STEVE SMITH -- What’s up

If you’ve been reading the paper, you know that we have a monster who

murdered and left our community grieving. The event has had a profound

effect on how locals now view our personal safety.

Last Saturday, one by one, residents reported their new fears to the

Daily Pilot. The last man quoted put the tragedy in the context of

another significant crime that occurred eight years ago in the same part

of town. “That was the first time I heard something like that happen

here,” he said. “This is the second time.”

The man was not referring to New York but Costa Mesa and the suspected

murder of 16-year-old Ceceline Godsoe in Fairview Park eight days ago.

Police suspect it was done by Victor Manuel Garcia, a 17-year-old from our town. The effect, however, may as well be from a local terrorist

attack.

The destruction of the World Trade Center and the deaths of more than

6,300 people in New York and at the Pentagon was the first of a one-two

punch felt by Costa Mesans. As we continued in our efforts to reduce the

effects of the New York attack by donating blood and money, the killer

apparently had not had enough death in his life. He has gone and killed

Ceceline, according to the police.

She was only 16 and part of what concerns me is not just the fact that

this crime occurred only steps from our door, but that it happened in a

park I visit every day, a park my kids know as safe.

“The trails are a perfect place for this kind of activity,” said one

resident, referring to the murder.

“I thought it was a safe place,” another said.

But as safe as I still believe Fairview Park is, precautions must

still be taken. As with many parks even in the best parts of the county,

it is not a good idea to enter it at night nor alone, sometimes even when

it is daytime. The buddy system or group visitation is always a good

idea.

But park safety is secondary now to the fact that a home-grown

terrorist has struck. This new coward appears to have overpowered and

murdered a teenage girl.

Ceceline was born on June 4, 1985. On the day of her birth, I was a

month away from taking a two-week vacation to Canada. Upon my return, I

would be moving from the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles to live and

work in Costa Mesa. On the day I started my new job, Ceceline was

probably getting her first full night’s sleep.

As she grew, Ceceline was like so many other kids her age. Over the

past summer, not long before her death, she saw the movie “American Pie

2” and had lunch at a Taco Bell with a friend she had not seen in awhile.

The friend missed Ceceline’s company and remembered her fondly as her

first real “gal pal.”

By Sept. 11, the twin towers in New York were no longer the landmarks

they were when they were built in 1972. In fact, some New Yorkers still

resented them up until that Tuesday. They were not particularly

attractive, and they were not even the tallest buildings in the world.

But Ceceline had been growing strong and still had the most exciting part

of her life ahead of her.

But as the towers will live on because of their destruction,

Ceceline’s life, sadly, will be remembered for her death. And that’s a

problem, because my own 11-year-old daughter could very well live the

same life in five years.

So, what are we to do? New Yorkers are bent on getting back to their

new version of normal. Here in Costa Mesa, this dad is having trouble

following suit. To fully understand the magnitude of Ceceline’s death,

one must take a trip to the makeshift shrine that has developed where she

lost her life. There, you’ll see lots of flowers, a couple of photos and

some odds and ends; parts of other lives that visitors felt would have

relevance to Ceceline’s.

The Smith family contribution was a bunch of flowers that I carried

out a week ago in an inexpensive glass vase. When I went back to get the

vase three days later, it was gone, replaced by a clear plastic cup from

a local coffee house.

Perhaps that’s the source of my angst. It’s not that I no longer have

my vase, but that someone would slam a jet into a skyscraper, that

someone else would murder a child and that another person would stoop so

low as to steal a cheap vase from the shrine of a dead teenager.

What in the world is going on?

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. Readers

may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (949) 642-6086.