Below: An excerpt from Alpha House, a new detective novel by local writer and attorney David Andrew Lee.

Alpha House — a tale “from the case files of Andrew Taylor, Esq.” — is available for sale at Booklegger, Amazon and eBay. A sequel, Aqua Regia, will be published this summer.

Are you a Humboldt County writer who has written a book? Or a writer who has written a book about Humboldt County? You should share an excerpt with LoCO Lit Bit! Hit us up at news@lostcoastoutpost.com, and put “Lit Bit” in the subject line. 

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It was early September 1998, the day after McGwire broke Maris’ home run record. We didn’t know chemicals were involved. The East Bay sweltered under a high-pressure cell and Oakland had been oven-like all morning. I stepped from a bus and moved slowly in the heat. A mile off, the sidewalks were kept civilized on business days by nine-to-fivers under the skyline of the commerce district, but I had a landscape of quick loans, bail bonds, pornography, and the kind of bars that open at six a.m. and sell double whiskeys for a buck fifty. The freeway overpass offered a moment of shade before Oakland Police Headquarters came into view. The State Bar reinstated my license six years earlier, but I hadn’t been inside the building since the night I was arrested for driving a stolen Porsche through the glass doors of the Merritt Hotel.

Capt. Enrique Moran assigned cases and phonied up crime statistics for the homicide division on the sixth floor, so I beelined for the elevator after the security check. I rode up with three uniforms I knew from better days. They were all right, but knowing too many cops is like knowing too many doctors — it shakes your confidence in the selection process. I found Moran behind his desk using a gold-plated lighter to fire up a cigar that wasn’t quite long enough to shoot pool with. A skinny lieutenant named Leighton Tubbs stood behind him. He had a high pimpled forehead and khaki-colored teeth, and he sized me up with eyes that were so muddy they looked diseased.

“Adam Taylor,” the lieutenant announced. “Junkie lawyer and mouthpiece for cop killers. Did you drive here, Taylor? We’d better run the VIN number. Never hurts to check.”

“Tubbs, you stupid fuck,” I told him. “VIN number is redundant.”

Moran signaled for a truce and pointed to a chair with his novelty-sized cigar.

“Sit down, Counselor. Thanks for coming. Don’t mind Tubbs. I think he has a flute up his ass or something.”

The lieutenant narrowed his eyelids into reptilian slits and moved to a wall next to the door. I took a mahogany chair near the desk, shifted it so I could see both men, crossed an ankle over a knee. Moran started right in.

“What do you know about Isaac Shariq?”

That didn’t just come out of left field, it came out of a different ballpark. In another city. It took a moment to calibrate.

“Nothing I could tell you.”

Moran considered that and nodded. He was a short, squat man with a smooth, hairless face and a buttery layer of fat beneath his skin, and he had enormous teeth that made him look amused even when he wasn’t. He wore too much gold and too much cologne, and I was pretty sure he could quote the line on every pony at Golden Gate Fields. He could also spot the guilty flicker of an eyelash on a crowded bus.

“We’re looking for him,” Moran continued. “Seems he’s suddenly hard to find.”

“That would be news to me,” I said.

Lt. Tubbs moved off the wall.

“Cut the bullshit, Taylor,” he barked. “Our guess is you’ve been talking to him all night. Keep lying to us and we’ll damn sure take you in. Charge your ass as an accessory.”

Moran froze him with a hard look.

I tapped the first cigarette out of a newly opened pack. Lit it with a safety match. Flicked the dead match into a hubcap on the desk that doubled as an ashtray.

“This ape is wasting my time,” I told Moran. “He smells bad, and he’s not house broken. Shouldn’t he be gunning down girl scouts for jaywalking or something?”

Leighton Tubbs pulled his lips back from two perfectly even rows of dingy teeth, but I wouldn’t have called it a smile. As a sergeant, Tubbs had three kills under his belt — the last one a 13-year-old boy he was trying to arrest for scalping Raiders’ tickets. The Department promoted him to lieutenant to get him off the streets and put a lid on the civil suits that were piling up.

“The lieutenant represents the Narcotics Division,” Moran said. “They’ve got an interest in this. But he’s all talked out now, and you won’t be hearing from him again.”

Tubbs fragged his captain with a sullen look and took his place back on the wall. Moran examined his pudgy hands and adjusted one of his rings.

“You and Ike go way back,” he continued. “I know that. And I know you’ll want to see him treated right. That’s why I asked you to come down.”

