At the beginning of the summer of 1962 nobody much cared about the story except for a Press Democrat staff writer. By midsummer it was the top news in the Bay Area. As the season came to an end, a mania over the case had gripped all of California, with tips and false leads flooding police telephone lines.
The pressing question everyone wanted answered: Where were the Arnesons? Mildred and Jay had been missing over six months when the first PD article appeared. They had no close friends in Santa Rosa so there was no one to raise an alarm over their unusual disappearances, but her family in Washington state was convinced something terrible had happened.
They presented the Sonoma County Sheriff with their suspicions and even evidence of crimes. Yet the office stubbornly refused to investigate and treated it like a routine missing-persons case, which is to say they did nothing as the months passed. "It's primarily a matter of waiting for leads," the sheriff's investigator said. The PD slammed the department for what it called "official indifference." In a headline, no less.
And then there was Eva Anna Long, who had also vanished. She was supposedly a friend of the Arnesons - were they all together somewhere? The inspector in charge of the case believed so (while leaving open "possible foul play") even though the woman had an incredibly sketchy history. She was already wanted by the sheriff for recently pulling a gun on someone and her name was actually an alias.
At its core this is a true crime story which any competent writer could sum up in 2,500 words or so - as several have in years since. (Monte Schulz, son of Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz, wrote a novelized version called "Naughty.") Sure, it can be framed as a straight-forward "Motive, Means and Opportunity" crime, but only by going back to the original sources can we grasp what made this tale so remarkably compelling; it sucked everyone in because each new detail was wilder and crazier than the last. It was like receiving a piece of a jigsaw puzzle nearly every day which changed the emerging picture from what you expected.
The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com.
- Jeff Elliott
It happened without any warning: "Santa Rosa's Public Library will close at 6PM today and suspend services until another building can be found," the Press Democrat article announced on November 17, 1960.
What town closes down its library? And can they even do that? Oh, sure, the old building had its faults, everybody knew. The building could be overcrowded after school or on weekends and the shelves were so full that books were also piled on the floor, which had something of a slant.
Behind those ivy-covered walls the place was thick with sentiment. Three generations of Santa Rosans had warm memories starting with children's story hours, of later reference desk help with homework, of taking home lightweight books to pass the time or stronger reading to sharpen one's wits. Out-of-town newspapers had classified ads to help find a new job or place to live that wasn't here; magazines presented stories and pictures of places to dream they could someday see.
And not to overlook that the building was a landmark - the library had been a centerpiece in two major motion pictures, with the Chamber of Commerce touting it as a tourist attraction.
Whatever was wrong with the old place, couldn't the damage be fixed?
No, authorities said. Or maybe yes - with the caveat that everyone would hate how it looked afterwards. But it wasn't really that simple a question because the real, unspoken answer was this: "Don't ask the question because we've already made a decision." And what the city and Library Board of Trustees had decided to do was tear the building completely down and replace it with something they had already committed to build. Landmark, public will, and everything else be damned.
The given reason for padlocking the doors was that the building wasn't up to fire codes and was structurally unsound. A letter to the Trustees from City Manager Sam Hood told them to immediately "move out of the building or close it" (i.e. shut down all town library services).
The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com.
- Jeff Elliott