by Sarah A. Peterson-Camacho

Part 1 was published in December of 2024. You can find it here.

They say that fate is written in the stars, and if this is true, then Rayna Tom Carmen’s fate was sealed the night he slid into the passenger side of his friend Warren Kinsman’s automobile—for he would never be the same again.

Saturday, March 8, 1930, Fresno, California

A double date would turn deadly as two automobiles collided at a blind intersection in Fresno on a chilly Saturday evening in the spring of 1930.

“Mandy Chambers, 24, a housemaid of North Fork … was killed in a motor car collision at … Shaw and Chestnut Avenues about 7 o’clock last night,” reported The Fresno Morning Republican on Sunday, March 9, 1930. “The … girl was killed when the car—in which she was returning from North Fork to Fresno with [Warren] Kinsman, [Rayna Tom] Carmen, and [Bernice La Velle]—collided at the blind intersection … with a car driven by [H.F.] Flake …

“The other three—Carmen, Kinsman, and [La Velle]—were taken to the general hospital, where it was found that Carmen had a skull fracture; [La Velle] a basal skull fracture … [and] Kinsman a concussion … [La Velle] and Carmen were not expected to live at a late hour last night.”

But the couple would survive, and the Carmen and La Velle families were quick to sue driver Warren Kinsman for damages. All four passengers that fatal night—Carmen, Kinsman, La Velle, and the now-deceased Chambers—were members of the North Fork Mono tribe, a young quartet out on the town, the night still young and full of romantic possibility.

Mandy Chambers was now dead, however, and the gravely injured Carmen, 19, and La Velle, 16, found their lives irrevocably changed. La Velle would spend the rest of her short life shuttled between hospitals, ultimately dying in 1936 at the age of 23.

And as for Rayna Tom Carmen? His family would have him committed to the insane asylum in Stockton two years later, where he would remain for six years. The Carmens welcomed their prodigal son back into their fold in 1938—but death now haunted his stars …

But the very qualities that had made Rayna Tom Carmen a highly effective (and highly decorated) soldier—storming the D-Day beaches of Normandy, slaughtering Nazis in the name of Uncle Sam—would make him a brutish, thin-skinned boyfriend: known for his easily-bruised ego, hair-trigger temper, and a penchant for solving problems with his fists.

His ill-fated teen romance with Bernice La Velle almost ended both their young lives—through no fault of their own—and left each irretrievably broken. La Velle’s brain trauma eventually proved fatal, leading Carmen’s first girlfriend to an agonizing early grave; his own head injury resulted in irreversible damage to his prefrontal cortex.

Carmen’s next stab at engaging with the opposite sex—a good decade-and-a-half later, with another young teenage girl, no less—ended in a literal stabbing, a veritable bloodbath of red-hot, rejection-fueled rage … another young woman’s life brutally cut short.

The Army veteran’s courage and valor on foreign battlefields would ultimately help save him from the consequences of this savage, cold-blooded murder … but it would inadvertently lead to his undoing.

Saturday, April 22, 1950, North Fork, California

God, what a looker! Just how had she managed to snag such a catch was beyond her, Mrs. Josephine Davis thought giddily, as she rouged her cheeks that fourth Saturday in April 1950.

With a shock of thick black hair (not a gray in sight!) and impossibly broad shoulders, Rayna Tom Carmen was 39 years old, but looked at least a decade younger. With brows arched like raven wings over piercing dark eyes, he exuded a brooding magnetism that had sucked the 45-year-old widowed mother of one right into his charismatic orbit. He reminded her so of a Native Cary Grant or Rock Hudson with his finely chiseled features: the Romanesque profile, high cheekbones, and wide, sensuous mouth. A delicious shiver tickled her spine.

It had been such a long time since Josephine had felt this way about anyone, having lost her husband a number of years before. She hadn’t realized how lonely she had grown in the last decade, working through her grief in the raising of her son Theodore, 17, and keeping house for Mr. Henry Chenot. And while she remained ever-grateful for the strong emotional support network of her family—all members of the North Fork Mono tribe—Mrs. Josephine Davis was ready for some romance …

And here was this dashing young stranger, just as ready to sweep her off her feet! A bona fide war hero to boot, Carmen worked at the local power plant, and he sure knew how to dance—which was exactly what they would be doing tonight.

