MCLISH GUILTY OF RAPE

I was going to be glued to the Internet today, waiting for the following news, but life intervened and I had to do a bunch of errands today (including a Trader Joe's run). I got home late to the following news:

Michael McClish was found guilty of rape and of threatening the life of a woman two years ago (he was convicted on four counts). His bail remains tonight at 1.5 million dollars and his sentencing trial (which I DO plan to attend) is August 3rd. People on the Topix board are discussing the verdict, so please go to the following link to see what a few members of my community are saying. There are various boards discussing the topic:

http://www.topix.net/city/ben-lomond-ca

I want to remind my faithful readers that McClish has not been charged in the Asha Veil double murder.


For once, this turn of events has rendered Ms. Strega quite speechless, but I'll give it a try. I must say that I have been dismayed at the court system regarding people who choose to be abusive in all its shades. I felt McClish would be exonerated simply because I admit to being somewhat jaded about the ability of our court system to listen to what women have to say. I have seen obvious abusers get off virtually scot-free, then return to the courtroom a year or two later, having abused the same person again. I used to wonder what it took to be believed. I suppose this time it took a woman being threatened with a hatchet, brutally sexually assaulted, and dangled over a cliff (oh, whoops, sorry McClish--you only "held" her over the cliff. My bad). McClish had a long history of sexual harassment; this was not the first time, but one in a series of terrible events. I am sorry it had to come to this...and sorrier beyond words if one day it is discovered that the last face Asha Veil ever saw was his.

So what do we do now, as a community? I think we should support McClish's wife and children in reminding them they are not to blame in any way for his actions. Perhaps his actions were partially fueled by alcohol abuse--in which case he is still responsible, and responsible for his own recovery, or non-recovery, as it goes.
As I remember him, McClish was very charming (except for one memorable time when I needed to use the bathroom at the Ben Lomond Super and he questioned me like a federal agent about why I needed to use the can before he finally unlocked the door for me).

It's easy to fall for a charming person who has the ability to hide malignant secrets of the heart and soul. I hope that McClish's wife picks her life up and their children are able to be okay. I hope that the women who were the targets of McClish's sickness are able to heal their lives. I hope that no one makes up alibis for this man again. Kudos to the judge and the prosecutor in this case for doing their duty well. It has given me a touch of hope for our justice system. And to the women who came forward: though no one heard you screaming, your voices were heard anyway.

I would also like to add that, in my opinion, the Sentinel has done a terrible job of reporting on this story. Their articles are basically Cliff's notes to an enormous human tragedy--a husband found guilty of rape, a family who has become basically fatherless due to his actions, and, so far on the periphery of all this, a young woman who should have been alive today, at this hour, with her child in her arms.
I realize the Sentinel has been going through enormous cutbacks and there's only so much space to write things, but there is a way to show how much this crime has impacted our small community, and this has, in my opinion, been virtually ignored.
It's a shame when people have to "talk amongst themselves" to get the real and detailed news. Maybe stories of crimes out here in the boondocks don't matter much in the media, though you COULD run that notion by the ghost of Truman Capote and ask him if people are interested in stories of a small town rocked by violence.

But this isn't Holcomb, Kansas in the 1950s. It's July, 2007 in the San Lorenzo Valley, in a time and place far removed from that world, where people left their doors unlocked and everyone in town trusted each another. In spite of a court system that has heard it all, today someone was listened to, for once. And now, will another chapter be added to this? Will someone finally be charged in the senseless murders of Asha and Anina Veil? If so, we must be prepared as a community to hear what happened to them--horrible as it is to think of Asha's kindness and sweet smile against what must have been the unspeakable horror of her final moments in this world. I believe,as a community, we must fully face the magnitude of these crimes in our community and be witnesses in our anger and grief to one of the oldest stories in the world, of innocent lives plundered and destroyed--for nothing, except for revenge for a perceived harm, or to remove an inconvenience from a perpetrator's life.

I would theorize now that it might still take time for an arrest to be made in the Veil case. If McClish is a suspect (the latest on this, stated some time ago, is that he is one in a "pool of suspects"), then the investigators have ample time to continue to build a case.

And, now that justice has been done for someone, and since we can never bring Asha Veil and her daughter Anina to live again in our midst, we can perhaps begin to hope that one day soon there will be justice for them, too.