“Yeah, I’m a regular pal. What do you want with Ike?”

He paused, a maestro before the opening flourish. “Isaac Shariq shot his wife last night. She’s dead.”

I showed them nothing, but I felt like I just tossed back an ounce of birdshot.

“What’s Narcotics got to do with it?”

“Shariq’s got a few things in the works just now. One of them pretty big. We want to save that one if we can. The others we don’t care about.”

“What do you think I can do?”

“Find him. Be his lawyer. Be his friend. But get him in here with the right kind of confession and all the loose pieces of that dope case and I can talk the DA down to a second. Maybe even manslaughter.”

I blew smoke at a NO SMOKING sign on the desk and crushed out the cigarette.

“Isaac Shariq is not your killer,” I told him. “If you want to show me your evidence, I can probably tell you what’s wrong with it before a jury does. Save you a lot of trouble.”

Moran leaned back in his chair and smacked his fleshy lips at the fluorescent lights before he answered.

“No bite, Counselor. He’s our guy, all right, and you won’t be doing him any favors thinking otherwise. You’ll get everything when you bring him in. I’m going to the house this morning, and you can ride along. That’s the best I can do for now. When we get there be invisible and stay out of the way.”

On the ledge outside Captain Moran’s tinted window, a sparrow groomed herself and hopped to the edge and back. I imagined the small bird taking flight and soaring across Broadway to rise above the skyscrapers. There she would feel the sun on her feathers and ride the hot currents of air effortlessly while the noise of traffic below drifted upward, dampened by distance and robbed of urgency. Unconcerned with the doings of man, the sparrow would not fear loss or death, would not count the yesterdays against the tomorrows, would not waste the firing of a single synapse worrying about the juggernaut that was heading for Isaac Shariq with the single-mindedness of a heat-seeking missile.

Lucky sparrow.

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We ran with lights but no siren in an unmarked Crown Victoria. Moran steered with one hand cupped on the bottom of the wheel, floating around yielding traffic and punching through amber lights with a nonchalance born of repetition. Like most detectives, he spent his early years in a patrol car. When a stoplight finally snared him, he used both hands to get his cigar working. Then he spoke.

“Got the call around eight this morning. The wife’s sister came by for coffee. Found the door unlocked.”

It was an odd game. One he had been playing since I arrived at Moran’s office. The good cop/bad cop bit made some sense, maybe, but the rest was puzzling. Cops don’t invite private attorneys to watch them investigate homicides, and cops like Enrique Moran don’t gossip.

“Coffee?”

“That’s what she said,” he confirmed, and his pupils locked in place for a nanosecond, telling me he was making a mental note of my question.

We took surface streets to Lake Merritt. Halfway around the perimeter we branched off onto a narrow, rising street that twisted through the hills above the south shore. Patches of coyote brush and creeping myrtle were more common than lawns, and mature coast live oaks followed us all the way. We pulled over behind a silver Volvo sedan with a crumpled fender that was parked skewed from parallel and too far from the curb, the way drunks do it. Squad cars and an OPD evidence van were up ahead, but we weren’t close enough to see the house. Moran issued latex gloves to us from a box he took from the dash compartment. We pulled them on before we approached the scene of the homicide.

Ike’s house was a jewel of Craftsman design — a single story, two-bedroom affair with a front porch tucked under eaves held up by square columns. The lot was bigger than most, which allowed a tiny, one-car garage to be shoe-horned between houses in later years. Ike’s 1959 Bentley Coupe was parked on two ribbons of concrete that ran up to a sliding, carriage house door. A beautifully restored, two-toned model, it stood out like a Super Bowl ring on the finger of a medical school cadaver.

“Stay next to me and don’t touch anything,” Moran instructed. “I have to be able to testify that you didn’t contaminate the scene.”

We stopped at the evidence van and were fitted with cloth overshoes and surgical masks, then I followed Moran through a gap in a fence of yellow police tape where we merged into the two-way traffic of lab-coated technicians processing the house. A bench on the porch propped open a lavender, scrolled-metal security door I painted for Zuri Shariq on her 42nd birthday.

We stood together just inside. Moran kept his eyes on my face while I watched a tableau of spent rage come into focus — whiskey tumblers smashed against a wall, coffee table upended, sofa cushions frosted with glass from a busted table lamp, telephone dangling from the limbs of a potted Philodendron, ripped from the wall and flung so forcefully into the bush that the receiver coiled around a thick branch stripped of leaves. Black fingerprint powder sooted the room.

