Police: No Suspects or Persons of Interest in Foster City Homicide

Three days after discovering the body of a 71-year-old man in his Foster City home, police still don’t know who’s responsible for the city’s first reported homicide in nearly six years.

That’s according to Police Chief Craig Courtin, who acknowledged as much in a press release issued Monday that identified the victim as Klaus Gachter, the owner of a home on the 600 block of Waterbury Lane where he was found dead.

“The investigators have not narrowed their focus on any specific person or persons of interest,” Courtin’s statement read.

Police have withheld details of the case that they say would jeopardize their investigation “and ultimate prosecution of the person or persons responsible for this heinous act,” Courtin’s statement read.

Patch reported on Monday that the victim, thought to be Gachter, was first discovered by a maid lying face down in a when she entered the home on Friday afternoon.

The San Jose Mercury News on Monday reported that Gachter appeared to be preparing a steak dinner at the time of his killing, presumably on Thursday night.

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.