Giggling like a schoolgirl, Josephine twirled before the mirror as she put the finishing touches on her makeup. Tonight, her new boyfriend would be meeting not only her son Teddy, but also her sister, Mrs. Ella McSwain, and Ella’s two boys, Alvin, 19, and Wilbur, almost 16.

And sure, Carmen could be quick to anger at times—and a little rough at others—but what could possibly go wrong on a beautiful spring night like this?

Sunday, April 23, 1950

“A dance hall argument over the merits of the Army and the Marine Corps was climaxed early yesterday,” The Fresno Bee reported Monday, April 24, 1950, “by the ambush slaying of a 16-year-old North Fork boy, and the wounding of his 19-year-old brother.

“Dead is Wilbur (Murphy) McSwain, a junior high school student, who was killed by a .25-20-caliber rifle bullet. [And] in the Madera County Hospital is Alvin (Scotty) McSwain, with a bullet wound in his shoulder.”

It had all started the night before in a dance hall at the Yosemite Forks off Highway 41, when a playful argument between dance partners escalated. One moment Josephine Davis found herself swept across the dance floor in the strong arms of her new man—and the next, she was on the wrong side of a fight with no winners.

Davis knew her beau Rayna Tom Carmen was extremely proud of—and sensitive about—his military service, but after an off-handed remark of hers landed wrong, he “became angered because she upheld the prowess of the Marines against his assertion that the ‘army won the war.’

“Deputy Sheriff George Cramer—first on the scene after the slaying—said Carmen had taken Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Ella McSwain … and Wilbur McSwain to the dance,” continued the Bee. “Alvin McSwain and several friends followed in another car.

“After the dance hall squabble, the group went to a hamburger stand on Highway 41… south of Oakhurst. Here, Deputy Sheriffs James Haney and William O. Helm said, the argument was revived, and Carmen slapped Mrs. Davis.

“The McSwains and Sam Eagan grappled with Carmen, threw him down, and sat on him until he agreed to leave. When he left, the deputies said, he made the threat that he was going to ‘get my rifle.’”

The McSwain brothers—accompanied by their cousin Theodore Davis, 17, and friend Marion Donnell, 18—drove their distraught aunt home to Oakhurst, where she kept house for Henry Chenot. Their mother Ella had already decided to stay the night at the home of her thoroughly shaken sister.

And Rayna Tom Carmen—humiliated to the core by his girlfriend’s teenaged nephews—let his rage guide him home to retrieve that rifle. Those little brats would not get away with this…
Monday, April 24, 1950

The rest of the tragic tale would not be told until the following day, when the surviving brother—speaking from a hospital bed in Madera County—felt well enough to fill in the blanks.

“From his bed in the Dearborn Hospital, Alvin McSwain today said he and his brother were involved in a dispute with [Rayna Tom] Carmen two times earlier in the night,” revealed The Fresno Bee of Tuesday, April 25, 1950. “He said Carmen then went to their home, waited for their return, and all but carried out his threat to ‘wipe out the whole gang.’”

McSwain related the incidents at the dance hall and later, the hamburger stand where it all came to a head—but instead of slapping the boys’ Aunt Josephine, the incensed Army veteran actually bit her instead. And that was the final straw for the McSwains.

“‘There was a little fight,’ Alvin said. ‘Wilbur and Sam Eagan and I held Carmen down for a while—until he said he would quiet down and behave. But after he got up and walked around a while, he said he was going to get his rifle and kill us all.’”

After dropping their aunt and their mother, Ella, off in Oakhurst, Wilbur McSwain, almost 16, got behind the wheel of a coupe, his cousin Theodore “Teddy” Davis, 17, riding shotgun. Alvin McSwain, 19, followed in a convertible driven by the boys’ friend Marion Donnell, 18—and they all set off for home in the wee hours of Sunday, April 23rd.

“Meanwhile,” the Bee continued, “Carmen had gone to his home three miles below North Fork … and gotten his rifle. He drove to Malum Ridge—a quarter of a mile from the McSwains’ cabin—parked … and walked to the McSwain home.

‘When the two cars arrived at the McSwain home,’ Alvin said, ‘Carmen walked around from behind a woodpile. Wilbur had gotten out and walked around to the right side of the coupe, in which Davis was sleeping. Carmen fired through the glass window on the driver’s side of the coupe, hitting Wilbur just above the left eye.