Technicians huddled in the adjoining room, labeling and bagging items from an indistinct clutter on the dining table. A white sheet covered a motionless form in the hallway beyond. I stepped away to get a better view of the kitchen, which we could see through a wide doorway in the wall opposite the body. The table there held a sampler from some back-alley apothecary — loaded meth pipe, coke lines, a blackened spoon sticky with tar heroin. An empty fifth of Seagram’s gin sat next to the sink. All the cabinets were open to allow photographs of their contents. On an upper shelf, easily visible behind soup cans, was the iconic shape of a Jack Daniel’s whiskey bottle.

Moran nodded when a young criminalist — so bug-eyed I instinctively looked for a goiter — asked if we wanted to see the victim. Zuri Shariq lay on her back in a flannel nightgown. One leg was folded up beneath her, and her arms were bent with one hand up and one hand down like an Egyptian hieroglyph. Blood had pooled darkly around her head, and a scarlet wound, where her left eye should have been, was the only flaw on her still beautiful, pale-brown face.

“Exit wound,” our criminalist said. “She was shot from behind.”

He pointed to a splatter of fine, rust-brown droplets cascading along one wall toward a small hole circled with chalk at the end of the hallway.

“We got the slug. Large caliber. Found a Glock .45 in the kitchen.”

I went back out to the street and lit a cigarette. Moran joined me and fiddled with his cigar. We watched the covered body of Zuri Shariq go past us on a stretcher before he spoke.

“Well?”

“Your guess is that Ike relapsed big time and killed her in a rage?”

“It’s not a guess. We have a witness.”

“Who?”

“You have to wait for that, Counselor. Find Ike.”

“Can I use the bathroom?”

“What?”

“Are they finished with the bathroom?”

Moran blinked at me. He looked over at a tech who had been close enough to hear and got a signal before answering.

“Sure. Go ahead.”

He walked with me to the hallway and watched me from there. I slipped inside the bathroom and locked the door. Over the sound of flushing, I carefully lifted the top of the toilet tank and turned it over. Taped to the underside were a medical syringe, a small baggie of white powder, and a snub-nosed .38 special.

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David Andrew Lee received his Juris Doctor in 1978 from UC Davis and practiced criminal law on both sides of the aisle until his retirement. He lives with his wife, Janice, in Eureka.

Grizzly bears were once native to California, from the redwoods all the way to the Mexican border. Euro-American settlers wiped out the species in roughly 75 years, with the last reported grizzly bear seen near what is now Sequoia National Park in 1924. Despite that literal absence from the state, grizzlies are also still everywhere: from the California state flag, to place names (like Los Osos, meaning “the bears” in Spanish), to college football team mascots, like the Berkeley Golden Bears. A new effort led by the Yurok and Tejon Tribes is proposing to study the feasibility of bringing back our grizzlies to the state. A new bill in the legislature, SB 1305 (Richardson), would direct the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to study potentially reintroducing the species to the state through scientific, socioeconomic and tribal consultations to assess its feasibility.

Tiana Williams-Claussen, director of the Yurok Tribe Wildlife Department, and Peter Alagona, professor at UC Santa Barbara, join the program to talk about grizzlies in California, both in the past and hopefully the future.

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Back in the early days of 1942, World War II was in full swing and the Japanese had intentions of gaining ground nearly everywhere in the Pacific theater. Pearl Harbor was fresh in every American’s memory, having occurred only a few short months before. The United States, following the initial shock, now had to fight a full-scale war with the Germans across the Atlantic to the east and the Japanese to the west.

The various branches of the military were, for the most part, ill-equipped and unprepared for such a sudden undertaking. The Navy had, by fortunate circumstances, managed to hold onto what would soon become its most valuable warships: the aircraft carriers that had not been at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. The Air Corps, at that time part of the Army, was flying mostly obsolete aircraft, with too few planes capable of challenging those of the Japanese. Finally, the Army and the Marines had to immediately boost both personnel and equipment for the island-hopping campaigns in the years to come.

With all these factors in mind, the military was painfully aware that there were a couple thousand miles of virtually unprotected and unpatrolled United States coastline susceptible to landing parties or penetration by aircraft. For the most part, any kind of large invasion was not expected, but sabotage and the mere presence of the enemy on the shores of the United States could easily cause panic and a loss of morale among the population at large. The electronic wonder of radar was still in its infancy, and thus it was quickly realized that organized patrols and lookouts were a necessity for the East and West coasts.

