Murder or wilderness? A choice for October

Have been distracted from the PCT by a reporting assignment — covering a murder trial. Alex Medina, age eighteen, is on trial for the killing of Seth Scarminach, age sixteen at the time of his death 2009. Here's a story I wrote for the local paper on this for Wednesday:

An eyewitness to a slaying at a party in Meiners Oaks in 2009 testified Tuesday morning that he saw accused killer Alex Medina stab Seth Scarminah repeatedly and then kneel over him and “cut his throat.”

Alexander Gabriel, who was 18 at the time of the slaying, testified that he was standing behind the back porch, urinating, at a late-night party in the 2400 block of Maricopa Highway when he heard the defendant approach Scarminach.

“I finished and I turned around and Alex approached Seth saying, ‘What do you claim?’” Gabriel testified. “Seth said ‘Meiners Oaks.’ Alex said ‘OSL 13’ and they were about to fight.”
Gabriel testified that Scarminach gave him his hat and went with Medina to a driveway to fight, followed by Gabriel and two other partygoers.

“I had seen a lot of fights and was expecting a regular fight,” Gabriel testified. “They started fighting and there were a couple of blows each and then within 10 seconds I saw Alex make a stabbing motion. I saw a shiny thing and I knew it was a knife. Seth dropped to the ground and Alex got on top of him and cut his throat.”

Yikes! Lots of fascinating issues on the table — gang violence, rapping on such from both the accused and the victim, life in prison without the possibility of parole, mental health, legal strategies, the dark underbelly of Ojai…but not much beauty! Here's where I would like to be…

Though now that I think about it, if there's a government shutdown — as is expected Monday — then the national parks will close. So maybe it's not such a choice after all!

[pic From the generous and irresistible Jeff Sullivan]