“‘Then Carmen took a few steps, and Marion said to me, “Look out, he’s going to shoot!”” Alvin reported. ‘Just then he fired, and the bullet hit me in the right shoulder. I jumped from the car, grabbed the gun, and—with the help of the others—took it away from him.’”

Once the rifle had been wrested from his grasp, Rayna Tom Carmen lost his fight and sagged in defeat as Marion Donnell fired the remaining cartridges into the still-dark sky. Alvin secured the subdued Army veteran’s hands behind his back—and the man who would soon be his brother’s killer assisted in transporting his own victim to the office of a North Fork physician.

Wilbur McSwain died several hours later, six days shy of his 16th birthday.

Tuesday, April 25, 1950

Josephine Davis wept—in grief for her nephews (one dead, one severely wounded), and for their mother, her sister—but in relief as well, for the sparing of her only son, Teddy, as the bullet that took down Wilbur whizzed past his sleeping head. But she also wept for her own ignorance of her boyfriend’s bloody past. How could she have not known?

And Rayna Tom Carmen, for his part, readily owned up to all the havoc he had wrought—“I was mad; I don’t know why I did it,” he admitted to Madera County sheriff’s deputies. Charged with the murder of Wilbur McSwain on Tuesday the 25th as well as the attempted murder of Wilbur’s brother Alvin—the World War II hero remained calm and cooperative.

The Christmas 1945 murder of 13-year-old Arcie Sample—and Carmen’s subsequent acquittal of the heinous crime—made the local rounds once again, as another Native teen lay dead at his feet, by his hand. Perhaps he remained so agreeable, at least, in part, because he had gotten away with murder once before. “It is expected,” The Fresno Bee was quick to point out, “he will be defended by the Fresno firm which successfully defended him against a charge of murder in the fatal stabbing of a Clovis girl” almost five years previous.

Posing next to Madera County Sheriff W.O. Justice, he appeared both debonair and contrite, gazing down the firing end of the rifle he had so expertly aimed at the head of Wilbur McSwain from a distance of 30 feet. This photograph of a killer with movie-idol looks—shoulders broad in a white button-down, hips narrow in belted black slacks—looked for all the world like an outtake from an early 007 picture. It measured 4” x 5” on page 23 of The Fresno Bee.

Meanwhile, the bruised and battered face of a still-hospitalized Alvin McSwain took up a mere 2.5” x 1.25” on the very same page. And as for the deceased McSwain brother?

No picture at all.

Wednesday, June 21, 1950

The first day of summer dawned hot and still as Rayna Tom Carmen’s murder trial began. Superior Judge Stanley Murray presided over a stuffy—and stuffed-to-the-gills—courtroom at the Madera County Courthouse.

Prosecuting District Attorney John D. Boyle possessed a veritable arsenal of witness testimonies to wield at the court-appointed defense. In the place of his 1946 trial-winning defense team, Carmen now found himself with public defender Mason A. Bailey.

D.A. Boyle cut right to the chase with the cold, hard facts of the case in his opening, then barreled through a rotating cast of reliable witnesses. “Mrs. Clyde Lewis, John Coker, and Henry Chenot successively told of threats made by Carmen,” divulged The Fresno Bee on the second day of trial. “Mrs. Josephine Davis, aunt of the slain boy, gave substantially the same evidence … Mrs. Ella McSwain, mother of Wilbur, and Dr. Gilbert G. Daggett also testified …

“Coker and Chenot said they both witnessed the scuffle, and Chenot said he heard Carmen say he was ‘going to get a gun and clean the whole outfit out.’”

But it was the victim’s wounded brother, Alvin McSwain, who riveted a hushed courtroom with his heart-wrenching eyewitness account of facing down his brother’s killer. His cousin Theodore Davis followed with his own testimony, as did friends Marion Donnell and Sam Eagan.

The prosecution then rested, and, the Bee continued, “the defense counsel said he expected the 39-year-old North Fork power plant employee and war veteran to tell the jury he was ‘under an uncontrollable power’ which caused him to fire the shots … to show Carmen was not in control of his usual faculties, and fired before he realized what had happened.”

But on day three of the trial, Rayna Tom Carmen pulled the rug out from under his own defense when he “declared he could not remember what happened after he left a dance at The Forks on Highway 41 the night of April 22nd.” His amnesia claim had worked once before, but he had been aided by the alcoholic haze of a free-for-all fight, incoherent witnesses, and a generous and patriotic jury.

