Family Slaying Mystery Deepens : Crime: Newspaper reports cyanide was found in a car with the body of Ian Stuart Spiro, who police say had killed his wife and children.

SAN DIEGO — Traces of cyanide were found in a vehicle where a purported British spy died mysteriously, days after his wife and three children were fatally shot in the family’s luxurious rental home, according to a published report.

Law enforcement authorities who requested anonymity told the Blade-Citizen of Oceanside on Tuesday that sheriff’s investigators found evidence of what they believe to be cyanide in the Ford Explorer where the body of Ian Stuart Spiro was found.

The unidentified sources told the newspaper that deputies suspect the deadly drug caused the death of Spiro, a 46-year-old international commodities broker who had ties to British and U.S. spy agencies.

An autopsy performed Monday did not reveal how Spiro died. The results of toxicology tests are expected in six to nine days, investigators said.

Investigator Charles Kelley of the county medical examiner’s office said Wednesday that if Spiro was killed by cyanide it would not have shown up in the autopsy, but toxicology tests would reveal it.

Kelley said he knew nothing about the report that cyanide had been found in the vehicle.

Toxicology tests also were being performed on Spiro’s family to determine whether they were sedated before being shot, sheriff’s homicide Lt. John Tenwolde said Tuesday.

Sheriff’s Department officials said Wednesday that Tenwolde and other homicide investigators were taking a break from the probe for Veterans Day and would not comment.

Spiro was found slumped over the steering wheel of his vehicle Sunday afternoon in a remote desert park. There were no signs of struggle or injury to Spiro’s body, officials said, and no weapon was found in the vehicle.

Spiro has been identified by sheriff’s authorities as the prime suspect in the slaying of his family.

Evidence found in the family’s rental home in the exclusive northern San Diego County community of Rancho Santa Fe led investigators to suspect Spiro of killing his wife and children and then committing suicide, Tenwolde said.

However, investigators were not ruling out other theories, including the possibility that Spiro was murdered, Tenwolde said.

“Our minds are still open. We’re looking at any and everything,” he said.

The disappearance of Spiro, a London native, prompted speculation in the British press that he might have been the target of terrorists from the Middle East. London newspapers have reported that Spiro worked for the CIA and British intelligence in Lebanon in the 1980s and assisted Oliver North in attempts to free the U.S. hostages.

The Sunday Telegraph in London and other newspapers have reported that in 1985 Spiro helped arrange meetings in Lebanon between Anglican church envoy Terry Waite and leaders of the Muslim fundamentalist group Islamic Jihad in an attempt to secure the release of Western hostages.

Worried neighbors called authorities to the home where the bodies of Spiro’s 40-year-old wife, Gail, and their daughters, Sara, 16, and Dina, 11, and son Adam, 14, were found last Thursday. Each was shot in the head and found in a separate bedroom.

Campers spotted Spiro’s body inside his locked vehicle, with the keys in the ignition, at the end of a dirt road about 100 miles east of San Diego.

Friends of the family have suggested the Spiros were experiencing financial difficulties. The neighbors who contacted authorities about their disappearance found a note tacked to the door of the home from a real estate agent inquiring why the latest $5,000 rent payment had not been made.