Wallflower

marilu laughing

This weekend involved:
Charades
Mojitos
a yummy gin and tonic
The Egyptian
dress up party
Annie turning 13
grown up earrings for Anne
carpet shampooing! oh, the cleanness!
much mucas
kleenex
the first 15 minutes of Grosse Point Blank which I've never seen and looks good, and how perfect is John Cusack for a back to the eighties kind of role?
(John Cusack and I have the same birthday)
(which means we should wed)

cute as heck!

please..is there anything cuter?

Will I ever decide?

Should i stay or should i go now?
This weekend, I had thoughts of moving back to the Bay Area. It felt more autumnal there. I have embraced the natural world of the chapparal in a way that I never thought i would when I first moved to San Diego, but I see pictures of green places and I feel lustful.
I guess I need to go where the jobs are. I guess I need to decide on a place to be and not drift along passively.
The border, she has a hold on me. Can I ever leave her?

weird little food rut

I keep eating broccoli and mashed potatoes. I had them at the cafeteria at school and they were so good together. The mashed potatoes taste instant. I like that.

I'm done with you, JCrew

The new JCrew catalogue features sweaters trimmed with mink and COYOTE fur.
That's it.
You suck, JCrew!

more sunset

oh Joshua Tree National monument, how I heart you.

testing

nelson brothers!

dodgeball. sunday nights at in cahoots.

This is not how I visualized the character at all.

Yep, that's right. There was a book called "I, Trissy" and I probably checked it out of the Lafayette library 700 times between 1974 and 1980.

I found this image with Google Images. I googled my name. It's disturbing how many animals are named "Trissy."

He was paroled a month before her murder.

Lorin Waxman's wallet carries a weathered photograph of his little girl, who is frozen at 11 years old. Soon after the picture was taken in April 1978, Cynthia was attacked while playing with a kitten in a field in Moraga. She was sexually assaulted, strangled and discarded in the brush.

Now, Waxman and his family finally know what evil visited them that day -- and it's as terrible as they imagined.

The Contra Costa County sheriff's office announced Thursday that it had used DNA evidence to prove the slaying was committed by Charles "Junior" Jackson, a handyman known to cruise for odd jobs -- and victims -- in an old, beat-up truck.

That brings to eight the number of East Bay slayings allegedly committed in the 1970s and early 1980s by Jackson, whose notoriety still grows 3 1/2 years after his death.

He died in Folsom prison in February 2002 while serving a life term for one killing -- the 1982 rape and stabbing of Joan Stewart, a San Francisco City College biology professor accosted in Oakland's Montclair neighborhood. Jackson, 64, had a heart attack.

"I had something else in mind for him," Waxman said Thursday. "Some long, drawn out form of an-eye-for-an-eye. I'm sorry, that's not a Christian attitude, but if you were to lose a child, you might think about that."

For years, Waxman, who later volunteered as a grief counselor, figured the killing was the work of another convicted killer -- 57-year-old Phillip Joseph Hughes Jr., who is serving life for killing three young women in the early 1970s. Police investigators, too, listed Hughes as a top suspect.

But the sheriff's crime lab in 2000 started reviewing evidence gathered in the case to see whether new technology could identify a killer. After the agency enlisted an independent lab, that lab in July found biological material that hadn't previously been noticed.

The material was compared to a state database, producing a "cold hit" last week identifying Jackson, said Paul Holes, supervising criminalist for the sheriff's forensic services division. He said the county had reviewed more than 20 old cases since 2000, with two previous DNA matches.

Cynthia and a cousin were playing with a stray kitten in a field on Moraga Road, near Campolindo High School, on April 22, 1978. The cousin left to get money from her dad, who was playing softball at the school, to buy food for the kitten. But Cynthia was gone when she returned.

Several hours later, her mother, Bonnie Waxman, found Cynthia's body in nearby brush.

"I know that getting to the conclusion of this case was not an easy road, and I appreciate the perseverance" by the sheriff's office, Bonnie Waxman, who is no longer married to Lorin Waxman, said in a written statement. "This is the last chapter of Cindy's story."

Jackson's story may not be over, said DNA expert Rockne Harmon, a senior deputy district attorney in Alameda County. Harmon said there could be other victims and urged law enforcement agencies to do more with DNA evidence in unsolved cases.

It was Harmon who, just a month after Jackson's death, revealed that genetic evidence gathered at crime scenes had conclusively tied Jackson to six victims in addition to Cynthia Waxman and Joan Stewart:

-- Sonya Higginbotham, 19, who was raped and stabbed in her home on Oakland's 98th Avenue in June 1975.

-- Ann Johnson, 27, who was raped and stabbed in her Montclair home in August 1975.

