Death near campus ruled 'not a criminal act'

By Margo Consul

A dead body was found a block from campus earlier this week.

The Santa Clara Police Department received a call about a body found outside of El Camino Self Storage, on the corner of El Camino Real and Benton Street on Monday.

"As of now we can tell it is not a criminal act," Lt. Phil Cooke of SCPD said Tuesday afternoon after the coroner had finished the autopsy.

The identity of the deceased was not released, and no individuals from the university were determined to be involved in the incident. The man was found lying on his back wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. He was found inside a fenced-off property next to a gray RV.

There is a clause in the renter's agreement saying that renters are not allowed to stay in their RVs while they are being stored.

El Camino Self Storage is a family-run business that has been in Santa Clara for over forty years.

"I always notice that the doors are open and people sitting around there," sophomore Jodi Montoya, who regularly runs near the facility.

Joe Viso, an engineer whose office is a few blocks away from where the body was found, was the first to see the body. He alerted his brother Chad Viso, an owner of the company, that someone was sleeping on his property. After Chad went outside and saw the man, he called the SCPD.

An officer attempted to wake up the man and realized that he was unconscious.

The officer proceeded to cut the fence with a set of bolt cutters and began CPR on the body.

By 7 a.m. the SCPD had blocked off a city block and the medical examiner had pronounced the man dead.

The medical examiner had no comment about the cause of death. The body was moved at approximately 9:30 a.m. to the morgue.

The Office of Student Life did not return calls for comment. Campus Safety was alerted on Monday that a body had been found off campus.

Contact Margo Consul at (408) 554-4546 or mgconsul@scu.edu.