An anonymous bomb threat was called in to the Willows Walmart Wednesday morning, prompting an evacuation.
At about 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, July 31, the Willows Walmart received a call from an unknown person who indicated there was a bomb in the restroom area.
Walmart security personnel began evacuating the store immediately.
Glenn County Sheriff’s deputies began arriving, and went to work getting vehicles to leave.
McDonald’s, located across the parking lot to the south, was also contacted.
At about 9:34 a.m., the Willows Fire Department was called and asked to stage.
Staging for all incoming vehicles was across Highway 162 at Nancy’s Airport Café.
According to the police scanner, Highway 162 was shut down, as were the Interstate 5 offramps at Highway 162.
At 9:43 a.m., deputies entered Walmart.
At about 10:20 a.m., deputies determined the store was clear.
A 25-year-old Red Bluff man died after being hit by at least three vehicles while walking on Interstate 5 in Glenn County late Monday night.
According to a press release issued by the Willows Area Office of the California Highway Patrol, at about 11:35 p.m. on July 29, the Red Bluff man was walking in the fast lane of the southbound side of Interstate 5, south of County Road 39. The Glenn County Sheriff’s Office, which is conducting the coroner’s investigation, gives his name as Alejandro Bernal-Lozano.
CHP Officer Nick DeFrancesco states that as Bernal-Lozano crossed the freeway, the 2013 Volkswagen being driven by Jamey Phillips, 28, of Willows, in the southbound fast lane of I-5 struck the pedestrian.
Following this collision, a 2019 Honda being driven by Vignesh Pandiarajan, 22, of San Ramon, also hit Bernal-Lozano. Then, a third vehicle, a 2023 Peterbilt driven by Maricela Sanchez, 40, of Fresno, also ran over the pedestrian.
Bernal-Lozano died at the scene. Drugs or alcohol are not suspected to be contributing factors for the drivers involved in this accident.
According to the CHP, drug or alcohol impairment on the part of Bernal-Lozano is currently unknown.
As stated above, the sheriff’s office is handling the coroner’s investigation. After identifying the body, deputies notified the next of kin: Edgar Omar Bernal-Lozano of Willows.
Orland police officers also assisted. Deputies cleared the scene at about 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday, July 30.
On Tuesday, July 16, 2024, Lucas Kane Nunes of Glenn died in Ord Bend alongside his lifelong friend/brother, Rodney Wayne Yeager. Lucas Nunes was born in Willows on June 17, 1979.
He loved anything to do with the outdoors, including fishing, camping, and hunting. He always enjoyed spending time with his family and friends, playing pool, dancing, and grilling and sitting around the fire telling stories and making everyone laugh and feel welcomed and loved.
He attended boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, in November of 1998 and graduated basic in February of 1999. After 10 days of leave, he began his infantry and weapons training at Camp Horno, Calif., graduating as an 0341 (Mortar Man) and then attending Marine Corps Security Forces training in Virginia.
Upon graduating Security Forces training, he was stationed in Bahrain. He deployed with 3/7 in January of 2003 and began fighting the war on terrorism in Iraq in March of 2003.
While serving our country, he received the following decorations: Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal (2nd award), Combat Action Ribbon (Iraq), Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal (Iraq), National Defense Service Medal, Southwest Asia Service Medal, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal (Kuwait), and Presidential Unit Citation-Navy. He also achieved his (5th award) rifle expert badge.
During his service to our county, he achieved the rank of Sergeant.
He is survived by his father, Richard John Nunes, Sr., of Willows; brother Richard John Nunes, Jr., of Portugal; sister Anelisa Marie Nunes of Ord Bend; uncle, Joseph Nunes of Arizona; cousins Christopher Nunes of Chico and Diana Nunes of Chico; godparents Denny and Bonnie Tucker of Willows; and his beloved bonus family: Debi Yeager of Chico, Amber Yeager of Ord Bend, and Dale Suhre of Ord Bend.
He was preceded in death by his mother, Deborah Kay Nunes.
His family and friends agree, he is greatly loved and will be tremendously missed by all.
A Rosary is scheduled for recitation at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 31, at St. Monica’s Catholic Church in Willows. A Mass is to be celebrated at the church at 10 a.m. on Thursday, August 1, to be followed by a graveside service at the Willows Veterans Cemetery.