This job fell to the Coast Guard, the smallest branch of the military. The Coast Guard’s primary function before the war was the protection of life and property in the event of trouble at sea involving commercial or pleasure craft. The service maintained navigational equipment along the coastline, including buoys and lighthouses. During Prohibition, the Coast Guard had chased many a rum runner attempting to smuggle illegal goods into the United States.

The young men from the Midwest who enlisted in the Coast Guard in the spring of 1942, and who were eventually formed into Company C, 12th Regiment, may have had visions of speedy patrol boats and action at sea. It is doubtful that any of them had any idea of the duty that lay before them in the months ahead.

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The men, who came from all parts of the Midwest, were formed into a unit at Omaha, Nebraska. From there, they took a seven-day ride on a military train, arriving on the West Coast in mid-July. Formation and training of the unit had been somewhat delayed while the new base at Alameda was completed. There, the unit of 80 men underwent six weeks of basic training before assignment to duty. After basic training, the unit boarded buses for a long trip up the coast to Eureka and Humboldt Bay.

Receiving their orders and boarding the buses for the trip north, the men still had no idea what they would actually be doing. Upon arrival, they were shown their temporary quarters at the Naval Section Base on Samoa. This base was located between the present-day boat-launching ramp and the Coast Guard lifeboat station. At that time, the boat ramp and surrounding area were part of the Navy base.

The question of their duties was quickly answered. The next day, they were out on patrol.

Those early days on the beach were filled with long hours coupled with a lack of equipment and communications. The communications and equipment problem was no one’s fault. It was simply a case of a job having to be done quickly and with the materials available.

Seaman First Class Willis (Ty) Tyson, fresh from Duluth, Minnesota, on his first day of arrival in Humboldt County, found himself on night patrol on the beach at Clam Beach.

Willis J. Tyson, who still resided in Eureka at the time of writing, spent his early days at Samoa on patrol and was later assigned to transportation of supplies and personnel for the unit. He recounted that the early patrols consisted of two men assigned to one or two miles of beach. The pair would walk the beach together for shifts that often lasted twelve hours, from dusk to dawn. The men would patrol two nights and then have one night off. Later, when shifts were cut to about six hours, they worked four nights and then had one night off.

Virtually all patrolling was at night, except during periods of heavy fog, when a skeleton crew was sent out to beaches obscured by the cold, damp fog. Communications consisted of a few radios mounted in vehicles. There were no portable radios or walkie-talkies. In the beginning, vehicles were scarce. The first patrols sent out the day after the unit arrived were transported to their patrol areas on a dump truck borrowed from the Coast Guard lifeboat station.

There was also a lack of heavy-weather gear to protect the men from the cold, damp nights on the beaches. The men were equipped with sidearms — .38-caliber revolvers — though initially there was often only one gun for each two-man patrol.

The men were told to report anything suspicious. All friendly ships, including fishing boats, had to be blacked out at night; no running lights were allowed. Although there were never any major alerts along the Humboldt coast, there were occasions when fishing boats or similar craft forgot to douse their lights and caused alarm.

Throughout the war, however, the Japanese did make appearances elsewhere along the coast. Reports surfaced of a Japanese submarine surfacing off Seaside, Oregon, and firing rounds from its deck gun at Fort Stevens. There were reports of attempted sabotage of oil reservoirs in the Santa Barbara area, as well as sightings of single Japanese aircraft launched from submarines. Locally, the torpedoing of the tanker Emidio off Blunts Reef and Cape Mendocino caused authorities to investigate suspicious activity or lights along the Humboldt coast.

The beach patrol was not alone in its watchful vigil. The Navy operated a blimp based at Samoa that spent its days aloft over the ocean searching for submarines. Crash boats stood ready for use if aircraft from the Navy-controlled McKinleyville airport went down at sea. Civilian-manned posts scanned the skies for enemy aircraft. The State Guard was assigned the task of guarding bridges along the highways. Automobiles driving roads bordering the ocean were required to use blackout-style headlights.

