The members met on Thursday, February 2nd for the last time.  The unanimous vote was to disband and our treasury, after expenses, will be distributed to three organizations in San Diego, fulfilling the requirements for our 501-c-3. If you are interested in finding an organization of writers in San Diego and you write mysteries or suspense, you might consider checking out Romance Writers of America, San Diego Chapter at www.rwasd.com. If you are definitely interested in Sisters in Crime, the closest chapter is in Orange County. You can find their website at www.ocsistersincrime.org. There’s also a chapter in Los Angeles at www.sistersincrimela.com.

To view the final minutes, click here.

On Thursday, October 6, we heard a special Halloween presentation by the San Diego Ghost Hunters.  The Ghost Hunters at the meeting were Maritza Skandunas, Coleen Rose, and Julie Haney. They gave a slide show presentation about San Diego murders, hauntings, and unexplained phenomena that included information about the Whaley House and Iowa-girl Kate Morgan, who still hangs out at the Hotel del Coronado. The also showed slides and played recordings of electronic voice phenomena from the Gila County Jail in Globe, Arizona, where a suspected child killer was murdered by angry townsfolk.

The electronic voice phenomena played by the Ghost Hunters were enough to chill the most skeptical.  They showed photos of apparitions, auras, and other phenomena. One of the attendees, who had recently been to the Whaley House, showed his own photo that he’d taken while on a tour. Definitely spooky.

Avoid Uninvited Guests

Skandunas explained about the different kinds of ghosts. One of the most dangerous, she said, are demons. She cautioned attendees to avoid saying anything that might be construed as an invitation when dealing with the departed. For instance, just saying, “How can I help you?” might cause a ghost to follow the person home and haunt them.

Whaley House

The Whaley House, which is visited by around 100,000 people each year, is populated by a number of ghosts according to the Ghost Hunters.  Mr. Whaley is the head of the household and likes Skandunas. She said that he’s fond of blowing sweet tobacco smoke from his pipe into the faces of women who tour his home. He also gets quite upset when there are changes made to the house that he hasn’t been told about in advance.

Kate Morgan

Kate Morgan was an Iowa girl who married a local man.  She died in 1892 from a gunshot wound to the head while staying at the Hotel del Coronado.  According to the Ghost Hunters, Morgan is still there along with gangsters and prostitutes who were also murdered.

Watch out for ghosts!

Halloween is a very active time of year for ghosts.  The “veil between the worlds” is thinnest between October 31 and November 2 according to Skandunas and sightings become more prevalent at this time of year. For more information about the San Diego Ghost Hunters, visit their website at http://sandiegoghosthunters.com.

Erica Miner will be presenting for the Write on the Sound Writers Conference in the Seattle area, Oct. 1-2, 2011. The brochure is available at:http://www.ci.edmonds.wa.us/ArtsCommission/pdf/2011WoTSBrochure.pdf
Her workshops will be Journaling: the ‘Write Way to Write Fiction’ and ‘Solving the Mystery of Mystery Writing.’  In her mystery workshop, she will discuss the challenges of a mystery or thriller novel and and will give her theories behind the demands of structure, character and other distinguishing factors of the genre. Using her experiences rubbing shoulders with great opera stars as a violinist at the Metropolitan Opera, she’ll demonstrate how a unique setting can keep a reader intrigued to the last page.

On Thursday, September 1, Antoinette Kuritz, founder of the La Jolla Writers Conference, will be our speaker. Ms. Kuritz will discuss how writers can promote themselves and their book. The presentation offers attendees an inside look at how writers can make the most of the various media available for promotion, including print, radio, and TV. A expert on helping writers create “buzz” about their work, this should be can’t miss meeting for anyone with an active project they are trying to promote.

Meetings are held at the Joyce Beers Community Center in Hillcrest. Social networking begins at 6:30 p.m, the meeting at 7:00 pm.

Canine handler Pam Medhurst will bring her trained search dog to the Aug. 4 meeting of Sisters & Misters in Crime to demonstrate how she aids the San Diego Sheriff Department in searches for missing, at risk individuals, as well as evidence search and body search and recovery. The San Diego Sheriff Department has been involved in several high profile search efforts including Danille Van Dam, Chelsea King and Amber Dubois.Social period, 6:30 p.m./meeting, 7 p.m.; Joyce Beers Community Center, Hillcrest.

Gary Reid and three members of the San Diego County Dive Recovery Unit, also known as the Underwater Search and Recovery Team, talked about their duties and several cases at the Sisters & Misters in Crime meeting on July 7, 2011.

The presenters showed slides of cases on which they worked. One of those case the Llama Man case involved recovering a body in La Jolla Cove where a diver had seen what he thought was a white fish swimming around a chain that held a buoy in place. The “fish” was actually a hand floating in the tide, attached to the body of a fit man handcuffed to the chain. The man was dressed in a swim suit and had been in the water for several hours.