A reception and memorial are scheduled at the Willows Memorial Hall. In lieu of flowers, a gofundme account has been established in Lucas Nunes’ honor.
On Tuesday, July 16, 2024, Ord Bend resident Rodney Wayne Yeager died in Ord Bend alongside his lifelong friend/brother, Lucas Kane Nunes. Rodney Yeager was born in Willows on April 10, 1980.
A lover of nature, he was an avid fisherman and gardener. He loved cooking and family gatherings.
His infectious smile never left his face. He had the biggest, warmest heart and loved his family beyond measure.
He is survived by his children Jacob, 21, Caleb, 16, and Isabella, 13, of Bayliss; mother Debi Forrister (Flint) of Chico; sister, Amber Yeager of Ord Bend; partner and love of his life, Anelisa Nunes, of Ord Bend; brother Jon Harvey of Chico; grandmother Beulah Yeager of Indiana; four nieces and nephews; many cousins, aunts and uncles; and his beloved bonus family, Richard Nunes of Willows and Richard Nunes, Jr., of Portugal.
He was preceded in death by his father, Steve Yeager; sister, Shannon Garnett; and infant niece, Adrianna Garnett.
His loved ones agree, he was greatly loved and will be missed forever.
Barney Gene Cook of Stonyford died in Chico on Tuesday, July 16, 2024. He was born in Ferndale to Edith and Barney Cook on Jan. 14, 1940.
He grew up in Willows. In 1962, he met Babs Griffin and they were married in October of 1963. After their marriage, the couple resided in Stonyford.
Barney Cook worked for the U.S. Forest Service for 32 years. He joined the Bear Valley Indian Valley Fire Department in 1963, and became the fire chief in 1993, a position he held for 31 years until 2024.
He was also on the Stony Creek Unified School Board for 20 years, and was later inducted into the School Board Hall of Fame. He was also partners with his son, Ken Cook, in Cook Construction.
Barney Cook enjoyed spending time with family, camping, his classic cars, fishing, taking his boat on the ocean, and hunting.
He is survived by his wife, Babs; children Pam Moore, Sandy Corbin and her spouse, Barry, and Ken Cook and his spouse, Vicky; 11 grandchildren; 13 great-grandchildren; and his sister, Diana Hoggatt, and her spouse, Junior. He was preceded in death by his parents; brothers Duane and Jack Cook; son, Barney Cook, Jr., and daughter, Sherry Burt.
A Celebration of Life is planned for 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, July 25, at the Stonyford Community Hall.
Two Glenn County men, one from the community of Glenn and the other from Willows, were killed in a late evening vehicle crash in eastern Glenn County.
According to a press release from the Willows Area Office of the California Highway Patrol, at about 9:50 p.m. on Tuesday, July 16, Rodney Wayne Yeager, 44, of Glenn, was driving a 2015 Ford F-250 pickup north on County Road X, approaching County Road 34.
Lucas Kane Nunes, 45, of Willows, was sitting in the right front passenger seat.
For unknown reasons, when Yeager approached the T-intersection at County Roads X and 34, he neither slowed down nor turned the Ford,
The vehicle traveled across Road 34 and crashed into the north embankment of a ditch that runs parallel to the road off the north side of Road 34.
Both Yeager and Nunes were pronounced dead at the scene.
According to CHP Officer Nick DeFrancesco, it is unknown if drugs or alcohol were a factor in this accident. Neither occupant of the Ford was wearing his seatbelts at the time of the crash.
The accident remains under investigation by the CHP.
According to the Glenn County Sheriff’s Office, which conducted the coroner’s investigations, deputies were dispatched to a report of a traffic accident in the area of County Roads X and 24 at about 10 p.m.
Volunteers from the Bayliss Fire Department and officers from the CHP also responded.
The sheriff’s log entry for this incident states that “Rodney Wayne Yeager and Lucas Kane Nunes, both of Glenn, were pronounced deceased by medical personnel.”
Yeager’s next of kin, his mother, Deborah Lynn Forrister of Chico, was notified of the death, as was Nunes’ next of kin, his father, Richard John Nunes of Willows.
According to the Glenn County Superior Court website, over the years the driver in Tuesday night’s fatal accident, Rodney Yeager, was charged with a number of traffic violations that may shed some light on this incident.