Two weeks after arrival, the beach patrol moved into new quarters. The men occupied large barracks buildings formerly used by the Hammond Lumber Company adjacent to the present-day Samoa Cookhouse. Shortly thereafter, stations were established at intervals along the coast. Twenty men were assigned to the old Table Bluff Hotel off old Highway 101, home of J.A. Mouat. Other stations were established at Davis Creek, several miles north of the Mattole River; Centerville Beach at the Moranda Bros. ranch; Machado Ranch at McKinleyville; and the Christensen ranch on the Arcata Bottom. Eventually, the unit reached about 250 men.

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While this work was underway, Tyson and seven or eight other men were sent to the San Francisco Bay Area for additional training and equipment. Until they arrived, they had no idea what awaited them. Tyson was sent to a warehouse to pick up equipment and discovered the mission involved horses. Waiting for him were 50 or 60 Army saddles that had been pulled from World War I storage. The saddles were in excellent condition and looked brand new. The men returned to headquarters with their consignment of cavalry gear, and shortly thereafter a shipment of Army horses arrived.

Most of the men were startled by the prospect of patrolling beaches on horseback, but it proved to be an effective idea. Each man assigned to patrol duty had his own horse and gear for which he was responsible. Stations near ranches now made use of existing facilities with the cooperation of local ranchers.

A genuine cavalry officer from World War I, U.S. Army Capt. C.O. Enge, was assigned to the unit as official Coast Guard veterinarian. He was described as “a great guy,” delighted to once again work with horses in the military.

The men now patrolled the beaches on horseback and could cover much greater distances. For this reason, shifts were shortened to about six hours for most patrols. However, in areas inaccessible to horses, lookout towers and foot patrols remained necessary. Dogs were often used in these areas. The dogs, mostly German shepherds, were trained attack dogs that could only be handled by their assigned handlers.

With the horses and dogs came the establishment of a landline communications system. Phone lines, strung on poles or occasionally buried underground, stretched from just north of Trinidad to the Mattole River. Every few miles along the patrol route were small shacks where the men could stop for coffee, rest and check in with headquarters. The phone system existed solely for the beach patrol and was dismantled after the program ended.

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According to Tyson, Humboldt County offered excellent liberty towns. Local residents accepted the horse-riding sailors warmly and were glad to have someone patrolling the beaches. USO centers operated in Eureka, Arcata, Fortuna and Ferndale, where servicemen could spend their off-hours. Local families often invited the men into their homes for meals. Tyson recalled dining with other servicemen at the home of a Mrs. T.W. Hine on Fairfield Street in Eureka.

By this time, transportation had improved and vehicles regularly traveled to the various stations, giving off-duty men opportunities to spend time in town. The friendships that developed with local residents led many servicemen to marry local women and settle permanently in Humboldt County. Several, including Tyson, remained in the area after the war. Others who stayed included Russell Allen, Eldon Brom, James Cook, Lee Coyle, Robert Briggs, Edward Kennedy, William McDonald, Norman Mudie, Harry Stephenson, Roy Wilde, Arthur Byerly and Jerome Wilcox.

Although there were never any major alerts or emergency actions, the patrol was not without tragedy. Patrols near the Mattole River had to cross the river at its mouth by rowboat in order to patrol beaches on the north side. On one occasion, the boat contained four men, two dogs and their equipment. As the craft reached midstream, a large swell rolled in from the ocean, catching the boat broadside and capsizing it.

Weighted down by heavy-weather gear, the men had little chance of survival in the cold waters of the Mattole. Only one man survived to recount the details of the accident. This was the only fatal incident involving the Humboldt-area beach patrol during the war.

As the war progressed in the Pacific, the apparent need for the beach patrol along the West Coast began to diminish in the spring of 1944. Men were reassigned elsewhere, and the remaining skeleton crew moved into new barracks constructed near the site of the old Clam Beach Inn before the freeway was built in the late 1960s.

By July and August 1944, most of the men were gone, and those who remained were primarily maintaining communications systems. Their stay in the new barracks lasted only a few months as the program was phased out. Tyson, one of the few who remained until the end, went on leave and later discovered upon receiving new orders that he had been reassigned to the Coast Guard lifeboat station at Samoa, only a few miles from the original headquarters of the beach patrol.

In its nearly two years of full operation, from September 1942 to the summer of 1944, the program served its purpose well despite initial hardships caused by shortages of equipment and preparation time. The men in the original unit of 80 Coast Guardsmen from the Midwest performed their duties admirably and earned the appreciation of the local community for guarding beaches considered vulnerable to sabotage or other enemy activity.

Many members of the unit remained lifelong friends. After all, it was difficult not to know your partner well after trudging through sand together all night during those early days of patrol duty.

