BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 19 (UPI) -- Police responding to a call at a Berkeley, Calif., apartment complex got a shock when the landlord shot himself and when they found a body concealed in a wall.

Investigators said the body, which was in a homemade coffin hidden behind a false wall, was too decomposed to tell the age or sex, the Oakland Tribune reported Friday. They said that the dead person might be Taruk Bin Ali, the son of the landlord, Hassan Bin Ali.


Taruk Bin Ali was listed as the owner of the complex, which has eight apartment units. Police said that his father may simply have concealed his son's death from natural causes so that he could continue to collect the rent.

Brandon Lane, a former tenant, told the Tribune that he wrote his checks to the son but gave them to the father.

Police got a call Monday about a violent argument in the landlord's apartment. When officers arrived, they found him alone, and he immediately pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head.

The hidden body was discovered Wednesday during a search of the apartment.

"I've never seen a case unravel quite like this in my eight years in the department," said Officer Andrew Frankel, a spokesman for Berkeley police.