Tumbling into Halloween

The picture tonight is of three ceramic lanterns I own, from my large collection; the tiny one in the middle is a little luminaria, one of my treasures; it is over twenty years old.

I had a wonderful Halloween with my friend Mary; she lives in South Felton, which always has a lot of trick-or-treaters. I used to take my kids trick-or-treating there when they were little, not so many years ago. Mary has an incredible garden, now dying with the season, so there were lots of places to hang the dozen or so paper ghosts I made from napkins. We made a path of luminarias from heavy paper trick-or-treat bags printed with Dracula bats, as well as jars, tin lanterns, a big earthenware bowl and a basin that usually has water for birds in it--these we filled with tea lights to help the trick-or-treaters find their way. We also spent some time making and hanging up a ghost from a white sheet, a giant cloth spiderweb, and making a mini-graveyard as well. And then, the party--I dressed in full gypsy gear, brought over my Halloween tarot cards, and spent the evening doing readings for folks, eating wonderful Halloween pasta (shaped like bats and pumpkins), and answering the door to an assortment of adorable kids. Memorable conversations at the door:

Two girls are at the door, one dressed as a flapper, the other a 50s girl:

Me: "Wow! What a great flapper costume!"
50s girl to Flapper Girl: "See, I TOLD you people would know what you were."
50s girl turns to me and says, "I've known about flappers since second grade."
Me: (handing out the goodies): "Well, you seem to be a very smart young lady."
50s girl: "Actually, I've known about flappers since PRESCHOOL."

Door opens to reveal a kid in an astronaut costume.

Mary: (handing out candy): "Nice costume. Can you do the moonwalk?"
Astronaut kid (with an air of enormous weariness): I am NOT an astronaut. I am a
STAR WARS GUY!

Door opens; two girls are standing on the porch. One is in a fairy costume, the other in a blazer, dark skirt, blouse, and turtleneck.

Mary (to the girl in the blazer): "Are you a businesswoman?"
Blazer Girl (proudly): No, I'm a TEACHER!

Door opens to a kid in an indeterminate pajama-like costume. He immediately bursts into tears.

Sad Kid: I WANT TO GO HOME!

We gave him a lot of candy...

One of Mary's friends also made homemade cookies and I was shocked to see Mary bag them in wax paper bags and HAND THEM OUT! Yes, folks, I live in a tiny town where people still hand out apples and baked goods at the door, and nobody worries that they have bad things in them, other than a lot of calories. I did realize that my Los Angeles Halloween sensibilities are still deeply ingrained--"Don't take anything but wrapped candy when you trick or treat. There might be a razor blade or a needle in apples. Hippies might put drugs in cookies, so don't eat them if you get them as treats!" I don't know if they still do this, but for years, Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz used to let people visit on Halloween to get their kids' candy X-rayed. But tonight, there was none of that paranoia--we handed out cookies and tons of candy to over a hundred kids, and got to see such wonderful costumes as an angler fish (with a glow stick dangling on a wire at the top for an angler fish light), and the most adorable baby girl dressed as an angel (Mom was a stunning and formidable angel herself, complete with white feather wings).

It was all incredible fun, and when it was over, I drove for a few minutes through the streets I used to walk with my kids, going over memories with happiness and a tinge of sadness. Most of the houses were dark, but some folks had left their pumpkins lit, and they looked like small orange spirit-lights in the charcoal darkness. So many leaves have fallen, tucked into hedges and scattered on lawns and in the street, confetti of a dying season, and the cold deepens a little more every night, wrapping itself tight to the landscape and settling in as we slowly tumble towards winter.

Sentinel article on the Asha Veil investigation

There was an article today in the Sentinel, basically to the point that the investigation is still ongoing about the Asha Veil murder. I am posting it for readers who come here, looking for information. I am sorry we don't have any answers yet...but these things do take time and meticulous, painstaking work.

Halloween: The Collection

As a bit of diversion from the very sad events of which I've been writing, I'd like to introduce y'all to a couple of items from my vast stores of cardboard Halloween decorations. I collect vintage Halloween stuff (including vintage reproductions; I'm not picky), and this picture is of my pride and joy, Pumpkin Man (able to leap tall trick-or-treaters in a single bound)! He's a big feller, probably from the 1950s or perhaps a bit earlier. You can't see it from the pic, but he has pointy shoes (I am sure Manolo the Shoeblogger would find those to be "superfantastic".) Pumpkin Man is doing the John Travolta dance on my living room wall. And yes, he's creepy...but this is one reason I like decorations of this kind much better than the cutesy stuff (although, okay, I have cutesy stuff, including Halloween wind-up toys).