Yes, there really were mounted Coast Guardsmen galloping along Humboldt County beaches on horseback during World War II more than forty years ago. They may have seemed an odd sight then — and likely still would today — riding patrol along the damp, storm-plagued beaches of Humboldt County.

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The piece above was printed in the May-June 1983 issue of the Humboldt Historian, a journal of the Humboldt County Historical Society. It is reprinted here with permission. The Humboldt County Historical Society is a nonprofit organization devoted to archiving, preserving and sharing Humboldt County’s rich history. You can become a member and receive a year’s worth of new issues of The Humboldt Historian at this link.

A regal beauty, and the toughest woman to ever live.

Winifred was born on July 18, 1948 to William “Bill” and Angelica Beal. To say she was proud of her roots would be an understatement. A fifth generation Ferndale native, with her father coming from the Russ family, a long line of cattle and sheep ranchers and pioneers of Ferndale, and her mother coming from a family of nobility in Russia, having successfully escaped after the Bolshevik Revolution. Winifred had many fond memories and stories to tell of her picturesque childhood, and tell them, she did!

Winnie grew up on Main Street, Ferndale, alongside her sisters, Jimmie Fay and Rebecca, too many cousins to count, and many, many lifelong best friends made along the way. Many childhood weekends were spent at Fern Cottage for family gatherings, always donning their Sunday best. She was raised with the elegance and etiquette of that expected of a young lady with her prestigious lineage, however Winifred’s slightly mischievous smile told you everything you needed to know: she would rather be in her jeans and cowgirl boots.

A true cowgirl, through and through, Winnie was strong, stubborn, and a bit sarcastic. She had a smile and sparkle in her eye that was truly unmatched. Joining her Daddy to go to work any chance she could, he made sure she was every bit of capable as she was pretty. She learned the ins and outs of working the family ranch lands along Bear River Ridge and down into Bear River Valley. She could run with the best of them, and quickly became a well respected horseman in the community. 

Even as a cowgirl, that mischievous smile was still very much a part of her. In her adolescent years, she “let loose” and rebelled a bit, and fancied herself a real Humboldt hippie! She found a deep love for tie-dye and ‘60s music, which both turned out to never be “just a phase.” One of her favorite memories and stories to tell was when she went to the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 with her best friend, Jane Dupret. A story we never grew tired of hearing, and also the reason her family brought her home a tie-dye souvenir wherever they visited. 

In 1968, she married Gary Mangrum, and later that year welcomed a son, Mickey Mangrum. They raised Mickey together on Berding Street in Ferndale, while Winnie continued to cowgirl while also being a mother. The two divorced, and later she went on to remarry in 1978, to Steve Baker.

The two moved to Williams Creek, in the outskirts of Ferndale, where they operated a western training and breeding facility, Iron Foot Ranch, specializing in cutting and reining horses. At times they had upwards of 40 horses under their care. It was at Iron Foot Ranch one sunny afternoon in May of 1980, Winnie was training a young filly, the horse tripped and went down, and Winifred hit the ground along with the horse. She suffered many severe injuries, including a traumatic brain injury, which left her in a coma for three months. She was then transferred to R.K. Davies, San Francisco (now California Pacific Medical Center) for recovery and rehabilitation. She was there for another three months, relearning how to walk, talk, eat, etc. before returning home. Once home, life returned to as normal as possible, but Winifred lived the rest of her life with an immense amount of pain. In 1981 Winnie and Steve welcomed a son, Cody Baker. They later divorced.

Winifred remained in Ferndale through 2020, where she was a permanent fixture in the community. You could find her in the early morning hours at Poppa Joe’s, and in the evenings at The Ivanhoe. In between she was either picking up the mail at the post office, or socializing in any number of places along Main Street. In August, you could be sure to find her at the horse races. She absolutely loved being at the track, where she would reunite with her friend, Jane, every year, and take donuts to the Ferndale Jockey Club every morning.

In January 2020, she moved to Fortuna with her son, Mickey, and grandson, Kaden, when she was no longer able to live independently, where she stayed until she was finally free of pain.

She was an amazing painter, though she always denied how talented she was. Her paintings consisted of landscapes of her favorite place on Earth, Bear River Valley. Otherwise it was a painting of a cowboy scene straight from a day of working cattle. And if it was neither of those, one of her favorite horses became her subject. 

