‘A somber day’

Deepa Bharath

That day is painfully tattooed in Pam Wiener’s memory.

It was a Monday: May 3, 1999.

Wiener had just gotten off work and was going to pick up her son

from his preschool.

She waited to see 3-year-old Brandon run toward her with open

arms, smiling, his beautiful, blond hair bouncing up and down as he

jumped up and called out to her: “Mommy! Mommy!”

But she decided to stop at the office and pay off tuition, have a

word with the director and sign off for the day. Brandon was playing

in the sand with his friends. He was laughing. He seemed to be having

a good time, Wiener thought to herself.

She walked into the office, paid the money, had a brief chat and

took a pen in her hands. She signed her name on the paper and wrote

the time -- 5:15 p.m.

BANG!

Wiener heard the noise that has resonated in her head for the last

five years. When she ran out of the office, it was over. Steven Allen

Abrams had gunned his dilapidated Cadillac into the preschool’s

playground, pinning Brandon and 4-year-old Sierra Soto under the car.

He hadn’t stopped there. Abrams stepped on the gas and brought

down as many people as he could. In the end, he had hurt nine others,

including a teacher’s aide.

In August 2000, a little more than a year after the tragedy

unfolded, a jury comprising 10 women and two men found Abrams guilty

of all charges -- two counts of murder, seven counts of attempted

murder and three counts of causing grievous bodily injury.

Defense attorneys said Abrams was crippled by mental illness and

that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. They said Abrams heard

voices in his head from a group of conspirators called the “brainwave

people,” who existed only in his psychotic fantasy. Abrams was

ordered by these people to go out and kill the “innocents,” in this

case children, the attorneys said.

The prosecution argued that Abrams’ psychosis was induced by

consistent drug abuse. The jury decided that Abrams was legally sane

at the time of the incident, voting unanimously not to give him the

death penalty. Abrams is serving a life sentence in a state prison.

At about 5:15 p.m. that Monday, Costa Mesa Fire Battalion Chief

Jim Ellis was driving into the fire station on Vanguard Road. A radio

broadcast caught his attention. He turned it up.

“I heard that there was a car that had gone through a preschool

and children were trapped,” said Ellis, who is now the city’s fire

chief.

He turned to go toward Orange Avenue and took the role of incident

commander when he got to the scene.

“When I got there, I saw the Cadillac,” Ellis said. “The

firefighters helped pull the car up and get the children out. The

girl was dead on scene and the boy was taken to Hoag Hospital.”

Abrams was still behind the wheel at that point. A rivulet of

blood trickled down his lip, Ellis observed. No one knew what had

gone wrong, if he had a heart attack or stepped on the gas by

mistake.

“But we soon found out there was no mistake,” Ellis said. “He had

done it on purpose and he said so himself as one of our paramedics

went to help him out.”

He saw fear, chaos and immeasurable grief grip that little

playground.

“Parents were coming to pick up their children,” Ellis said. “And

I heard people from the crowd scream, ‘My baby, my baby! Where’s my

baby?’”

It was the worst he had seen in Costa Mesa in 24 years as a

fireman, Ellis said.

“It took a tremendous emotional toll on firefighters and law

enforcement,” he said. “Everyone was visibly shaken. It’s bad enough

when little children are hurt or when they die in traffic accidents.

The fact that this was intentional was absolutely aggravating.”

Cindy Soto Beckett still can’t talk about it.

“Has it been five years?” she asks. “Really? Has Sierra really

been gone longer than I’ve had her? That feels weird.”

Beckett has come a long way in her life since the tragedy. She has

remarried. She has a new baby. Beckett moved out of Costa Mesa and

sold the dance school she had owned for 16 years. She is getting a

doctorate in evaluation studies.

And she’s happy.

“I can never be ‘happy happy,’” she said. “You never get over

something like that. Never.”

A memorial to Sierra, a star-shaped collage of pictures, hangs in

the dance school’s hallway. It’s a tribute to her little piece of

sunshine -- her glowing smile, her little ballerina feet, her

indomitable spirit and her twinkling, mischievous eyes.

Beckett started Sierra’s Light Foundation right after her

daughter’s death. The foundation was an advocacy group for preschool

safety and gave money to many schools to build block walls and

bollards.

Now, Beckett is not active in the foundation, she says. She has a

new life, one that is extremely busy.

“It’s like I had a fracture,” she said. “That life ended and a new

life began.”

The pain from the abrupt end to her “previous life” still remains.

Some of that pain goes away when she sees her 3-month-old daughter,

Beckett said.

“She is so different from Sierra,” she said. “Sierra had darker

skin, hair and eyes and this one had light skin and blue eyes.

They’re different, but I see Sierra in her. They have the same

smile.”

Her new baby is a precious gift, Beckett said.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever put her in preschool,” she added.

“That’s something I don’t think I can deal with again.”

But no one can ever take Sierra’s place, Beckett said, choking up.

“You can’t replace a Sierra,” she said. “Sometimes, I feel scared

that I’ll forget her. But in my heart, I know that it’ll never

happen. She’ll always be my baby.”

Pam Wiener lies in her bed awake every morning. Getting up and

taking on the world is tough for the mom, who is still grieving five

years after her son’s brutal killing.

She knows that sinking feeling will never go away.

“I can’t forget what I saw,” Wiener said. “I relive it everyday

and I see it all in my head every single day.”

She ponders the “what ifs.”

“What if I hadn’t stopped by the office for a chat,” she said.

“What if I had gone up to the playground and picked him up first. He

would’ve been here with me. My baby would’ve lived.”

There was some guilt initially, but Wiener knows better than to

beat herself up.