-- Henry Vila, 62, and his wife, Edith, 59, who were stabbed in a burglary of their Albany home in November 1981. Edith Vila was sexually assaulted.

-- Betty Jo Grunzweig, 37, who was stabbed to death in her home in Oakland's Trestle Glen neighborhood in December 1981.

-- Gail Leslie Slocum, 34, who was stabbed in the yard of her home in Oakland's Rockridge neighborhood, four days after Grunzweig was killed.

Jackson, a Louisiana native described in court records as an illiterate high school dropout, was convicted of a felony -- a burglary -- in 1953. Over the next 30 years, he was repeatedly imprisoned for burglary, rape, assault and child molestation. He often struck just after being released.

Jackson was paroled a month before Cynthia's death. His final stint as a parolee was from Sept. 13, 1981, to Jan. 8, 1982 -- the day he was arrested for Joan Stewart's murder. In those four months, he killed five people, Harmon said.

"He just couldn't stop," Harmon said. "He would go door-to-door looking for handiwork and yard work. If there was a woman home alone, and she opened the door, she was dead."

E-mail Demian Bulwa at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com.

More.

(09-29) 11:36 PDT MARTINEZ -- The story of Charles "Junior" Jackson keeps getting worse, even though he's been dead for 3 1/2 years.

The Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office announced today that it has used DNA evidence to link Jackson, a onetime handyman, to the unsolved killing of Cynthia Waxman, an 11-year-old Moraga girl who was sexually assaulted and strangled in April 1978 while playing with a kitten in a field near her home.

That brings to eight the number of East Bay slayings Jackson allegedly committed in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Jackson died in Folsom prison in February 2002 while serving a life term for just one of them -- the 1982 rape and fatal stabbing of Joan Stewart, a San Francisco City College biology professor accosted in Oakland's Montclair neighborhood. Jackson, 64, had a heart attack.

"I'm gratified that the sheriff's office continued to work on this case and find the killer," Lorin Waxman, Cynthia's father, said today in a prepared statement. "This gives some closure for the family. This also removes blight for the community of Moraga, which was hit hard by Cynthia's murder. I'm glad for the community as well."

According to sheriff's officials, Cynthia and a cousin were playing with a kitten in a field on Moraga Road, near Buckingham Drive, on April 22, 1978. The cousin left to get money to buy food for the kitten, but Cynthia was gone when she returned. Several hours later, Cynthia's body was found in nearby brush.

The sheriff's crime lab in 2000 started reviewing the evidence gathered in the case to see if new technology could identify a killer, officials said, and later used federal funding to enlist the help of a separate lab. In July of this year, that lab found biological material that hadn't previously been noticed. DNA results from that material were compared to a state database, producing a "cold hit" identifying Charles Jackson, officials said.

A month after Jackson's death in prison, DNA expert Rockne Harmon, a senior deputy district attorney for Alameda County, said that genetic evidence gathered at crime scenes - and recently tested -- had "conclusively" tied Jackson to the following other victims:

-- Sonya Higginbotham, who was raped and stabbed in her home on Oakland's 98th Avenue in June 1975;

-- Ann Johnson, 27, the wife of a Highland Hospital physician, who was raped and stabbed in her Montclair home in August 1975;

-- Henry Vila and his wife, Edith, who were stabbed during a nighttime burglary of their Albany Hill home in November 1981. Edith Vila was sexually assaulted;

-- Betty Jo Grunzweig, 37, who was stabbed to death in her home in Oakland's Trestle Glen neighborhood in December 1981 - and who was found with a telltale bit of Jackson's skin under her fingernails; and

-- Gail Leslie Slocum, 34, who was stabbed in the yard of her home in Oakland's Rockridge District in December 1981, four days after Grunzweig was killed.

Jackson, a Louisiana native described in court records as an illiterate high school dropout, was convicted of a felony -- a burglary -- in 1953. Over the next 30 years, he was repeatedly imprisoned for burglary, rape, assault and child molestation. The East Bay killings were committed during periods when he was on parole, authorities said.

Relying on testimony from witnesses who saw Jackson near the crime scene, Harmon successfully prosecuted him for the last of the killings, the January 1982 murder of Stewart.

At the time, the prosecutor said he was convinced that Jackson was responsible for other killings.

In the ensuing years, Harmon helped pioneer the use of DNA science in murder cases and eventually became a national expert on the subject. But he said he never forgot Jackson and began ordering up DNA tests on bits of genetic material collected from a long list of unsolved Bay Area killings.

Harmon said Jackson was known to drive around in an old beat-up truck looking for victims.

"(Jackson) would go door-to-door looking for handiwork and yard work," Harmon said. "If there was a woman home alone, and she opened the door, she was dead."

E-mail Demian Bulwa at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com.

Strange to see her face again.