No amount of butter was ever enough for Winifred, granting her the nickname of “Butterfred,” and dark chocolate was its own form of medicine. 

We will always remember her in the smell of the pepperwood leaves and buckeye blossoms. 

She is survived by her sons, Mickey Mangrum (Tevyn Fisher) and Cody Baker; grandchildren, Kaden Mangrum, and Kennedy and Lane Herrera; sisters, Jimmie Fay Beal Mattila (Charlie Mattila) & Rebecca Beal Scales; nieces and nephew, Alexsis Davie, William Davie, and Shannon and Sadie Scales; great nieces and nephew, Winnie Jo and Charlotte Beyea, and Juliette, Abigail and Archer Davie. She is preceded in death by her father, William A. Beal, and mother, Angelica de Liztin Beal, affectionately known as “Mama and Bo”, and her brother-in-law, Don Scales. 

The family would like to thank Hospice of Humboldt for their loving care and support system provided for the last 11 months, as well as her sweet caregiver, Lenore Weber. 

A celebration of life will be held on May 30 at 1 p.m., at her favorite place, amongst the Pepperwood trees at Camp Idylwilde in the Bear River Valley, 4779 Upper Bear River Road, Ferndale. If you are needing directions, please contact Mickey Mangrum, 707-616-4689.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Winifred Beal’s family. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Ethel May (Brinker) Wilcox
October 9, 1934 – May 10, 2026
Fortuna, California

Ethel’s parents, Herman and Edith Brinker, resided in Cornell, Michigan, where she was born at home, the second of five children. At the age of 10, her family moved west to Idaho, first residing in Pocatello, then McCammon and finally Kimberly, where they remained for many years.

When Ethel was 15, her mother contracted a terminal illness and needed care. Ethel quit school and cared for her mother at home until her passing approximately a year later, in 1951. After caring for her mother, she went out on her own, working as a nanny for several different families in the Twin Falls area. During this time period, she gave birth to a baby boy. With the help of dear friends, the baby was adopted and raised by a wonderful Christian couple. Ethel and Mort were reunited 43 years later, and the entire family developed a close, loving relationship, bringing great joy to the entire family. In 1953, Ethel met her husband to be, Glenn Wilcox. The Wilcox family resided in Murtaugh, Idaho.

Glen’s brother, Bob, had married Ethel’s sister Lucy while Glenn was serving in the army, in Germany. Upon returning home, he met Ethel, and it was love at first sight! They were married five months later, on October 3, 1953, in Murtaugh, where Glenn was working on a potato farm. In August of 1954, they welcomed their first child, Rebecca. In November of that year, they made the decision to travel to California to look for a better employment opportunity. Glenn quickly found work at Pacific Lumber Company, in Scotia, where he worked his entire life, and from which he eventually retired. In the ensuing years, three more daughters were born; Esther, Julia and Sarah. While raising her family, Ethel also became a day care mother, welcoming many children into her home and blessing them with her love and care. Ethel loved spending time with her large extended family, as well as many close friends. She and Glenn were lifelong members of the Rio Dell Assembly of God church, giving countless hours of their time and resources to the church body, from which so many of their dear friends were found.

Ethel had a giving heart. She was especially adept at judging the needs, likes and sizes of those around her, and she loved perusing yard sales and thrift stores where she found clothing or useful items she knew someone in her acquaintance could use. She had a good eye for spotting quality items, and many of you reading this will fondly recall being blessed by her generous giftings over the years.

She loved flowers, especially pink carnations, going for drives with Glenn to get ice cream or other treats, visiting family and friends and making their annual vacation trips to Idaho each summer to visit family. She and Glenn loved being together and rarely did anything apart. They were married for 68, beautiful, loving years. He passed on May 10, 2022.

When Glenn retired From PL, they moved to Fortuna where they attended The Fortuna Nazarine church for many years, meeting many new and much loved friends. When Glenn went home to be with Jesus in 2022, Ethel made the decision to move to the Fortuna Rehab and Wellness Center, where she resided until she, too, recently went home to be with Jesus. While there, her only remaining sister, Lucy, visited her every day. They often played games and did crafts together, or simply reminisced over a long and wonderful life lived side by side in the service of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Ethel is preceded in death by:

• Her husband, Glenn Wilcox, May 10, 2022
• Her daughter, Rebecca (Wilcox) Laloli, April 15, 2025
• Her sister, Betty (Brinker) Dockins, March 24, 2012
• Her brother Carl Brinker, May 28, 2012
• Her brother Gerald Brinker, May 31, 2001
• Her father, Herman Brinker, August 31, 1973
• Her mother, Edith Brinker, November 8, 1951

Ethel is survived by:

• Her son, Mort (& Tina) Thompson, Buhl, Idaho
• Her daughter Esther (& Steve) Smith, Silverton, Oregon
• Her daughter Julia (& Gary) Davis, Vine Grove, Kentucky
• Her daughter Sarah (Wilcox) Sheldon, Ferndale.
• Her sister Lucy (Brinker) Wilcox, Rio Dell.

