The weirdest Petaluma news stories from 2014

From an exuberant panty raider to graffiti spanning three states, 2014 had its share of curious, bizarre and downright wacky stories. In no particular order, here are some of the weirdest stories of the last year.

Panty Raider

A Petaluma teen took panty raids to new heights when he was arrested in October with more than 500 pairs of pilfered panties. Police suspect that Benjamin Hawkins, 18, had been stealing underwear both from homes he was invited into, and from homes he broke into.

Police first investigated Hawkins after two guns, jewelry and panties were stolen from a neighbor. When he was stopped by police, he had several pairs of panties shoved in his pants. At his family home, police found the stolen weapons and hundreds of pairs of women’s underwear in Hawkins’ room. He was charged with five counts, including two for felony burglary, and arrested on $40,000 bail.

“What we’re looking at is someone with a fetish,” Sgt. Paul Gilman said at the time, “but how he goes about that fetish is against the law.”

Ebola or flu?

For months, national news media offered near-daily stories on ebola after a Dallas man returned from travels in West Africa carrying the disease. Paranoia grew when two nurses who cared for the man were diagnosed with the highly infectious disease.

Although the disease was never reported in California, that didn’t stop one Petaluma woman from calling 911 in October to report that she believed she had ebola. She first reported that there were two people in her east-side home infected with the disease, but when medical authorities tried to reach her, she would not answer the phone. A team of emergency personnel, including local first responders and county public health officials, donned protective Tyvek clothing, medical goggles and masks before entering the residence to check up on the woman. A Sonoma County Public Health official found just one woman, no second patient, and recommended that she seek treatment for the flu, not ebola. The woman then took her own car to Petaluma Valley Hospital for care.

Tags from Bakersfield to Seattle

Supporters say Derek Murphy, 21, of Petaluma was just trying to share his art when he spray painted dozens of cities all along the West Coast. But the large, black letters reading “berg” were not the sort of art the City of Santa Cruz wanted on police cars, public parks and private businesses. After vandalizing multiple targets in Santa Cruz on June 10, detectives investigating the case learned similar tags were reported in cities stretching from Bakersfield to Seattle.

A tip from the San Francisco Police Department led the Santa Cruz police to Murphy, who was arrested on Dec. 15 at his family home in Petaluma on felony vandalism charges. The 2011 Petaluma High School graduate was in possession of hundreds of digital photos of tags, which will be loaded in to a police database so other departments can see if they recognize the acts of vandalism, and file their own charges against Murphy. ?Deputy Chief Steve Clark of the Santa Cruz Police Department said he saw multiple examples of Murphy’s suspected work on the drive to Petaluma, including on highways 101, 880 and 37. “This guy was everywhere,” he said.

Rancho Romance

The United States Department of Agriculture recalled almost 9 million pounds of meat processed at the Rancho Feeding Corp after the slaughterhouse allegedly processed dozens of animals that were “unfit for human consumption.” Many questioned how this could happen with a USDA inspector stationed on the Petaluma Boulevard North premises. According to CNN, it was in part due to an illicit romance between meat inspector Lynette Thompson and the plant’s foreman, who was later identified in legal documents as Felix Cabrera.

Details of the relationship were exposed by a plant manager, according to CNN, who contacted a USDA official with intimate emails and texts allegedly sent between Thompson and Cabrera. In one exchange, Thompson sent Cabrera a picture of her naked buttocks at a tanning salon, according to records secured by CNN. The whistle-blower said the pair also had trysts in Thompson’s government-issued trailer. As the USDA has strict rules about inspectors maintaining ethical distance from the plants they oversee, at some point, Thompson apparently worried the relationship might be exposed so she asked Cabrera over text to “Play dumb please 4 my kids delete every thing k (sic).”

Mystery Box at Cherry Valley

Who doesn’t love a good mystery? During a white elephant gift exchange, one such mystery arose at the Mary Collins School at Cherry Valley. Two seventh-graders ended up with the board game “Talk Show,” but when they opened the box, they were surprised by what they found.

Instead of the 1990s game, they found 30 pieces of sterling silver flatware. A note tucked in the game read, “Bought in Baghdad – wedding gift of friend Roger Cumberland, a missionary in Mosul who was killed by Kurds.”