“No, I don’t do that to myself,” she said. “But I can’t help

wondering sometimes.”

Her heart bleeds when she looks at other children who were the

same age as Brandon.

“I think about how Brandon would’ve looked at 8,” she said. “What

would he be into? I see little boys who look like him, all the time.

It’s hard.”

Wiener says she and her husband, Aron, who still live in the same

Costa Mesa home, need to pick up the pieces and keep going for their

two other children -- Justin and Shaya.

“I miss Brandon,” said 6-year-old Shaya. “I don’t remember him.

But I’ve seen him in a picture where he’s holding me.”

Shaya cringes when her mom talks about the day Brandon died. She

buries her head in her hands and shakes her head, begging her mom to

stop. Shaya was 18 months old when Brandon died.

Wiener wanted to channel her grief in a positive direction, she

said. She started the Brandon Cody Wiener Scholarship Fund and raises

money to send children grieving the death of a loved one to a summer

camp. Last summer, she sent three children and this summer seven kids

will go to the camp, Wiener said.

“I’m trying to focus on the scholarship fund,” she said. “I think

Brandon would have been proud to have his name associated with

something like that.”

Wiener goes to karaoke with friends at least once a week. Belting

out a few Melissa Etheridge and Cher numbers is as good as therapy,

she said.

“And,” she added, “I collect angels.”

The memories come flooding everyday for Christina Shokrollahi. Her

son, Daniel, had just turned 4. He was in the same class as Brandon

and Sierra.

When Shokrollahi got to the preschool to pick up Daniel, she saw

fire engines all over the place. She panicked.

Shokrollahi took the side street and called the school’s office on

her cell phone. She learned Daniel was safe.

“But he was in that same playground,” she said. “Anything could’ve

happened.”

Daniel turned 9 on Friday. He still talks about Abrams, often

referring to him as the “bad man.” He still remembers the slain

victims, his mother said.

“We talked about it every day for a year after it happened,” she

said. “I took my son to counseling sessions. We’ll always talk about

it.”

Shokrollahi can only hope the traumatic incident has not left any

deep scars in her son’s psyche, she said.

“It’s a shame that children had to learn at such a young age that

there is such evil in this world,” she said. “That there are such

horrible people in this world.”

It was the sheer evil that got to Costa Mesa Mayor Gary Monahan,

who was also the mayor at the time.

He was right in the middle of a City Council meeting, Monahan

recalled.

“When we heard, we finished it up as fast as we could,” he said.

He rode up to the scene in a police car with one of the officers.

It was about 9:30 p.m. and most of the mess had been cleaned up. But

Monahan felt the poignancy of the moment.

“It was kind of a surreal feeling,” he said. “I’ve never been

involved in something as ridiculously tragic and evil.”

There were helicopters flying overhead and reporters buzzing

around with their notebooks, Monahan said.

“My kids were about the same age as the children that died,” he

said. “That’s why it felt so emotional and personal. It could’ve been

my kids.”

South Coast Early Childhood Learning Center closed its doors on

Sept. 1, 2000. Director Sheryl Hawkinson said she made the decision

for “personal reasons.”

She and the church still face a wrongful death and negligence

lawsuit from the families of the slain children.

The state Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether the case

should go to trial. The civil lawsuit was thrown out by a Superior

Court Judge, but upheld by the Appellate Court. The final decision

now rests with the high court.

Church Pastor Frank Custer declined to comment about the lawsuit

and was reluctant to talk about what happened five years ago.

But, he said, there has not been another preschool on the site

after Hawkinson closed her school.

“The property has been used mostly for church activities,” he

said. “That space has been used for Sunday school and other

children’s programs.”

Custer called the incident “a tragedy.”

“The parents and families of the children always remain in our

thoughts and prayers,” he said.

Carrie McCluskey helped Hawkinson start Southcoast Early Childhood

Learning Center. The teacher was there the very first day the school

threw its doors open.

McCluskey went to court when Abrams was sentenced to life in

prison without the possibility of parole. She made eye contact with

him and glared at him. McCluskey hopes she communicated to Abrams

what she really meant to say to him: “You’re sick.”

The afternoon of May 3, 1999, McCluskey had driven off to Triangle

Square to drop off a friend’s child. When she got back to school, it

had already happened.

“I got out of my truck and ran,” she said. “I went through the

back gate.”

The scene hit her on the head like a sledgehammer.

“It was the most horrific scene,” she said. “It was like a war

zone.”

She saw frantic parents and kids crying.

“It was a hard situation,” she said. “It was a tough time and

thinking about it even now, after all these years, is hard.”

McCluskey missed having Brandon and Sierra in her class.

“Brandon liked to hang out with the teachers,” she said. “He’d

wave goodbye to me every single day as I drove off in my truck.”

Brandon was close to his mom, McCluskey said.

“He’d cling to her leg every morning as she dropped him off,” she

said. “But he knew he had to stay here for the day.”

McCluskey would hold him near the window and he’d watch his mom

drive away. It was their daily ritual.

Brandon always asked her how to spell his baby sister’s name,

McCluskey said.

“I’d help him write ‘Shaya’ and he was very happy,” she said. “He

was a great kid. He was outgoing, friendly and always smiling.”

Sierra was “upbeat and verbal,” McCluskey said.

“She was a dancer,” she said. “She was into acting. She was

spunky, outgoing and popular with friends.”

Both children were “very special,” McCluskey said.

“And we realized that even more after they were gone,” she said.

“They are two children who will never be forgotten.”

Every year, McCluskey leaves flowers and balloons in the area

where the school once was, she said.

“This time, the anniversary falls on a Monday, just the way it was

five years ago,” she said. “It’s going to be a somber day.”