Hunting a Suspect on His Own Tough Turf
FORT BRAGG, Calif.—In the ominous photograph,
Aaron Bassler’s pants appear ripped and soiled. With his left
hand, he is reaching through a window; in his right hand is a black
semiautomatic assault rifle.
The image, recently snapped by a surveillance camera at a cabin that
the police believe was burglarized, is the latest sighting of Mr.
Bassler, 35, a local man wanted in connection with two murders here.
For the last month, Mr. Bassler, whom relatives describe as mentally
ill, has eluded the police by nimbly traversing a large swath of forestland
in Mendocino County, an isolated area three hours north of San Francisco.
It is the most intensive manhunt ever undertaken by the sheriff’s
office, Sheriff Tom Allman said.
Not
Quite a Reporter, but Raking the Muck and Reaping the Wrath
Daniel Cavanagh was nervous.
He paced the living room of his duplex apartment collecting his things:
a large digital camera, an iPhone, a black leather jacket.
“I’m about to get crushed,” he said, running his
hands through his hair.
Then Mr. Cavanagh, 26, drove the three blocks to St. James Evangelical
Lutheran Church — the meeting place of the Gerritsen Beach Property
Owners Association. It was early this month, and it was the first
time Mr. Cavanagh had been back to the church’s large meeting
room since November, when his simmering relationship with the small,
isolated neighborhood in South Brooklyn had exploded.
Tensions Persist Over a Man Long Missing
ELLENVILLE, N.Y. — The flier was bright red with a photograph
and a few lines of text: “Candlelight Vigil For Joe Helt,”
it read. “24 Years Is Too Long!”
A former classmate of Joseph Helt posted more than 15 of the fliers
this year on a well-traveled street in this mountain-ringed village
of 4,000; the vigil marked the 24th anniversary of Mr. Helt’s
disappearance.
By the next morning, all but two had been torn down, said the classmate,
Jackie Mennella.
It was unclear who removed the fliers, but they appeared targeted: Other
posters attached to nearby poles were untouched; pointed at Ms. Mennella’s
remaining fliers was a security camera from a nearby school, Ms. Mennella
said.
“To put it mildly, we were angry,” said Gina Schuster, 41,
another of Mr. Helt’s classmates who helped Ms. Mennella plan
the vigil. “It just proved to us that somebody wants to hide something.”
Since 1987, she and others have quietly questioned the story of how
Mr. Helt, an amiable teenager with a taste for Iron Maiden, became village
folklore: After hanging out with a few friends one winter night, Mr.
Helt, who was 17, vanished from one of the mountains perched above town.
Know When To Kill Them
Dope, guns and Republican blood lust in Mendocino
County
The village of Westport is the last outpost before Mendocino County’s
northern coast disappears into a roadless swath of rugged shoreline
and redwood-carpeted hills. It is spread across roughly one mile by
one-half mile of coast, and has one store, two gas pumps and 47 registered
voters. Retirees are Westport’s dominant demographic, and 15
miles of coiling coastal highway separate it from the closest town.
In this very small village, there is one political entity —
the five-member Westport County Water District, which oversees the
local volunteer fire department and provides sewage treatment and
water to several dozen homes. In this very small district, there have
been many fiery debates over the years between board members: Sheriff’s
deputies were called to intervene at a meeting. Recalls have been
organized. And in one now infamous case in 2005, Alan Simon, the board
chairman at the time, was nearly killed in the doorway of his home
by nine shots from a semi-automatic .22 Ruger pistol.
Dispatch
From the Weed Wars
Oaky
Joe & The Pot Police
Volume
is the first thing you notice about Joe Munson: He doesn’t seem
to have much control over it. The hearing aids stuffed in his ears
are next. They’re the result of being an alcoholic. More specifically,
they’re the result of going on a bender in Pontiac, Illinois,
of talking shit to a very large man, of receiving an asskicking so
severe his jaw broke in three places and his hearing vanished.
That was more than 20 years ago—before Munson, 46, met his wife,
Atsuko. It was before he quit the juice and had two kids. It was before
he became known as “Oaky Joe”—a name that’s
derived, depending on the day you ask, from a firewood business he
once ran or because he says “OK” to everything. It was
before he became one of the area’s most combative—and,
literally, one of its loudest—disgruntled medical pot growers.
A $20 Loan, a Facebook Quarrel and
a Fatal Stabbing
The dispute between the two friends began over $20,
money that had been given to buy baby formula and diapers, but that
went for some other purpose. Days later, it became a heated public matter,
splayed on the two young women’s Facebook pages.
At 5:44 p.m. on Sunday, one of them, Kamisha Richards, 22, wrote
that this would be “the last time u will con me into giving
u money.” Ten minutes later, the other, Kayla Henriques, 18,
replied, “Dnt try to expose me mama but I’m not tha type
to thug it ova facebook see u wen u get frm wrk.”
The war of words escalated over Facebook. In capital letters, at
8:52 p.m., Ms. Richards said that she would have the last laugh. Ms.
Henriques replied within seconds: “We will see.”
They exchanged more messages, until about 9:30 p.m. on Sunday.
About 24 hours after their last Facebook exchange, Ms. Richards was
dead, killed by a kitchen knife to the chest delivered inside an apartment
in East New York, Brooklyn — according to the police, the home
of Ms. Henriques, Ms. Richards and relatives of both women, including
Ms. Henriques’s brother, who was dating Ms. Richards.