Now, this fellow is my latest acquisition. He actually can dance if you hold him by the string, but for now, he's on my wall next to the dining area. I wanted to name him Keith Richards, but my younger son said his ribcage is far too large.

I'm really happy to be able to take pictures using my laptop, though it's unwieldy, like trying to take pictures with a....er...hmmm..well, with a laptop! I'll try to tinker with the photos a bit to make them more presentable (that is, if you call a pic of Pumpkin Man "presentable" ever)...

By the way, from the Halls of Spell-Check--the one on blogger tried to correct "trick-or-treaters" as "trick-or-traitors!" Is that what Dubya calls Halloween at Gitmo? Or is it a term for those parents who tiptoe in the night to their innocent children's treat bags, looting them of Butterfingers and Reese's Pieces one by one?
Not like I've ever done that myself, mind you....

tail end of October

Leaves begin to turn gold on the trees and my garden is going to sleep. I have spent the last hour getting two poetry submissions out. Even though my ability to write poetry at all, to even feel like a poet, seems to have died during my MFA program, I still send work out, still plan to get my book manuscript out this year after finally getting it formatted onto my MacBook. I feel that the more I act like a poet, the more I can at least open my heart's door to it.

I am sorry to report, to those who are following the Asha Veil case, that there is no news to report at this moment. I have heard from readers all across the US and Europe about the case. I feel that this case will proceed slowly before someone is arrested.
I think people in my community are still in shock. It's sad that people have to piece together news and speculation like this, as if the truth is hiding under a stone somewhere, or written like frost on a leaf. At the center of it all, someone is gone, and another life will never be born to this earth. I try to remember that--at the center of this is justice for Asha and her unborn daughter. In a time when we need more kind women like Asha, someone who said hello to everyone, she was ripped out of life's fabric. Like everyone, I wait for word of some resolution.

Changing Seasons

I don't have much to report about the Asha Veil case today. I do know that our detectives are working very hard to name a suspect. I thank all who come to this blog
looking for information, and I will try as best I can to post anything new. Right now, my own feeling about the whole thing is just sheer sadness. The season has definitely changed and gold is everywhere in the trees. Pumpkins appear on porches and people are putting up their Halloween decorations. Though time moves forward, the fact remains that Asha is gone, and grief eddies like a river over a sandbar. I see pregnant women on the street and in my yoga class, and I feel a wave of sadness even in the midst of being happy for them. In many ways, for reasons I can't name in public, I feel a strange kinship to Asha--there was a time when I found myself pregnant, vulnerable, trying to decide the right courses of action for my life. So, all I can say is that the days deepen with cold, the bobcats and coyotes continue their endless songs of grief and wildness, and I wait for some answer. That is all I can do right now.

San Jose Mercury News article about Asha

Finally, the San Jose Mercury has written a fairly comprehensive article about Asha's death and disappearance. It is about time some of the local papers started to do more comprehensive coverage of this crime. No one knows who killed Asha, and I was beginning to feel she was disappearing a second time.

I have just spent a few days in Tucson, attending a conference. It's a really interesting place, and I saw saguaro cacti for the very first time in my life. It seems like a cool place to explore, but I don't have a car! I still got to see beautiful sunsets, a historical homes district with adobes and cactus gardens, and I also ate great Southwestern food. Strangely, I felt like I had been transported back to 1980s decor--remember the Southwestern craze, everything that "desert rose" pink and turquoise? Well, here it's the real thing!

One thing about travel, no matter how interesting the places I go--I always appreciate getting back home to Santa Cruz.

text of Mid-County post article about Asha Veil

I have printed the Mid-County Post article in its entirety here, because some folks are having trouble accessing the link.
My Macbook shows the link with no problem, but please let me know if you can't access the links I post.


Killing of Pregnant Ben Lomond Woman Shocks Community
Authorities Believe Murder Happened Elsewhere and Body was Moved to Forest

Joanna "Asha" Veil
By Mary Bryant and Michael Thomas
On Thursday, Sept. 14, a resident of the Love Creek Road area was hiking with a dog and discovered the dead body of a pregnant woman in a wooded area. The discovery brought the search for 26-year old Joanna "Asha" Veil to a sad end.

Veil had last been seen on the previous Saturday when she left the Ben Lomond Market where she worked. Co-workers reported her disappearance to authorities on Sept. 12.

"We began a standard missing person's investigation," Sheriff's Lt. Phil Wowak
said. Co-workers convinced deputies that Veil was very reliable. This caused the Sheriff's Office to move even more quickly. "We became suspicious."

