Monday January 7, 2008
New Search
Return to results
Printer Friendly
About your archives purchase:
Your purchase of articles expires on 12/14/2015 11:59 PM.
You have viewed -3802 articles and have 3802 articles remaining.
Davis Enterprise, The (CA)
Former Davis writer helped push the case
Lauren Keene Enterprise staff writer
Published: June 7, 2004
Joel Davis barely knew John Riggins. But he knows all too well the
impact his death, as well as that of Sabrina Gonsalves, had on the
small town of Davis.
"It was when Davis went from being a small town to a city," said the
Davis native, who was a senior at Davis High School when the UCD couple
was slain in December 1980. "It was the end of innocence for a lot of
people."
The
horrific murders and how they shocked the residents of Davis are the
focus of a yet-to-be published book, "Justice Waits: The UC Davis
Sweetheart Murders," on which Davis has been working for the past four
years.
But
Davis also has played a more significant role in the case - namely,
bringing it to the attention of the Sacramento County district
attorney's "cold hit" program, through which numerous unsolved cases
have been solved using DNA evidence.
"If
he had not approached them, this never would have worked," said Kate
Riggins, John Riggins' mother, whose family befriended Davis as he
worked on his book. "We really have Joel to appreciate, and it's been a
pleasure to get to know this young man."
Added
George Gonsalves Jr., Sabrina's father: "I think (the book) will have
an influence - it has influenced the prosecution to look at this case a
little more seriously."
Davis
and Riggins weren't friends, but knew of one another through their
involvement in sports - Davis played basketball, while Riggins was
active in soccer and baseball. Davis remembers him as "wholesome," with
distinctive red hair and reputation for being very well-liked by his
peers.
"He
was the last guy you'd think this would happen to," said Davis, now 41
and living in Sacramento. His parents, Don and Charlotte Davis, still
live in the Willowbank area.
Davis
earned journalism degrees from both Fresno State University and
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His first
post-Fresno State job was at The Davis Enterprise, where he covered the
police beat for about a year starting in 1986. The Riggins-Gonsalves
case remained unsolved, and it would be another three years before Yolo
County prosecutors charged four people with the murders.
Davis
left The Enterprise in 1987 and went on to write for publications such
as the Sacramento Business Journal, the Sacramento News & Review,
Sacramento and Comstock's magazines. By 2000, he was teaching
journalism and mass communications at Cal State Sacramento and American
River College, as well as working for Editor & Publisher magazine.
"I
felt I had enough time on my hands that I started entertaining ideas of
doing a book," Davis said. He recalled seeing a show on C-SPAN
featuring some of his favorite authors, one of whom gave the following
advice: Write what you're curious about.
So
that's what Davis did, and began reviewing the case that had captured
his attention - both as a journalist and a former Davis resident - for
the past two decades. He tracked down boxes of dusty court files in
both Yolo County and Sonoma County, where the case had been set to go
to trial due to intense publicity here.
"It
was just fascinating," said Davis, whose dozens of interview subjects
included members of the Riggins and Gonsalves families, as well as the
couple's friends. "They were excited that someone was coming along and
wanted to look into it."
By
this time, seven years had passed since Yolo County prosecutors
dismissed charges against the four suspects in the case - David Hunt,
his wife Suellen, Richard Thompson and Douglas Lainer - after DNA tests
on a semen stain found in Riggins' van failed to match the male
defendants or Riggins. The focus of Davis' book was whether the group
was indeed responsible for the murders.
"My
take on it was I hadn't come up with a definite conclusion. I kind of
let the reader decide," Davis said. "Personally, the more I looked at
it, the more skeptical I got. There just wasn't any physical evidence."
But
there was the semen stain, which Davis thought would be worthy of being
looked at by the Sacramento County district attorney's "cold hit" DNA
program. He traded e-mails with Anne Marie Schubert, the deputy
district attorney in charge of the program, and a match was found in
2002.
"What
I tell people is I simply stirred a pot that needed stirring," said
Davis, who learned the suspect's name through sources and began
following Richard Hirschfield's paper trail. At the same time,
Davis had another battle to fight - a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease,
a progressive, neurological disorder characterized by muscle rigidity
and tremors.
Today,
Davis is in the process of "cautiously" shopping his manuscript to
various agents, but is also considering self-publishing. Assisting him
in his quest has been his wife, Sacramento Business Journal reporter
Kelly Johnson, and numerous journalist friends who have helped edit the
manuscript. John Hershey, a close friend of John Riggins, has served as
Davis' agent and business adviser.
Initially wary of the book idea, Hershey said he was won over by Davis' experience and engaging writing style.
"The
feedback I've gotten is that it's very well-written, gripping and
compelling," said Hershey, a Bay Area resident. "I don't think Joel
ever expected this to consume four years of his life, but this is
classic investigative journalism. I think it's pretty heroic,
especially given his health."
"Justice
Waits" (more information about the book is available at
www.justicewaits.com) is different from other nonfiction murder books
because it is "victim-oriented," Davis said, with chapters dedicated to
Riggins and Gonsalves, as well as the city of Davis. The couple's
pictures are featured prominently on the book's cover.
"It's
really important to me that this not be a 'slasher' book," Davis said.
"I didn't want to glorify the murders or the person who did them. I
wanted people to know what this did to their families, and how this
impacted my hometown."
- Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net
June 6, 2004
Copyright, 2004, The Davis Enterprise. All Rights Reserved.
|