This time around, however, witness testimony would prove to be all too strong, all too clear. All too plentiful.

D.A. Boyle cut right to the chase with the cold, hard facts of the case in his opening, then barreled through a rotating cast of reliable witnesses. “Mrs. Clyde Lewis, John Coker, and Henry Chenot successively told of threats made by Carmen,” divulged The Fresno Bee on the second day of trial. “Mrs. Josephine Davis, aunt of the slain boy, gave substantially the same evidence … Mrs. Ella McSwain, mother of Wilbur, and Dr. Gilbert G. Daggett also testified …

“Coker and Chenot said they both witnessed the scuffle, and Chenot said he heard Carmen say he was ‘going to get a gun and clean the whole outfit out.’”

But it was the victim’s wounded brother, Alvin McSwain, who riveted a hushed courtroom with his heart-wrenching eye-witness account of facing down his brother’s killer. His cousin Theodore Davis followed with his own testimony, as did friends Marion Donnell and Sam Eagan.

The prosecution then rested. The Bee continued, “the defense counsel said he expected the 39-year-old North Fork power plant employee and war veteran to tell the jury he was ‘under an uncontrollable power’ which caused him to fire the shots … to show Carmen was not in control of his usual faculties, and fired before he realized what had happened.”

But on day three of the trial, Rayna Tom Carmen pulled the rug out from under his own defense when he “declared he could not remember what happened after he left a dance at The Forks on Highway 41 the night of April 22nd.” His amnesia claim had worked once before, but he had been aided by the alcoholic haze of a free-for-all fight, incoherent witnesses, and a generous and patriotic jury.

This time around, however, witness testimony would prove to be all too strong, all too clear. All too plentiful.
Friday, June 23, 1950

The jury of ten men and two women did not buy it this time; deliberation was swift and brutal. Two hours and 45 minutes later, they returned with a verdict.

Rayna Tom Carmen was found guilty of murder in the first degree of Wilbur McSwain, and guilty in the attempted murder of Alvin McSwain. “Court records show that Carmen was committed to the Stockton State Hospital in 1932,” noted The Fresno Bee. “He was released in 1938. He served in the army overseas in World War II, but eventually was discharged as suffering from battle fatigue.”

A sanity hearing commenced the following Monday—a death sentence hanging in the balance—and Carmen took the stand yet again: to recount his six-year stay in the Stockton insane asylum, the toll that wartime bloodshed took on his already-fragile psyche, and his honorary discharge for combat exhaustion.

“Dr. Thomas W. Haggerty, superintendent of Stockton State Hospital, testified he had examined the defendant,” the Bee revealed the next day, “and found him to be sane. Dr. Haggerty further stated he believed Carmen was sane at the time of the fatal shooting.

“A Superior Court jury deliberated less than 40 minutes to find Rayna Tom Carmen … was sane. Carmen appeared calm when the court clerk read the jury’s findings, and when Deputy Sheriff William Helm approached to return him to jail, he greeted the officer with a broad smile.

“Members of the jury, and District Attorney J.D. Boyle, all showed visible indications of the stress they had been under. It was Boyle’s first case in which he had asked—and the jury had returned—a verdict carrying the death penalty.”

But the legal saga of the convicted killer was only just beginning.

The California State Supreme Court reversed Rayna Tom Carmen’s conviction and death sentence the following year, on the grounds that “the court failed to instruct the jury it might find the defendant guilty of manslaughter,” per The Fresno Bee. The conviction for the attempted murder of Alvin McSwain, however, was sustained.

Carmen remained behind bars as he was retried in October of 1951—after which, he was again found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to die at San Quentin.

But in 1952, Carmen’s attorney, Mason Bailey, asked for the transfer of the case to the federal courts on the grounds that Carmen, as a member of the North Fork Mono tribe, had committed the slaying on land allotted to the Mono tribe of North Fork by the federal government. Therefore, he argued, his client’s conviction in the state court was invalid.

The legal conundrum ping-ponged its way through various state and federal courts for the next couple of years … until Superior Court Judge Stanley Murray set an execution date of December 10, 1954, for the twice-convicted army veteran.

And so began a decade-long series of execution stays and reinstatements. Carmen remained on death row at San Quentin through it all, silver threading his thick black hair. He would be declared legally insane in 1960 (official diagnosis: schizophrenia), and transferred to a federal mental hospital in Springfield, Missouri. He would remain there for seven years.