On the evening of Sept. 12, deputies located Veil's vehicle on Brookside, about a ¼ mile from the store and several hundred feet south of Love Creek. Still, deputies continue questioning Veil's friends and family.

Veil was six and a half months pregnant, about 10 weeks from giving birth. Anonymous tips led detectives to important witnesses, one a former employee of the Ben Lomond Market who told investigators that while working at the Ben Lomond Market her supervisor sexually assaulted her. She didn't report the crime because she feared for her life.

McClish Arrested after Body Found

Ben Lomond resident and Ben Lomond Market supervisor Michael McClish, 37, was arrested for that crime the day after Veil's body was discovered. McClish is presently being held on $1 million bail. He is charged with raping and sodomizing an employee at the Market in 2005. On Friday, Sept. 22, his attorney tried unsuccessfully to have his bail reduced.

During the commission of the assault, he allegedly brandished a hatchet and threatened to kill his victim. In an initial court appearance, McClish pleaded innocent to the charges of forcible sex acts, assault with a deadly weapon, making death threats and inflicting great bodily harm during the commission of a sexual assault. Reportedly, McClish had been involved with the employee during an 18-month affair before the assault. Detectives believe he may have also victimized other women in the past.

However, if Sheriff's investigators are building a case against McClish, they are not saying.

"I can't release all the information in regard to the investigation of McClish," Wowak said.

Lt. Wowak added that investigators were also being careful not to release too many details about the crime for fear of jeopardizing a conviction in the future. What they won't say is how Veil died or much about the location where her body was found.

Do they believe that Veil drove her car to the spot where it was found?

"It hasn't been determined that she was the last person to drive her car," Wowak said.

Was she murdered in the forest where she was found?

"I believe she was killed in a place other than where she was found," Wowak answered, suggesting that the killer's decision to drag Veil's body into the woods was made to try and hide his two victims.

Veil was estranged from her husband, Richard Veil of Scotts Valley. Is Richard a suspect?

"He was contacted immediately and he has cooperated in the investigation," Wowak answered.

"We have not ruled anyone out as a suspect."

According to Wowak, Veil voluntarily provided a DNA sample to test the paternity of his wife's unborn child. Additionally, deputies served search warrants and seized property from at least one other suspect, including evidence for DNA testing. He wouldn't name the suspect.

"We have seized a significant amount of evidence," Wowak said.

Did Joanna know the other employee who had been involved with and was allegedly assaulted by McClish?

"I can't comment on the victim's [relationship with McClish]," Wowak responded. However, he did acknowledge that learning about the allegations against McClish caused investigators to consider connections.

"It definitely piqued our interest and brought to light a number of leads we are still working on."

Does Wowak believe that knowing the paternity of the child will help in the investigation?

"I am trying to determine who the father is," he said without further comment.

Does the public need to worry that Veil's killer could still be a threat?

"I believe Asha's murder was an isolated event by someone who she was familiar with," Lt. Wowak said.

Friends Describe a Gentle, Loving Expectant Mother
Veil, known to her friends as Asha, was a Polish immigrant who moved to Santa Cruz County in 2004 from New York City. In New York she had met Richard, who encouraged her to move here. Months after arriving, they were married. According to Joanna Veil's friends, the two had separated in the past year but remained close.

Richard has told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that shortly after revealing that she was pregnant, Asha admitted a brief relationship with another man. According to Veil, she said the relationship was over.

Joanna had been renting a room at a cozy home on a side street near Highway 9. She was reliable at work and even showed up for shifts when the early stages of pregnancy made her sick, according to coworkers.

"The last time we talked … I was going to help her with the delivery," said Tracy Frankel, a friend who worked with her at the Market. "She was very excited. She was talking about how its arms and legs were moving."

Veil was taking prenatal yoga classes. She had even chosen a name for the child: Iana, which means "perpetually blooming flower."

"We spend all this time thinking about Asha and no time thinking about her baby," said April Jackson, an office employee at the Market. "Everything she said to you, every way that she treated you was very honest and caring."

Frankel said it was unusual when Veil failed to show up for work. On the Monday after her disappearance, she also missed appointments. She was scheduled to interview for low-income housing and had plans to move to Capitola. The same day, she had a prenatal care visit appointment. By Tuesday, it was clear that something was wrong.

When her car was found it was unlocked. Neighbors told deputies that they knew when she was coming and going because her car was noisy from an exhaust problem.