The team recovered the body and it was only after it was examined by a medical official that the handcuff key was found in the man’s clenched hand. He was identified as “The Llama Man,” a local resident who roamed the area with a llama and a couple of dogs. Llama Man was well known to local residents and the media for his actions, which frequently brought him attention.

Upon investigation, authorities concluded that Llama Man gave away his animals and committed suicide by handcuffing himself to the chain. Reid said that Llama Man had mental problems, but knew of no other reason why he’d committed suicide.

Reid and the team also told of a small group of men fishing on the shore of an area lake. A storm came up and a nearby fisherman in a boat offered the men a ride back to their car on his boat. One man declined and started walking. The others and the boat owner pulled out onto the lake, only to capsize in the storm. The team believe that a sudden lightning strike caused the men to all turn and look, unbalancing the boat and sinking it.

The team talked about diving in “black water.”  Water so dirty or silty that it’s impossible to see a flashlight right in front of their faces. For more information about the team, visit their web page at http://www.sdsheriff.net/documents/dive-info.pdf.

The San Diego County Underwater Search and Rescue Team will talk to Sisters and Misters in Crime on July 7 about their duties and about interesting cases that involved the recovery of murder victims from the water.

Where: Joyce Beers Community Center, Hillcrest. There will be a slide presentation showing rescues and the recovery of dead bodies. WARNING: Graphic, viewer discretion advised. The representatives will talk about their duties.
Social period, 6:30 p.m.
Meeting, 7 p.m.
Free, Joyce Beers Community Center, Hillcrest.

At our June 2nd meeting, we welcomed back San Diego Noir authors, Taffy Cannon and Ken Kuhlken. Both spoke about their own writing and the “Noir” short story collections.

The “Noir” books, a collection of localized short stories, began on the East Coast and includes short stories from a number of cities, including Brooklyn, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and Cape Cod. Mary Elizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy edited San Diego Noir. She spoke with Akashic Books, the publisher, and local authors, many of whom she knew personally. Contributing authors to the San Diego Noir collection included T. Jefferson Parker, Don Winslow, Luis Alberto Urrea, Gar Anthony Haywood, Gabriel R. Barillas, Maria Lima, Debra Ginsberg, Diane Clark and Astrid Bear, Ken Kuhlken, Lisa Brackmann, Cameron Pierce Hughes, Morgan Hunt, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Martha Lawrence, and Taffy Cannon.

When her brother, who had once been a policeman, suffered a series of seizures and strokes, Cannon realized that she needed to take a hiatus from mystery writing and help her brother. At about this same time, Cannon read a story in the New York Times about a Blue Cross executive who was helping to cancel people’s health insurance just when they needed it most. That story, combined with her brother’s illness, gave her the concept for the San Diego Noir story, is it a sin to kill a vulture? Cannon quipped, “It’s too grim for a full-length manuscript.”

On Thursday, June 2nd, at 7:00 p.m., Sisters and Misters in Crime will host two San Diego writers. Ken Kuhlken and Taffy Cannon will appear at the meeting to discuss their contributions to San Diego Noir. San Diego Noir is a collection of short stories that focuses on the dark side of San Diego. In addition to Kuhlken and Cannon, contributing authors to San Diego Noir included T. Jefferson Parker, Don Winslow, Luis Alberto Urrea, Gar Anthony Haywood, Gabriel R. Barillas, Maria Lima, Debra Ginsberg, Diane Clark and Astrid Bear, Lisa Brackmann, Cameron Pierce Hughes, Morgan Hunt, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, and Martha Lawrence. San Diego Noir was edited by Mary Elizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy.

Kuhlken is the author of numerous books including the Tom Hickey California Century series with The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles, The Loud Adios, and The Venus Deal. Cannon is the author of Blood Matters, Paradise Lost, and Open Season on Lawyers.

At the next meeting of Sisters & Misters in Crime, Madeline Hinkes, professor of anthropology at San Diego Mesa College, will talk about her work as a forensic anthropology consultant to the San Diego Medical Examiner’s Office as well as the Imperial County Coroner’s Office.  Hinkes is called in when remains are skeletonized, partial, burned, or otherwise damaged as to be difficult to identify, and assess age, sex, ancestry, height, trauma, pathologies, and time since death.  She is 1 of 60 board-certified forensic anthropologists in the country (ABFA = American Board of Forensic Anthropology).  I have been practicing in SanDiego since 1994.

Hinkes will talk about her work in identifying the remains of Amber Dubois after her murderer, John Albert Gardner, led authorities to the body.

This sounds like an extraordinarily interesting talk.

Date: April 7
Social period: 6:30 p.m./meeting, 7 p.m.
Where: Joyce Beers Community Center, Hillcrest