Sunday, December 2, 2012

Murder à la Robin Hood

From the "Trustee Tom Fuentes files" [Fuentes got his start working for corrupt OC supervisor Caspers; Caspers' chief crony was the corrupt Fred Harber; Hoffman was a common thread]:

Update: Wyoming community college killing

     Police released more details Saturday of a grisly murder-suicide at a Wyoming community college, saying a man shot his father in the head with a bow and arrow in front of a computer-science class not long after fatally stabbing his father’s live-in girlfriend at their home a couple miles away. … Computer-science instructor James Krumm, 56, may have saved some of his students’ lives Friday by giving them time to flee while trying to fend off his son. (12/3 update)

* * *

     FAMOUS OC MURDER MYSTERY. This odd episode reminds me of one of Orange County’s greatest murder mysteries, a case that we’ve discussed previously. Here are the facts:
     Tom Fuentes’ political career started when he served, first, as OC Supervisor Ron Casper’s campaign manager (c. 1969-70), then as his executive assistant (1971-4). Casper’s chief political advisor those days was Fred Harbor, owner of the Shooting Star, the yacht that mysteriously disappeared off the coast of Baja in 1974, along with Caspers, Harber, and eight other men. (My earlier examination into the careers of Harber and Caspers has convinced me that these two were quite dirty. If so, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Fuentes was in the thick of these dark doings. See Shooting Star.)
     At the time, Harbor’s trusted secretary was one Arlene Hoffman, who, twenty years later, became a secretary for OC Supervisor Jim Silva:
Arlene Hoffman
     Late in 1994, not long after her husband's death, at the recommendation of Lyle Overby [who, incidentally, disembarked the Shooting Star after the first leg of its doomed voyage], she was employed by newly-elected OC Supervisor Jim Silva, a Republican. When, one day late in December, she didn’t show up for work, Silva had the police go to her Laguna Niguel home. They found her dead body near the entry. She had been killed with an arrow, possibly from a cross-bow, the night before. The arrow was not found on the scene. Nothing was.
     Evidently, nothing had been taken from her home; it had not been ransacked. Her dog was still with her when the police arrived.
     The murderer has never been identified.
OC Register
May 10, 2006
Police, fire, courts LAGUNA NIGUEL
     Orange County sheriff's investigators continue to ask for the public's help in finding the person who killed Arlene Hoffman nearly eight years ago [sic?—eleven and a half years ago].
     Hoffman, 57, was found dead in her Laguna Niguel home Dec. 30, 1994. She may have been killed with an arrow or a similar instrument.
     Anyone with information about the case is asked to call (714) 647-7055.
May 9, 1976 - LA Times - Case against Cella
Corinthian Colleges' for-profit model under fire (OC Reg)
     For-profit colleges have been on the hot seat lately for collecting billions in revenue from federal student loans while too often leaving students saddled with debt and ill-equipped to get jobs. Half the students enrolled at the largest for-profit schools leave without a diploma within four months. Corinthian Colleges is one of the companies under the spotlight. Its colleges charge some of the industry’s highest tuition and steer students into expensive private loans that half of them eventually default on….

See also:
• Tom Fuentes and Stanbridge College (a local for-profit) 
 • Mathur's friends among us (Mathur and Argosy)

Kitten and couple

The puppy cat
     A very brief Bugsy update: he’s doing wonderfully. Took ‘im to the vet on Thursday, where he got two more shots, plus this and that. He was pretty brave about it, and it helped that the technician, Janelle, was kind and good. Turns out his health prospects are likely better than we first thought, given his heart murmur, and that cheered us.
     Yesterday, my folks moved all the furniture out of a back room in preparation for carpet-cleaning there, and the temporary home of all that stuff in the living room produced a marvelous kitten Disneyland. I popped by today, and I found the Bugster happily exploring the empty drawers and empty chests, the box spring set, and whatnot. Naturally, the boy was hard to find, cuz hiding is half the fun.
     "Where are you, Little Man?" called mom. He soon climbed atop a couch, and mom scooped him up, then cradled him like a baby, whereupon he seemed to go into a brief trance. I espied his fuzzy little forehead and pinkish ears whilst mom made with the baby talk. Then, suddenly, he squirmed out of mom's arms and ran to greet my dad at the door. "Hi, pup!" said dad, as he struggled, like the old man he is, through the door.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...