The discovery of her body brought shock. At the memorial arrangement of flowers, stuffed animals and photographs materialized in a plant alcove outside. Customers paused there and talked about remembering her as a sweet and "wonderful" person.

Sheriff's investigators also responded to the gruesome murder, with 15 detectives working around the clock through the first weekend after the body was found.

"I am very proud of the work that all the investigators have done. It speaks to the dedication to their job and their community and how personally they take these crimes," he added.

"When the going got tough … she never said anything bad about anybody," Frankel said. "She only said loving things about her husband. It seemed like a loving relationship, but it just wasn't healthy."

Frankel believes Veil wasn't certain about who the father was.

"She said she really wanted the baby to be her husband's," Frankel added.

After having the baby, Veil planned to visit family in Poland for three or four months.

Richard Veil is the only known family Veil had in the United States. Her family in Poland is not wealthy and friends are hoping plane fare can be arranged for them to attend her funeral.

Mid-County Post article about Asha Veil

Here is an article from the Mid-County Post (another local paper)about Asha Veil.
I think this article gives a bit more of a "snapshot" of her life. It also gives a more information from the detectives working on this case and what they think
happened to her.

There still has been no arrest directly related to Asha's murder. Asha's coworker, arrested on (unrelated) rape charges, has had his bail upped to $1.5 million dollars, as he has been accused of another rape.

I visited with my friend Mary today for a long time, then came home and started hanging up Halloween lights (silly "candy corn" lights from the local Rite-Aid, green skeleton lights, and pumpkin lights). Mr. Strega and I took a walk tonight in the moonlight, talking a little bit about the case. Halloween is coming and decorations are appearing in the windows of houses, in yards: walking to Mary's, I saw a row of scarecrows on someone's front yard. Summer has slipped under the sill of the year, all the wild bloomings over. And someone who should have been here to see the bigleaf maples turning gold, the pumpkins stacked in front of stores--that person is gone, her much-wanted baby never to be born.

So, for now, a time of waiting for answers, for some resolution to this sad time, if ever there can be one. I have found that sometimes the most powerful thing a person can do is wait, patiently. This time has shown me also that people can be deeply loving and compassionate, one reason I still call the San Lorenzo Valley my home.

letter to the Sentinel about Asha

Here is a letter dated September 21st from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, authored by Michael Tierra--I have seen few letters to the Sentinel about the crime, and appreciated Michael's thoughts a great deal:

Death shocks community

Like many in our Ben Lomond community, I was profoundly saddened and shocked on learning about the death of Asha Veil the 28-year-old friendly checker at Ben Lomond supermarket and her 61/2-month old unborn infant, of which she was so happy and proud.

It is a sad testament of our times that many of us inhabit a world of fear and distrust. In that sense, Asha may have been of a passing world that at least, in our idealized imaginings, seemed safer. It is particularly disheartening to think that the very aspect of Asha's virtue, her innocent openness, exuding happiness and joy, may have attracted one to such a brutal act. It's the familiar tragic theme of despoiled innocence and virtue where in some twisted way one twisted individual tries to overpower another in a vain attempt to possess their soul, in this case two souls, Asha's unborn baby girl, through unconscionable murder.

Michael Tierra

Ben Lomond

Asha Veil's memorial service, from the Santa Cruz Sentinel

I wanted to thank those who have commented in the last couple of days; I am out of
town with my bellydance troupe for a venue and, though I can blog, I can't seem to get comments published through this hotel computer, so I have to wait until I get back tonight.

I had to miss Asha's memorial service due to needing to go out of town; the Santa Cruz Sentinel has reported on this.

As I learn more about her death and the terrible consequences to her family, my hope grows that this case is worked on diligently and resolved, and that the media keeps this case visible. A terrible crime like this affects not only the victim and her family and loved ones, but a whole community. Asha does not need to disappear a second time without a trace.

***LATER*** Wow, that was a long trip to and fro (I was in beautiful downtown Arcata, which was, for this weekend at least, the land of a thousand dances). I wanted to thank a particular anonymous person who commented on this blog and hope they understand that I published only part of their comment--but I appreciated all of what they said (sorry, readers, that's a bit cryptic, but this is a sensitive time when people are expressing all manner of thoughts, observations, and feelings, some of which are very sensitive, and I respect everyone's need to vent and air their feelings). I too feel frustrated and confused by so much surrounding this terrible event and its aftermath. Still, I have faith that the detectives on this case are working very hard to put all the pieces together and find Asha's killer. I would urge anyone who notices unusual behavior connected with this case to consider bringing it to the attention of the sheriff's office.