In 2021, Yeager pled guilty to speeding over a 55 miles per hour limit (an infraction). In 2019, he was charged with hit and run with property damage (a misdemeanor that was dismissed).
And, perhaps most significant given that neither Yeager nor his passenger were wearing seatbelts, in 2011, Yeager was convicted of a seatbelt violation (an infraction).
A memorial service for Tracey “Mr. Q.” Quarne is well into the planning stages.
Tracey Jay Quarne, 68, known to many as “Mr. Q.”, died Sunday, June 30, 2024, following a vehicle accident south of Minot, North Dakota. The longtime Glenn County educator and community leader was a resident of Bismarck in his home state of North Dakota at the time of his death.
Quarne was born in Williston, N. Dak., to Erwin and Gloria (Orser) Quarne on February 17, 1956. He lived in several areas of North Dakota during his childhood and graduated from Minot High School in 1974.
He furthered his education by attending college at Minot State University, where he received a teaching degree. He also attended Bemidji State College for one year.
He taught in Cavalier, No. Dak., and Surrey, No. Dak.
On August 16, 1985, he married Kathy Burt in Minot. A daughter, Alexandra, was born to them.
The couple divorced in 1996.
In 1995, Quarne relocated to Orland, Calif., and lived there until 2022. While in Orland, he worked as an educator and was perhaps best known as a music teacher at Orland High School.
He was very involved in his community and actively supported such organizations as the Rotary Club, the Orland Patriots, and the Glenn Chorale. In November of 2004, he was elected to the Orland City Council.
A couple of years later, he became a member of the Glenn County Board of Supervisors. Then, in 2010, he was elected as the Glenn County Superintendent of Schools, an office he held for more than a decade.
He is survived by his daughter, Alexandra, of Bismarck, No. Dak.; grandchildren Cru and Ava Enno, both of Bismarck; sister Sarah Pitcher of Willows, Calif.; nephew Joshua and his daughter, Emma, both of Orland; and stepmother Lorna Quarne of Los Angeles. He was preceded in death by his parents, grandparents, and several aunts and uncles.
A memorial service, still in the organizational stages, is tentatively scheduled for 10 a.m. on Saturday, August 3, inside the Orland Memorial Hall. It is expected that hundreds of people will be in attendance.
Check The Glenn County Observer for possible updates.
Church of Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles.
By Larry Judkins
Glenn County Observer
Have you seen any of those TV commercials that end with the URL, “thewaytohappiness.org”? There are several different ads, but they all end by showing that particular URL.
I have seen four of the commercials, but I have reason to think there are more – perhaps as many as 17 more. The four I have seen promote the following messages:
“Take Care of Yourself”;
“Safeguard and Improve Your Environment”;
“Respect the Religious Beliefs of Others”; and
“Honor and Help Your Parents”.a
In and of themselves, I have no serious complaints about any of these ads, but the last one, “Honor and Help Your Parents”, got me to wondering. The commercial features a teenager talking to his friends. One friend asks the teen how things went, and the teen answers that it made his mom cry.
Another friend asks the teen, “What did you do?” Viewers then learn that the teenager unexpectedly cleaned up his parents’ house while they were away. As I said above, the ad ends with the URL, thewaytohappiness.org.
I asked myself, “Self, what is this ‘Way to Happiness’ organization?” Since the wording of “Honor and Help Your Parents” is similar to the biblical commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother”, my initial thought was that the commercial is probably from an evangelical group employing what is known as “Stealth Christianity” tactics to promote their religious beliefs without being obvious about it. I was wrong, however.
Upon visiting “The Way to Happiness” website, I learned that the themes of the four ads are from what the website calls “The 21 Precepts”. “The 21 Precepts of whom? Or what?” you ask.
After checking out the 21 Precepts, I moved my cursor to “About Us” at the top of the page. One of the five options that was offered under “About Us” read, “L. Ron Hubbard”. I immediately knew who was behind the 21 Precepts and the TV commercials based on them. For those who don’t know, the late L. Ron Hubbard is most famous as the inventor of Dianetics (generally considered to be a pseudoscience by mainstream psychologists); author of the 1950 book, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health; and, in December of 1953, founder of the Church of Scientology.
