Oceano man found killed is identified as well-known community activist
Officials on Friday identified the man found dead in his home in Oceano as a well-known community activist.
The body of Lawrence Albert Bross, 90, was found on Thursday afternoon in a house on the 1400 block of Strand Way, according to a San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office news release.
Bross’s death is being investigated as a homicide, and officials are conducting an autopsy to determine his cause of death, according to the release.
Greg Mills, who discovered Bross’s body, told The Tribune on Thursday his neighbor appeared to have been beaten and stabbed.
“There was a lot of blood,” Mills said. “No one should go that way.”
Bross, known as Larry, was a retired history teacher who lived in the home he called his “escape cabin” on Strand Way since 1969, according to New Times archives.
He was also a longtime advocate for the community of Oceano, Tribune archives show. Bross led a protest walk-out of a federal government workshop about offshore oil and pushed for limits on off-road vehicles on the Oceano Dunes for decades, even before it became a state recreation area in 1982.
Bross expressed disdain over some of the side effects of the off-road vehicle park in his backyard. In 2010, he successfully appealed the county’s attempt to sell 584 acres it owns in the park to the state.
“I love Oceano, and I love this beach,” Bross told the Santa Maria Sun in 2017. “It just bothers me that we can’t have the best for all.”
This story was originally published January 25, 2019 at 2:55 PM.