HARDSCRABBLE, Del. - Using everything from heavy equipment to hand rakes, officers from nearly 40 Delmarva police agencies found dismembered bodies yesterday in a landfill here, believed to be a Virginia couple who police say were killed over Memorial Day weekend in an Ocean City penthouse.
"Body parts or remains have been found and taken to the Delaware medical examiner's office to determine if these are the missing people," said Jay Hancock, an Ocean City police spokesman. "Obviously, the search will continue on past darkness."
As the search was under way in the 150-foot-high garbage site about 20 miles north of the Maryland resort, details emerged about the deaths of Martha Margene Crutchley, 51, and her boyfriend, Joshua Edward Ford, 32, when the Pennsylvania couple accused in the killings made their first appearance in a Worcester County courtroom.
Neither Benjamin A. Sifrit nor Ericka Grace Sifrit, both 24, spoke during a five-minute hearing in Snow Hill, at which the Altoona couple were ordered to remain jailed without bail.
Ericka Sifrit's confession to police, recorded in charging documents released yesterday, outlined a story of homicide and cover-up that ended during a bungled break-in. Police, responding to a burglar alarm, arrested the couple walking out of a souvenir T-shirt shop with merchandise a few blocks from the Rainbow Condominium high-rise where police say Crutchley and Ford were killed.
Police have not disclosed any motive, but according to Ericka Sifrit's statement, Crutchley and Ford's last moments apparently were spent cowering in the bathroom of the 11th-floor penthouse suite as Benjamin Sifrit, a former Navy SEAL, kicked in the door and shot them. In an earlier statement, she told police that Crutchley and Ford had been killed on the beach.
Ericka Sifrit told police that after the shooting, her husband dismembered the bodies, putting them in five or six black plastic garbage bags that were stashed in the Sifrits' Jeep Cherokee and dumped in a trash bin somewhere in nearby Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Investigators began looking for Crutchley and Ford when they failed to return to work after a Memorial Day weekend vacation, and co-workers reported them missing. The Sifrits were arrested about 1:15 a.m. Friday, leaving the souvenir shop of a Hooter's restaurant in north Ocean City.
Weapons taken
In making the arrests, police said, they took a loaded 9 mm handgun and a knife from Benjamin Sifrit and found a loaded .45-caliber handgun in the center console of their Jeep. Police say Ericka Sifrit had a .357 Magnum handgun and a serrated knife.
Plastic handcuffs were found under the driver's-side seat, and police also found a lock pick set.
After her arrest, police say, Ericka Sifrit asked an officer to get medication from her purse. The officer found identification cards for Crutchley and Ford, as well as spent bullet casings.
When police searched the oceanfront Rainbow penthouse, they found traces of blood in the bathroom, suspected cocaine on a glass table in the living room, snapshots of Crutchley and Ford taken in Ocean City, and two spent bullets.
Police also found two 5- to 6-foot boa constrictors in the luxury penthouse. They were removed by an animal control officer and handed over for safekeeping to an Ocean City police officer who collects snakes, said Hancock.
The penthouse atop the 16-year-old building is owned by Ralph J. Albarano, an Altoona contractor. Albarano could not be reached for comment.
Yesterday, Ericka Sifrit, dressed in a dark blue Worcester County Detention Center jumpsuit, sat silently in the Snow Hill courtroom, her head bowed. Her husband, in similar clothes and with his legs shackled, stared at reporters and others in the courtroom. Each has been booked on two counts of first-degree murder, as well as other handgun and assault charges.
Baltimore defense attorney Arcangelo M. Tuminelli, representing Ericka Sifrit, refused to say how his client would plead in the case. "She was a good student, a good athlete and has no criminal record whatsoever," Tuminelli said.
Ericka Sifrit, who graduated with honors from Mary Washington College in 2000, was described yesterday as a "lost alumnus" by a spokesman for the school. She transferred from the University of Pittsburgh, enrolled at Mary Washington in 1996, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in history, spokesman Ron Singleton said. He added that the last time the college tried to contact her, the letter was returned unopened.
Navy record unclear
Navy officials were trying to piece together Benjamin Sifrit's military record. He entered the Navy in August 1996 and was a SEAL, said Lt. Whitney E. DeLoach, a Navy spokesman. Sifrit trained at the Fleet Medical Service School at Camp Lejeune, N.C., but the circumstances of his departure from the Navy are unclear.
The last position Navy officials have on record for Sifrit is as a hospital corpsman recruit, on Nov. 10, 2000, but his rank 11 months earlier was higher - second-class petty officer. The Navy was investigating whether Sifrit was demoted, DeLoach said, and officials could not say when or why Sifrit was discharged.
Sun staff writer Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed to this article.