Rayna Tom Carmen was released in 1967, his murder charge finally dismissed; now 56 years old, he returned to his hometown of North Fork in California. His family welcomed him home during the Summer of Love, and for the next decade-and-a-half, he maintained a low profile, drawing on disability and veteran’s benefits.

Carmen doted on his nieces and nephews in his later years, splurging on ice cream for all the kids when summer came around. And they doted on him in return—their loveable but eccentric uncle—and celebrated his 70th birthday with him in February of 1981.

But now and then, every so often, he would just snap …

Sunday, August 2, 1981

It was no surprise that the Buckhorn Lodge in North Fork was bustling with a hot crowd on a hot Sunday night in August. It was a night to get lucky, and as Shirley Sherman, 45, and Anthony Riley, 29, locked eyes across the restaurant’s crowded, smoky bar, the May-December pair knew exactly where this particular night would lead them.

Weaving tipsily through the packed parking lot, Sherman scanned the sea of parked vehicles for her own as Riley held on to her waist, steadying them both. In just a few short moments, delicious privacy would be theirs … Ah, there it was—she tilted her head in the right direction, afraid she might slur her words if she attempted to speak. The inebriated couple ambled slowly forward on unsteady feet.

And then, in a scene reminiscent of last year’s summer camp slasher smash “Friday the 13th,” a vehicle roared toward them at top speed, a rusty old beast with gas pedal floored. Its driver zeroed in on their flushed, frightened faces, frozen in the white-hot glare of his headlights. Sherman screamed.

Rayna Tom Carmen was out for blood.

“A Mono Indian—who spent more time on California’s death row than anyone except Caryl Chessman—will have a preliminary hearing on a new murder charge,” The Fresno Bee reported Thursday, August 6, 1981.

“Rayna Tom Carmen, 70, pleaded innocent Tuesday in Sierra Justice Court to murder and attempted murder for allegedly running over two people with his vehicle Sunday in the Buckhorn Lodge restaurant lot at North Fork. One victim, Shirley A. Sherman, 45, of Fresno, died … The other, Anthony Riley of Auberry, was hospitalized with a broken leg.

“Madera County sheriff’s officers said Carmen apparently ran over the first people he saw because he was angry over a broken window in his vehicle.”

It must have felt like déjà vu for Carmen, who had been in this same situation twice before. Six victims—three of them dead—over the course of four decades. Except this time, his days of freedom were truly over.

Six months later, a Madera County Superior Court jury found a most unlikely serial killer guilty of second-degree murder and attempted murder, respectively. “Superior Court Judge Clifford H. Plumley … sentenced Rayna Tom Carmen, 71, to a minimum of 24 years,” revealed the Bee, “nine years for attempted murder, and 15 years to life for second-degree murder.

“Carmen is slightly stoop-shouldered and hard of hearing. Whether he has a violent nature is debatable. ‘My impression is that he is easygoing—except if he gets upset, he can lose control,’ said F. Earl Bandy, his attorney.

“Deputy District Attorney Paul Avent—the prosecutor in the case—called Carmen ‘a cold-blooded killer.’ He said Carmen’s attitude toward the verdict was a ‘Well, gosh’ attitude … Avent said law enforcement officers testified that Carmen feels he is justified in ‘what he did, and his statements indicate he was born mean. How many more victims will there be before his opportunity to kill is done away with?’”

Rayna Tom Carmen was transferred to the state prison in Vacaville to serve out his new term, where he would die of cancer on Wednesday, February 5, 1986, in the prison’s companion medical facility. He was just eight days shy of his 75th birthday.

Who knows, exactly, what makes a man kill three people over a span of two generations? A traumatic brain injury in early adulthood? State-sanctioned slaughter on foreign battlefields? Shellshock, or its later incarnations of battle fatigue, combat exhaustion, and PTSD? Or even just a particularly hair-trigger temper?

Rayna Tom Carmen’s grown nieces and nephews brought him home a final time to North Fork, where he is buried in the same cemetery as his second victim, Wilbur McSwain, who never made it past 15.

Photos provided by author.