Taking a closer look at the 21 Precepts page, I found the following near the bottom of the page:
“The Way to Happiness Foundation is a purely secular charitable organization, coordinated by the Association for Better Living and Education (ABLE), an organization dedicated to resolving the major societal ills of drugs, crime, illiteracy and immorality. The Church of Scientology and its parishioners proudly sponsor ABLE and each of its social betterment groups.”
Okay. The Way to Happiness Foundation and its TV ads are ultimately sponsored by the Church of Scientology. So what?
Actually, I fully accept – even support – the right of the Church of Scientology and its affiliated groups to advertise their beliefs – which in no way means that I necessarily accept or support any or all of the beliefs themselves. There is a huge difference between respecting the right to express a particular belief and respecting the belief itself.
However, I am also a big supporter of “full disclosure.” Before anyone connects with the Way to Happiness Foundation, he or she should know about not just that it is affiliated with the Church of Scientology, but also the church’s core beliefs. For example, even according to my very broad and inclusive definition of Christianity, the Church of Scientology is not a Christian denomination. By my definition, to be a Christian, one must believe the following three things:
(1) The God of the Hebrew Bible (the so-called Old Testament) is at most the one and only God and at least the supreme God among a pantheon of gods; and the God of the Old and New Testaments are (somehow) one and the same deity.
(2) Jesus was/is, if not God or the Son of God, at the very least the greatest and most morally perfect human being who ever lived.
(3) The souls of some number of human beings, perhaps as many as the entire human race or as few as 144,000, are destined to achieve immortality.
Thus, according to my definition, committed Scientologists are not Christians. Besides some difficulties with belief number 1, they “flunk” belief number 2, that Jesus was at the very least the greatest human being who ever lived. In his early writings and lectures, L. Ron Hubbard maintained that Jesus was simply a teacher for humanity, one of many such teachers and not the greatest. Later, Hubbard is alleged by some of his followers to have claimed that Jesus was essentially a historical fiction, implanted into our collective minds as a false memory.
Scientology is said to be a blend of a variety of sources, including Buddhism, Hinduism (for instance, Scientologists believe in reincarnation), science fiction, and Thelema (the religion invented by occultist Aleister Crowley, 1875-1947, inspiration for heavy metal rocker Ozzy Osbourne’s 1980 song, “Mr. Crowley”).
There you go. Now, if you want to check out thewaytohappiness.org, you should be well-enough informed to know who and what it is with whom you are getting involved, even if you just plan to keep the involvement very brief.
Last month, more than 40 years after his original conviction, Darrell Lescallett was again found guilty of the brutal murder of Edith Jackson of Willows.
In the early morning hours of Saturday, Sept. 22, 1979, Darrell Lescallett, now 69 years old (25 at the time of the murder); his brother, Gary Lescallett; and companion Frank Kamlan encountered Edith Jackson, a 79-year-old retired teacher from Willows, at the Denny’s restaurant, formerly located on the west side of Humboldt Avenue, south of Wood Street, in Willows. Prior to meeting Jackson, the three men had committed several burglaries in the region.
The three men asked Jackson for a ride, which she apparently agreed to give them; however, when they were inside her car, they pulled her into the back seat and forced her to the floor. Just south of Willows, they locked Jackson in the trunk and drove to Oakland. When the men stopped for gas, they paid for it with money stolen from Jackson.
While enroute, the trio discussed killing Jackson (thereby establishing that the murder was premeditated). Once in Oakland, the three used heroin and cocaine. Darrell and Gary Lescallett then went to kill Jackson. She was stabbed eight times. The nearly 80-year-old woman was also sexually assaulted by Darrell Lescallett.
The precise motive for the crime was unprovoked and unknown.
Darrell Lescallett was originally convicted more than 40 years ago. In mid-June of this year, his sixth parole hearing was held. Parole was denied. His next parole hearing is scheduled for about a year from now.
Under California law (SB1437), Lescallett was granted a new trial to determine beyond a reasonable doubt if he was guilty of the murder. The hearing was held in Alameda County on May 30, 2024. The court issued its ruling on June 24. It found that the People proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Lescallett was the “actual killer.” The court also decided the People had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Lescallett was a “major participant who acted with reckless indifference” to human life.
Lescallett is scheduled for sentencing on October 17, 2024.
The Glenn County Observer 