Items Shown From Suspected Crime Team’s Car

NEW YORK —  Police on Friday displayed guns, women’s wigs and other items found in a luxury car belonging to a suspected mother-son crime team being questioned in the disappearance of a New York socialite and the shooting death of a San Fernando Valley man.

The items include a box of .22-caliber cartridges, the type of ammunition used to kill David Kazdin, 63, of Granada Hills, whose body was found in a trash bin near Los Angeles International Airport in March.

The displayed items had been discovered in a green 1997 Lincoln Continental belonging to Kenneth Kimes, 23, and his mother, Sante Kimes, 63, who surfaced this week as suspects in the disappearance of a wealthy and prominent New York widow, Irene Silverman, 82. Since then, law enforcement agencies from Los Angeles to the Bahamas have said they want to question the Kimeses about other crimes.

New York police sources said a ledger also was recovered, containing Silverman’s name and the names of three other missing or dead people. These included Kazdin, the Associated Press reported, quoting unidentified police sources.

The Kimeses were being held without bail Friday at Riker’s Island jail in New York on a communications fraud warrant issued in Utah. Both are fighting extradition to that state, said Matthew Weissman, attorney for Kenneth Kimes. They are due in court Aug. 6.

Los Angeles police said Kazdin, who ran a medical records photocopying business from his home, met Sante Kimes more than 20 years ago when they were introduced in Las Vegas. Detectives said they are investigating the possibility that she is responsible for a fraudulent bank loan taken out in January in Kazdin’s name.

New York police are questioning the mother and son about Silverman, who was last seen Sunday morning by an employee at her turn-of-the-century Manhattan mansion, where Kenneth Kimes rented a $6,000-a-month apartment June 14.

The Kimeses were arrested Sunday at the New York Hilton. Sante Kimes was found with Silverman’s passport, some of her checks and her bank account information, according to New York City newspapers.

Investigators continue to search for Silverman. Detectives have combed Central Park, about half a block from Silverman’s house, but have not found her. Coroner’s officials are also examining stains found outside her home to determine whether they were caused by her blood, said NYPD Deputy Commissioner Marilyn Mode.

At a news conference Friday, the Lincoln used by Sante and Kenneth Kimes was displayed in front of police headquarters in lower Manhattan.

NYPD Police Commissioner Howard Safir listed some of the items found in the auto: a loaded 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, women’s wigs of various colors, the box of .22-caliber cartridges, ear plugs, $30,000 in cash, a portable two-way radio and blank Social Security cards.

Safir said the gun has been traced to a person in Las Vegas, whom he declined to identify. He said detectives also discovered a computer in the car.

With help from an informant in Las Vegas, police arrested the Kimeses nine hours after Silverman disappeared. Safir said investigators believe that the Lincoln may have been driven between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. Sunday along New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway.

He said police in New Jersey were looking into areas near the parkway in the hope of finding Silverman.

On Thursday, New York police released the sketch of a man witnesses say was frequently seen with the Kimeses.

“Initially we were looking for the son. He seemed to be the most prominent because he had actually rented the apartment from Mrs. Silverman,” Mode said. “We know he is [often] in the company of a woman [his mother], and there is still a third fellow we’re looking for.”

Doug Hanna of the Royal Bahamas Police said Friday that he wants to question Sante Kimes about the disappearance of Syed Bilal Ahmed, a 55-year-old banker from Bahrain who was based in the Cayman Islands and vanished in September 1996 while on a business trip to Nassau, the Bahamas.

“During the course of the investigation, we came across the name of Sante Kimes, and we knew there had been some association around the time [Ahmed] was last seen,” he said. “Once we tried to interview her, she disappeared.”

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Times correspondent Vitucci reported from Los Angeles, staff writer Goldman from New York.