by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
“I killed her because I hated her. I thought of killing her before, but I never had the guts until now.” --Alice Elizabeth Richard, 14, 1950
It was as plain and straight-forward a motive as there ever could be, but no one paid it any mind. There just had to be more to it than that—after all, what would a teenage bobbysoxer know, even if she was the killer in question?
A poet who captured the culture of Dust Bowl refugees, lived in the San Joaquin Valley, and most of us have never heard of her! Pick Up Your Name and Write: The Life of Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel is part of Betty Blanks’ crusade to change that lack of knowledge.
by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
The fog was otherworldly that morning, as if a ravenous ghost had swallowed the Central Valley whole. Blanketing California’s agricultural heartland in a spectral haze of bone-chilling mist, it swept over the dormant vegetation in swirling tendrils of unearthly murk.
by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
Sunday, November 2, 1986, Day of the DeadHalloween was on a Friday that year—a boon to schoolkids flying high on a candy-fueled sugar rush, and for those party-hardy adults who’d be nursing hangovers the next day. All had that entire weekend to recover.
by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
Like an emaciated ghost gliding through a neon haze of emerald static, an impossibly slender column of white ectoplasm swept across the frosty front lawn of a suburban residence in Fresno, California, its stick-like shadow knifing along beside it.
by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
What began as a joke by a San Francisco pundit in 1906—the earliest Joaquin Murrieta ghost reference I could find in the California press—would become a headless paranormal powerhouse by mid-century.
First appearing as a put-upon spirit placating the weepy wraith of Scottish pirate Captain Kidd in A.J. Waterhouse’s “Occidental Accidentals” humor column in The San Francisco Call and Post, the ghost of Joaquin Murrieta retained his head—but not his sense of humor—in Why Kidd’s Ghost Wept.
by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
“The Weekly Alta has recently begun the publication of the story of Joaquin Murrieta, revised. The story is more attractive in its new form than ever before, and the publishers have been unable to supply the demand for back numbers.” --The Santa Barbara Times, Saturday, November 26, 1870, p. 2
by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
Cordelia Brown Botkin was a woman of voracious and insatiable appetites: for sex, for sugar, for liquor, and gambling, and murder. And in time, she would become as well-known for her love of cheesecake photo shoots as she was for her love of the decadent dessert itself.
Nestled within the majestic Sequoia National Park lies Mineral King, a valley brimming with natural beauty and rich historical significance. At the heart of efforts to preserve this hidden gem stands the Mineral King Preservation Society (MKPS), a nonprofit organization dedicated to safeguarding its unique heritage. Founded in 1986 amidst concerns over potential development, the society has since become a committed guardian of Mineral King's cultural and environmental legacy.
by Sarah Peterson-Camacho
Emma Theresa Cole Barrett Williams McVicar LeDoux was promptly charged with the premeditated, first-degree murder of one Albert Newton McVicar, and she pleaded not guilty to the charge.