Cumberland was in fact killed in 1938 near Mosul, but why and how a wedding gift bearing his name ended up at a Petaluma school remains a mystery. The school sought to reunite the unusual items with its rightful owner. Last we heard, no one had come forward to claim the items.

Neighbor Feud Turns Ugly

A feud between neighbors became a county problem on Skillman Lane. It all began in 2010, when a dog belonging to Petaluma’s notorious Sampson family, who have had run-ins with local politicians and law enforcement for decades, went missing. The Sampson family then allegedly began harassing a neighbor they suspected of killing the dog. It began with signs that read “dog killer,” but then escalated to allegedly dumping human waste and used tampons on the neighbor’s property.

According to police reports, when Sonoma County Sheriffs Deputy Troy Newton spoke to the Sampson family about the incident, Melissa Bogel, wife of Michael Sampson, told Newton that the dumping was in retaliation for the dog’s death. The family agreed to clean up the mess, but county officials noted “junk-yard like conditions” at the family’s compound with piles of trash, inoperable vehicles and other blights. The Permit and Resource Management Department was working with the Sampson to clean up the mess.

“They have a willingness to clean it up, but not the means,” said Ben Neuman, building division manager for PRMD, explaining that the county can step in and clean up the mess at its own cost when a property owner is unable.

Dead animals at PHS

Early in May, students arrived to find a dead baby goat hanging high on the baseball field fence at Petaluma High School. The disturbing scene was removed before most students arrived at school that day, but the ones who did see it said they were disgusted.

“I hope whoever did it gets caught soon. It just isn’t right to do such a thing,” said Chaya Fried-Ungar via email. The Animal Legal Defense Fund offered an award for information on the incident.

A few weeks later, the student-run Petaluma Wildlife Museum came under fire when videos surfaced online of students killing feeder rats by holding them by their tail and banging them against rocks or walls. Kim Arntz, who oversees the museum program at Petaluma High School, said she was not aware of the videos, but when she learned about the abuse, she made sure the student perpetrators were punished. However, the student whistleblower who shot the videos and posted them online said the abuse continued until Petaluma Animal Services came to investigate an animal abuse claim at the museum. After the controversy, the museum ended its feeder rat program and students no longer directly participate in euthanasia.

Naked Behind the Wheel

Witnesses knew something wasn’t right when they saw a silver Mitsubishi sedan slam into a parked car and a fire hydrant on Lakeville Highway at Casa Grande in the middle of the afternoon on Dec. 21. The vehicle left the scene after the crash, but police caught up with the mangled wreckage a few blocks away.

Officers weren’t expecting to see quite so much of the driver as they did when they approached the car. They found Julius Friascarrion, 19, from Fairfield, completely naked behind the wheel of the car, along with half a bottle of liquor. Clearly showing signs of intoxication, police said the driver’s blood alcohol content came in at four times the legal limit. Not surprisingly, Friascarrion was arrested for DUI and hit and run, and was booked into the Sonoma County jail.

Cocaine and Accordions

If one wanted to smuggle drugs in a musical instrument, an accordion would be a good place to start. Whether or not Scott Goree, executive director of the Cotati Accordion Festival, ever used his squeeze-box to transport drugs remains to be seen. He was, however, caught with more than 4 pounds of cocaine individually packaged for sale.

But this story took a “Breaking Bad” twist when his lawyer claimed the 66-year-old Petaluma man turned to selling drugs only after a heart attack left him with ballooning medical bills and unable to financially care for his children and his senile mother. Superior Court Judge Jamie Thistlethwaite cited that, along with Goree’s limited criminal history, as reasons why she planned to recommend probation when Goree is sentenced in February. He faced up to eight years in prison.

Fist Fight at Old Red

The construction zone at the Old Redwood Highway interchange caused plenty of headaches and at least a few fits of road rage in 2014. In a least one instance, drivers came to blows over the maddening traffic.

In a report on the interchange work conducted by the Petaluma Public Works Department, the Petaluma Police Department reported that it had responded to a fist fight between two enraged drivers at the interchange. City officials advised that drivers try to avoid to area.

“My heart goes out to anyone who has to use that interchange,” said Public Works Director Dan St. John. “But I don’t think anyone is to blame. I don’t think anybody screwed-up. I think circumstances are to blame. The best advice I can offer everyone is to look for an alternative route.”