Earth opens up and swallows Portland man
PORTLAND, Ore. – A Southwest Portland private investigator was found dead Sunday while solving a mystery in his own backyard.
Neighbors said the man, 57-year-old Michael Zerwas, had been complaining of water bubbling up in his yard. Then, last Thursday, a neighbor saw him alive for what would turn out to be the last time.
Portland police responded to a missing persons report Sunday, searching Zerwas' Southwest 52nd Avenue home. They found no clues inside, but outside – beside a watery hole tucked deep in the back yard – they found a muddy pair of Crocs-style shoes.
Inside that hole Zerwas drew his last breathe, according to findings from Oregon State Medical Examiner Karen Gunson. An autopsy shows he died of hypothermia and drowning.
Zerwas became a private investigator 20 years ago and has been in private practice since June 2005, according to his Web site. He was a member of the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association and a long-time member of its education committee.
Firefighters were called in Sunday to pump water out of the 25-foot-deep lined underground cavity, believed to be an old covered well or cesspool that caved in under Zerwas' body weight. At the bottom, they found Zerwas' body.
Buried cesspools may be common
This cave-in mimics a report covered by KATU in May 2009. A Portland working mother reported calling home to check on her kids – and being told by the baby sitter that in her backyard was a 7 1/2-foot-wide hole.
"My kids can't come in the backyard and play," Lisa Arrington said at the time, "because this thing continues to get larger."
Arrington dug into city records to learn the hole stemmed from a caved-in old-style septic tank, called a cesspool, installed in 1941. The tank was four feet wide and 15 feet deep.
City records showed the land developer was supposed to remove the cesspool when he demolished the previous house. However, the developer reportedly told city inspectors there was "nothing found." So the tank was left covered up, and forgotten until that day in 2009.
Arrington struggled for months to get the developer, her insurance or the City of Portland to repair the hole. In October, the city's risk management office did provide Lisa Arrington about $2,700 for repairs.