First Friday 7/6/07

(Editor's note: On June 24 there was a ''shootout'' at a house next to the home of Laura's sister in California. It was a horrific event, though no one died. It called up memories here in Greeley. These are Laura's words about those events of the past.)

One of our tenants was murdered in November of 1997.

Tom and I were at our leather store on a Monday, dropping off purchases we'd made in Cheyenne earlier that day. The whole day felt weird, somehow. One of those days when maybe the humidity is different, or someone's "walking over your grave" kind of weird.

In retrospect, the most wonderful event of the day happened on our backroads return from Cheyenne.

We saw a utility pole that seemed taller than the others. As we drew nearer, we realized it was taller because a juvenile bald eagle was resting on the top of it! We turned around and went back to look. He became irritated and flew to the next pole. We followed him, and finally he gave us one last steely glare and flapped off to the grasslands.

Back in Greeley, we put our purchases away, and decided to go home, still feeling kind of unsettled, uneasy.

As we set security and locked the front door, we noticed two beautiful girls approaching from the west. They were walking through the snow in our parking lot, and as they crossed our buried speed bump, one of them stumbled. A baseball bat slipped eerily into view. She'd been concealing it under her long winter coat.

The two laughed, smiled, said hello, and walked south around the corner of our shop to the little mobile home park. We looked at each other, went to the corner and watched. The two disappeared behind the No.3 trailer, and we discussed why we felt so uneasy, and how we might act, and . . . decided there was nothing to do, we were silly.

(A couple of years earlier, I'd called the police because a guy was carrying a baseball bat, walking back and forth here on 18th Street, hitting power poles, sign poles, telephone booths, whatever. The dispatcher asked "So what do you want us to do about it?"

"I don't know, maybe you can't do anything, but that behavior seems strange to me. Maybe you could send an officer to contact him? Prevent some broken windows?" I wasn't expecting to have to give them direction.

She said, "Our officers are busy on much more important calls."

Always after that, I have felt reluctant to contact the police, so that night we went home, Tom started dinner, started painting.

A couple of hours later, we noticed fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, the works, down in the little mobile court.

The girls had gone to the home of Guadalupe and Siprisio Hernandez. Lupe wasn't home yet.

(Guadalupe, his wife, and their two beautiful daughters had moved into the little trailer late in 1996. After a short time, Senora Hernandez moved back to Mexico to be nearer her family. Lupe was busy with his job, and she needed more help with the girls and life in general than he was able to provide. Lupe's brother came to Colorado, moved in with him, and went to work at a truss plant in Fort Lupton.
Yes, they were here legally. No, they didn't have much English. In fact, initially the daughters, maybe 5 and 7, provided translation services. Yes, they were aspiring to "the American Dream." I always wonder why we call it the American Dream, rather than the U.S. Dream. America is huge, and to the best of my knowledge, includes South America! What a concept!)

Testimony was that the two girls wanted to rob the Hernandez brothers for money to purchase marijuana. Once inside the little mobile home, one girl, a 16-year-old, lifted her blouse and exposed her breasts to Siprisio Avila Hernandez.

While he was distracted, her companion, 19, bashed him in the head with the bat. When he wouldn't die as easily as they thought, they found knives and used them.

Guadalupe discovered Siprisio's body. We learned later that the girls planned to come back and murder him, too, but no one would loan them a gun.

When we returned from a visit to Florida, we went ''downtown'' to make identification of the girls, whom authorities had found about two weeks after the murder.

Shortly after that, Guadalupe came to us, and in his broken English, said "I know I've signed a legal contract, but I don't think I can bear to live there anymore. Please can I be released from the contract?"

(We've had college-educated white boys who don't know they've signed legal contracts. So much for attitudes toward "those dumb Mexicans" as so many people seem to feel.)

Of course we released him from the contract.

-0-

During our Linda Holt Memorial Run, a two-day event in May, a strange man with a glowering countenance came into our store. He asked for me, and handed me a subpoena.

When I showed up in court, partially as a witness but more to show support for Guadalupe, the defense attorney called a halt to the proceedings. He announced loudly and angrily, "We have a witness in this court who needs to be removed."

He meant me. In the hallway, Tom and I made it fairly clear to all concerned including the judge, that if they wanted me to be there but not in the room, they would have to communicate that, rather than yell at me in the courtroom.

Whoop-te-do. Like it made any impact on the officials. I never did have to testify; the girls pleaded guilty.

The 16-year-old was sentenced to 32 years in prison. The 19-year-old was sentenced to 50 years.

-0-

It's not something you get over. Life doesn't return to "normal." And it certainly didn't return to normal for the Hernandez family. Guadalupe moved to Texas, last we heard. Sipriso's body was returned to Mexico for burial.

-0-

When our friend Linda Holt was murdered in 1987, her friends and family put together a bikers' "memorial run."

The same man who murdered Linda had also murdered another woman -- that's when they caught him. Linda's murder probably couldn't have been prevented by the authorities. Mona Hughes might be alive today if the police had been more ambitious in looking for Linda's killer.

Instead, the police seemed to be saying by their sluggish actions, "Oh, she was just a biker. Probably had it coming."

In 12 years, the memorial run returned nearly $25,000 to the community, in the forms of aid to people who fall into the cracks of the system. Some money went to the search and rescue squad who looked for her body. Some went to the family of Mona. More went to help turn on electricity for people, to help a woman who'd been raped, to buy a bus ticket so a Mom could come visit a victimized daughter.

We have a page-long list of where the money went, and none of it ever went to her family (by their request) or the volunteers producing the run. We know. We were the stewards of the money.

When the run was retired in 1998, we asked Mike, Linda's widower, where he'd like the balance to go. "I don't care" he said.

So we sent approximately $5000.00 to Children's Hospital in Denver. They're the people who helped Tom when he had polio. He had always wanted to make some contribution.

We had embroidered patches made, "IN MEMORY OF LINDA" -- red and white ones the first year, blue and white after that.

The patch drew lots of questions. "Who was Linda? What's that about?" Someone even asked me once, "Are you Linda?"

Dork. If I was Linda, I'd have to be dead. It's a memory patch, fer cryin' out loud.

But, every time I told the story of her life -- and death -- it helped me let go of some of the bad, and remember more of the good. She was my inspiration to learn to ride motorcycles. I always wanted to ride, but I didn't want to be a "biker mama."

Well, she rode, and she was a lady. A Lady. If she could ride and be a Lady, maybe I could too!

-0-

My Great-Grandma Savey died the year before Linda. When people from Mom and Dad's church heard about her death, the ladies got busy with the prayer chain.

The family received the call about 7:30 a.m. Mom answered. She hung up, turned to the table, and said "Daddy, she's gone."

Grandpa turned to my husband Tom, firmly took his hand, and said "She's in a better place."

About two hours later, the prayer chain reached Mom.

"We're calling to let you know that Florence Savey has died. Please pray for her family."

Mom, somewhat miffed, said "I'm her daughter. I know she's dead. Don't call me again."

Mom always was a little ouchy about the Holt run. As time went on, I came to realize that her mother had died, and not only was she not allowed to tell her story (even though Grandma's death wasn't violently caused, Mom still needed to convey her loss to people) but a woman from her own church didn't even know the relationship between Mom and Grandma!

-0-

Word of the week: Commuter. Webster's New World Dictionary says, "a person who travels daily or regularly by train etc. between an outlying district and his place of work in the city."

Made-up word of the week: "Slong." It's a cross between a sling and a thong.

Next week's word: Baptism.