An open letter to Camille Salanave

09 July 2014

Camille Salanave
2010 Bittern Dr
Idaho Falls, ID 83406

Dear Camille,

Sorry I haven't written for the past decade - Tom and Penny never shared your address or phone number with the rest of the family, and so I've had no way to get in touch with you - honestly, I wasn't even sure which city you lived in.

I was fortunate enough to find a letter amongst Leon's effects, which contained your return address, and this allowed me to stop by, in early 2001 - as I was driving from California to Connecticut - and deliver a piece of Salanave memorabilia to your doorstep.

Camille's hand-delivered heirloom, June 2001

I left a note, addressed to you, with the memorabilia, and I left my phone number, too ... perhaps I expressed some concern about Penny's intent to liquidate some of Leon's possessions, that, I felt, should go to you.

But you never contacted me, to acknowledge that you had received the item I had left for you. I wondered if it had been stolen, or if I had left it at an address that was no longer occupied by you. But I had no way to find out.

Then, six months later, Penny, and Tom, evicted us - my wife (seven months pregnant), my oldest daughter (barely a year old at the time), myself, and John Wesley - and sold 2047 17th Avenue.

At the time Penny evicted us (supposedly, for non-payment of rent), she actually owed me quite a bit of money, for the past six months of work - during which time, I had been travelling back and forth across the United States, at my own expense, cleaning her mother's (my grandmother's) house, as well as protecting the contents from theft, after my grandmother died, and Penny put her father into a care facility (and abandoned him - but that's another story). And, yes, I'd been paying the rent, too.

Penny never made any effort to get back in touch with us after that. Neither did Tom.

(Of course, Tom has been avoiding me since his disastrous attempt to coerce me into paying my psychotic former girlfriend's PG&E bill, back in 1992. Based on information and belief, Tom, himself, suggested, to Helen, that she get a restraining order against me. That didn't help Helen - she was clinically psychotic at the time, and off her meds - and it didn't help me, either. The only person it seems to have helped, was Thomas. But that's another story.)

Since then, we - I, my wife, and my four daughters - have been evicted two more times - the most recent eviction was in 2013, when the owner of the house we were living in decided to issue us a 60-day eviction notice, calculated to end on the 23rd of December. (Did you have a happy Christmas? We didn't.)

Personally, I feel that Penny is responsible for this state of affairs. She failed to compensate me for thousands of dollars in costs and left us penniless, without the money to make a down payment on a home, sentenced to be renters the rest of our lives - in San Francisco, where the median price of a home was, then, nearly half a million dollars. ... Based on information and belief, she did this knowing full well the consequences of her actions.

Over the years I have occasionally searched the Internet for your contact information, so that I could get back in touch with you - but without success, until, a few weeks ago, I tried, again, and found your phone number, and your address - an address that I, and John Wesley, both recognized.

(It would be easy to sneer at our inability to retain important information such as family addresses, but it's also important to remember that John Wesley has been homeless for twenty-five years, and my family has been evicted three times, now. YOU try to keep everything organized over that span of time and turbulence. And I haven't even addressed the fact that your address was withheld from us, in the first place.)

I did not forget your request, in - what? 1998? - that I help you get one of Leon's telescopes, as a family heirloom. (More on that, below.)

And so I was puzzled by your failure to respond to my attempt to get back in touch, in 2001, when I delivered one of Leon's possessions, to your doorstep.

And so I have the following four questions:

1) Why didn't Penny give you one of Leon's telescopes, when you asked for one?

2) Why didn't Thomas help you get one of Leon's telescopes? Did you ask Thomas to help you?

3) Why didn't you acknowledge the package I left for you, in 2001?

(I only drove 500+ miles out of my way. Do you suppose it - and you - might have been important to me?)

4) Where do you stand on the eviction of seven-month-pregnant women and first-born grand-daughters? Is it a business decision?

When your visit to San Francisco, in 1998, or 1999, comes to mind, I am reminded of the furor surrounding your earlier attempt to visit San Francisco, when Leon was killed ... and Penny's resistance.

Over the years, as we have struggled to make sense of Leon's death, it has gradually seemed more and more like his death might have been a suicide.

