas.”

“I didn’t know him, but I feel really bad,” the neighbor said. “It’s very sad.”

The neighbor, who said he’s lived on the block for about 10 years, isn't aware of of anyone holding a grudge against Gachter or targeting him for any other reason.

The only person Gachter had regular contact with was a boy who wasn’t his son who lived with him for at least a few years, whom the neighbor said Gachter "mentored."

“(Gachter) may have raised him,” the neighbor said.

The neighbor said the boy, whom he thinks is now an adult between 18 to 20, hasn’t been seen in the neighborhood in about two years.

The neighbor said there are no indicatioins the boy who Gachter mentored is linked to the case.

“I’m sure the police are aware of him by now,” the neighbor said.

The homicide is Foster City's first since January of 2006, when according to published reports, Brandon Hepponstall, a 50-year-old wheelchair-bound man was stabbed to death by a 41-year-old Redwood City man he refused to sell drugs to.

Timothy Singler, Hepponstall’s killer, shot himself to death shortly afterwards.

The last homicide before that was in 1996.

“It’s very upsetting to think someone would attack a (71-year-old) man, very cowardly,” the neighbor said.

“This is one of the safest places to live. It’s not like Oakland where things like this happen all the time. Nobody ever thinks it’s going to happen on their block, but this is surprising, shocking really.”