Works Cited
“Girl Killed, Six Hurt in Collision.” The Fresno Morning Republican, Sunday, March 9, 1930, p. 9.
“Shaw Avenue Death Car.” The Fresno Morning Republican, Tuesday, March 11, 1930, p. 9.
“$20,000 Sought for Injuries in Collision.” The Fresno Morning Republican, Wednesday, April 9, 1930, p. 13.
“$5,250 Sought for Auto Crash Injuries.” The Fresno Morning Republican, Friday, April 25, 1930, p. 12.
“16-Year-Old North Fork Boy is Slain from Ambush; Man Stalks, Kills Kin with Rifle.” The Fresno Bee, Monday, April 24, 1950, p. 1.
“Ambush Slayer is Charged with Murder, Assault.” The Fresno Bee, Tuesday, April 25, 1950, p. 23.
“Inspects Death Weapon.” The Fresno Bee, Tuesday, April 25, 1950, p. 23.
“Survivor.” The Fresno Bee, Tuesday, April 25, 1950, p. 23.
“North Fork Man Goes to Trial for Ambush Slaying.” The Fresno Bee, Wednesday, June 21, 1950, p. 31.
“State Stresses Threats Before Ambush Slaying.” The Fresno Bee, Thursday, June 22, 1950, p. 37.
“Carmen Declares Mysterious Force Directed Killing.” The Fresno Bee, Friday, June 23, 1950, p. 22.
“North Fork Slayer, Guilty, Faces Death.” The Fresno Bee, Saturday, June 24, 1950, p. 1.
“Sanity Question is Under Study of Carmen Jury.” The Fresno Bee, Monday, June 26, 1950, p. 18.
“Ambush Slayer is Found Sane.” The Fresno Bee, Tuesday, June 27, 1950, p. 24.
“Ambush Slayer is Sentenced to Die in San Quentin.” The Fresno Bee, Friday, June 30, 1950, p. 25.
“Supreme Court Reverses Madera Death Penalty.” The Fresno Bee, Friday, March 2, 1951, p. 22.
“Man Sentenced to Death Wins Second Trial.” The Modesto Bee, Tuesday, July 31, 1951, p. 4.
“Retrial Brings Second Slaying Conviction.” The Stockton Evening and Sunday Record, Tuesday, October 9, 1951, p. 19.
“Death Sentence is Due for Veteran.” The Modesto Bee, Thursday, October 25, 1951, p. 9.
“New Trial for Slayer Asked.” The Berkeley Gazette, Thursday, May 1, 1952, p. 27.
“High Court Ruling Revives Carmen Death Decree.” The Fresno Bee, Wednesday, August 18, 1954, p. 20.
“Court Sets Date for Execution.” The Modesto Bee, Friday, October 1, 1954, p. 2.
“Doomed Con Wins Stay of Execution.” The San Rafael Daily Independent Journal, Friday, November 12, 1954, p. 16.
“High Court Again Asked to Save Ambush Slayer.” The Fresno Bee, Tuesday, April 30, 1957, p. 27.
“Supreme Court Rules Ambush Slayer Must Die.” The Fresno Bee, Saturday, August 3, 1957, p. 13.
“North Fork Slayer Wins Execution Stay.” The Fresno Bee, Tuesday, October 29, 1957, p. 19.
“Judge Declares Slayer Carmen Legally Insane.” The Fresno Bee, Tuesday, June 21, 1960, p. 25.
“Carmen Seeks Release, Third Murder Trial.” The Fresno Bee, Thursday, April 18, 1963, p. 44.
“Carmen Will Have Third Sanity Hearing Test.” The Fresno Bee, Wednesday, July 17, 1963, p. 11.
“Carmen Must Continue as Mental Patient.” The Fresno Bee, Tuesday, September 24, 1963, p. 39.
“Hearing on New Murder Count Set for Former Death Row Inmate.” The Fresno Bee, Thursday, August 6, 1981, p. 21.
“North Fork Man Convicted of Third Slaying.” The Fresno Bee, Thursday, March 4, 1982, p. 1.
“North Fork Man, 71, Returned to Prison for Slaying Woman.” The Fresno Bee, Tuesday, April 6, 1982, p. 18.
“The End of Rayna Tom Carmen.” The Madera Tribune, Wednesday, August 21, 2019.
ancestry.com www.findagrave.com

Sarah A. Peterson-Camachois a library assistant with Fresno County Library, with a Bachelor’s in English and a Bachelor’s in Journalism from California State University, Fresno. In her free time, she makes soap and jewelry that she sells at Fresno-area craft fairs. She has written for The Clovis Roundup and the Central California Paranormal Investigators (CCPI) Newsletter.