My suspicion sprouted as I observed the speed with which Penny's and Herb's relationship flowered, after Leon's death. I gradually came to suspect that they had been lovers, all along.

However, when John Wesley told me that he suspected suicide, this made me wonder - had Penny demanded a divorce? Had suicide been Leon's answer?

There had clearly been something going on, all the way back in the summer of 1992 - when Penny sold the house, up in Lassen, which had been Leon's retreat, during the summer, while Penny stayed in San Francisco, and worked, and went to meeting of the GRQ ('Get Rich Quick') club, which met, at Herb's house.

Personally, I suspect that the seeds of the divorce had been planted in the summer of 1991.

In the summer of 1991, Leon, and Penny, and Tom, and Nancy, went down to the tip of Baja California, to see the big solar eclipse. John Wesley and I were carefully excluded.

Tom says he helped his niece move but we never saw him

In retrospect, it seems as if it was really all about Tom - because his birthday was the 12th of July, and, apparently, what he wanted, for his birthday, was to be the center of attention ... and to pretend, if only for a few days, that he was an only child.

Surely, this could not have been Leon's intention. And so I wonder what he was told.

But, wait! There's more!

Not only were Tom, and Nancy, and Leon, and Penny, there ... but, Tom, and Penny, had secretly invited MY FATHER, Dallas Childers, and HIS wife, Mary.

It's not clear if Mary knew that Penny, or Leon, would be there. I don't think she would have come, if she had known.

It's not clear if Leon knew that Dallas, or Mary, would be there. I don't think HE would have come, if HE had known.

I can see how such manipulation, on Tom and Penny's part - purposefully excluding family members, purposefully including FORMER members of a PREVIOUS family, playing keep-away with information - might have left Leon feeling a little, well, unloved.

And if Leon voiced an objection to this high-handedness, you can be sure that Penny did not accept the rebuke peacefully. You can be sure there was acrimony.

And so I would guess that there, in Baja California, is where Leon and Penny's marriage ended.

If I am correct in my analysis, then Tom is, in no small way, responsible for a lot of this - divorces, suicides, fraudulent restraining orders, maybe an eviction or two.

And so, if I am correct, perhaps you now understand why Penny - and Thomas - did not want you in San Francisco, asking difficult questions, just after Leon had died.

If I am correct, then Penny concealed the fact that she had asked Leon for a divorce, from the inquest ... and from the opposing party's lawyers, in Leon's wrongful death lawsuit, from which she made an extra $50,000 - none of which we ever saw.

It's all water under the bridge, now.

Where were you ... sis?

In closing, here are a few questions you should ask Tom, some day.

1) What happened in Bridgeport, such that, in the decades after your college education, at MIT, on the East Coast, you never returned, again - even when your grandmother died, and lay in the hall, for three days, being nibbled on by the family dog?

2) Did your unwillingness to return to Bridgeport have anything to do with Grandpa Horvath's missing Model 1911 Colt .45 automatic pistol?

3) Do you still have the Model 1911 Colt .45 automatic pistol that you 'bought' just after you returned from the East Coast, several decades ago?

4) Do you remember whom, here in California, you purchased your Model 1911 Colt .45 automatic pistol from?

5) Do you have the serial number of the firearm?

6) How many vehicles have you lost to theft, and received insurance money for, total?

7) How many BMWs do you currently own? Please include motorcycles.

8) When did your youngest brother, John Wesley, first become homeless?

9) How many decades has your youngest broyther, John Wesley, been homeless?

10) What have you done to help your brother, John Wesley, escape homelessness?

11) Have you ever contacted the police and filed a missing persons report in connection with your youngest brother, John Wesley?

12) If the answer is 'yes', which police agencies ... and when?

13) If the answer is 'no' ... why?

14) How many thousands of dollars does Penny's three-bedroom house, in San Francisco, rent for, per month?

15) Where does all the money go?

16) Do you still use cocaine?

17) Why did you divorce Nancy?

18) How many of these questions would you be willing to answer in writing?

Regards,

Richard Childers
POB 970
Fortuna CA 95540

For more information related to these events, please see (in approximately chronological order):