When Dean Schwartzmiller arrived in Everett last month to stay with a family friend, he brought with him tales about his home in San Jose, Calif., and a notebook jampacked with what appeared to be names, ages and other references to thousands of boys.

Schwartzmiller had showered Lynda Pichler, 45, and her family with gifts and attention their entire lives. The handyman attended Snohomish High School with her parents and often crashed at family members' houses when in town.

Pichler said her family was keenly aware of Schwartzmiller's past, which includes numerous convictions for sodomizing and inappropriately touching young boys. She supported him when he was accused of kissing and fondling two young male relatives of hers in the mid-1990s because she didn't believe the boys. When he was tried in 1998, an Everett jury quickly acquitted him of four felony counts.

When arrested May 23 in Everett, Schwartzmiller, 63, had been hiding in bushes behind Pichler's home. The day before, when San Jose police asked Snohomish County sheriff's deputies to check her house, Bay Area investigators thought Schwartzmiller was linked to only one child-molestation case, said San Jose police Lt. Scott Cornfield.

But after searching his California home, San Jose police realized they not only had two alleged victims in their area but what appears to be 36,720 entries that the Snohomish County native made in writing, Cornfield said. Some of the entries appear to be repeated, he said. It's unclear how many alleged victims there might be.

Police in San Jose spent yesterday sifting through seven weathered notebooks trying to decipher Schwartzmiller's scribbled coded entries about the thousands of boys he may have molested over the past 30 years. Cornfield said they are awaiting the delivery of an eighth notebook — one Pichler's daughter discovered — from Snohomish County sheriff's deputies.

A sheriff's spokesman declined to comment on the whereabouts of the notebook, but Pichler's 12-year-old daughter took it to school when she mistook it for one of hers. The spokesman said the department is investigating whether there might be any Snohomish County victims.

"I still care about him," Pichler said. If he's guilty, he "needs to do the time for it." She added she's not concerned about him being around her own children because they're girls.

Since his Everett arrest, Schwartzmiller has been extradited to San Jose and charged with one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 and six counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14. He will appear in court Wednesday and enter a plea to the charges, said Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Steve Fein.

Fein said that if Schwartzmiller is convicted of those charges alone, which allegedly involve two boys, he faces up to life in prison.

During the past 30 years, Schwartzmiller has lived in or traveled to Washington state, New York, Idaho, Oregon, California, Arkansas, Nevada, Texas, Mexico and Brazil — and for the past five years, he has been concealing his identity by using numerous aliases, authorities said. The notebooks seized from Schwartzmiller's home list Las Vegas and other city names, Cornfield said.

As early as the 1970s, courts recognized that Schwartzmiller was as clever as he was determined.

According to Idaho court records, Schwartzmiller hung around a junior-high-school parking lot and a nearby restaurant to pick up boys in the 1970s. In 1978, he struck up an acquaintance with the family of a 14-year-old boy. Schwartzmiller gave the teen beer and marijuana, then took him to his bedroom and had sex with him, the opinion states.

Around the same time, he met another boy and gave him five beers and performed oral sex on him, the opinion says.

He was found guilty of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor in connection with those two cases and sentenced to about a decade in prison. That case ended up before the Idaho Supreme Court on appeal.

In addition, he had a prior conviction in Idaho for lewd and lascivious conduct, but that conviction was overturned. In that case, the victim initially said he was forcibly sexually abused but changed his story shortly before trial, saying he consented to sex with Schwartzmiller.

By 1991, Schwartzmiller was in Oregon, where he was charged with 87 counts of sodomy, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and providing liquor to a minor, according to court records. He later pleaded guilty to several counts of sodomy and served about three years in prison. He violated parole twice, in 1998 and 1999, and was locked up for several months on those charges. He was released in December 1999, according to Oregon corrections records.

Court records show Schwartzmiller made a habit of suing jail and prison officials.

Schwartzmiller's siblings and other relatives haven't talked to him since the Idaho arrests, said his cousin, Jack Schwartzmiller, from his Montana home yesterday.

"He's worse than the black sheep," Jack Schwartzmiller said. "The family doesn't have anything to do with him."

Yesterday, police in San Jose fielded a handful of calls from people claiming to have information about additional victims. Authorities still don't have a clear explanation of why Schwartzmiller never registered as a sex offender, or whether he was required to.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com