Also grandchildren, great-grandchildren, a great many nieces and nephews and extended family, all of whom she loved very much, and who will miss her greatly.

Thank you to everyone who has joined us in celebration of the life of our dear mother, Ethel. She valued each of you and appreciated that so many of you were able to visit her occasionally or regularly, and keep her in your prayers. She is waiting to see you again in Glory! Blessings and love to all.

Per Ethel’s wishes, there is to be a viewing at Goble’s Mortuary on May 30, from 9 to 11 a.m., to be followed with a graveside service at Sunrise Cemetery in Fortuna at 1 p.m. Please join us afterwords for refreshments in Ethel’s memory at the Fortuna Nazarine Church, located on Ross Hill Road.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Ethel Wilcox’s family. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Letha May Kirkpatrick passed over from this world at 87 years on May 7, 2026, peacefully in her Fieldbrook home. Letha was born October 23, 1939 at home outside of Lansing, Michigan. She left Michigan by bus at three years old, making Humboldt County her home for the last 84 years.

Letha loved gardening, murder mystery shows and books (anything by Agatha Christie), making blankets for her loved ones and scenery painting on saws. She loved music, most especially musicals, and loved to sing, whether at home or in the car, driving family around.

Letha worked for a time at Blue Lake Preschool School, where she loved assisting with the kids and getting keepsakes that she kept for years. Holidays were spent with family getting together and grandkids running around the house and yard making memories. Letha and her husband had a spot in Big Lagoon, called the “The Weekenders Club,” which was shared amongst friends. At times friends and family came together there to enjoy food, games and sunshine with loved ones. Fourth of July was always a big hit there.

She is survived by her children, Debra Walker (Matthew Walker), Donna Albers and Kathlyn Harrie; her stepchildren Robert, Kathryn and Gaylien Kirkpatrick; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband, Virgil Kirkpatrick, and son, Darell Vasquez. Service will be held at Ocean View Cemetery on June 20, 2026 at 2 p.m.

Thank you to all those who helped care for her at the end. A special thank to Hospice for all the care they provided.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Letha Kirkpatrick’s family. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Albert Wayne Beissert of Arcata, the very proud father of four good sons, died April 4, 2026, of cancer. He was 85.

Born Jan. 7, 1941, in Newark, New Jersey, to Albert Charles Jr. and Marguerite “Peg” Beissert, Wayne followed in their footsteps and became a journalist.

He became city editor of the Bridgewater (N.J.) Courier-News; business writer with the Oakland Tribune; served as rewrite editor for the initial eight years of USA Today’s existence, and national editor of the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer.

He was among the first in the general press to report on asbestosis and mesotheleoma among the families of asbestos workers.

His childhood was spent in West Orange and Passaic Township (now Longhill), N.J. He was a member in 1957/58 of the first senior class at Watchung Hills Regional High School in Warren, N.J..

He served in the US Marine Corps from 1958 to 1961.

Inside his sometimes grumpy demeanor, Wayne thoroughly enjoyed life and observing the interesting things that people do - good or bad.

Wayne volunteered with Habitat for Humanity in Long Beach, Calif., and First Tee in Palm Desert, Calif. He also served as president of the church council of Zion Lutheran Church in Long Valley, N.J., and of the Califon (N.J.) First Aid Squad.

An avid golfer, he spent much of his retirement in Rancho Mirage working at area golf courses, and was handicap chairman for the Glen Tee golf group.

He lived his last two years in Arcata. He enjoyed walking the Hammond Trail, Crabs baseball games and especially the Samba Parade.

He is survived by his four sons, Christopher of Arcata; Eric of Matthews, North Carolina; Caleb of Asheville, N.C., and Morgan of Linville, N.C.. He also has three granddaughters and two grandsons. Other survivors include his brother, Neal, of Kilauea, Hawaii.