Family grieves for Rohnert Park woman left to die on Napa highway in November (w/video)

The images from a restaurant surveillance camera of an unknown man with a mustache putting his arm around a Rohnert Park woman, just hours before she was found in grave condition after being run over on a remote Napa County highway, bring chills to those who loved her.

Maria Cruz Pascual Bejar, 57, spent much of the past 20 years caring for severely developmentally disabled adolescents at a home care site in Rohnert Park.

Bejar spent her life working in hands-on, physically demanding roles, including home hospice care. Years ago, she dropped everything to move to Oklahoma and provide six months of one-on-one rehabilitation to a nephew severely burned in an accident.

That she would be found with traumatic head injuries after being run over in a remote part of northern Napa County, far from her home and the places she spent time, has left Bejar’s loved ones with vexing uncertainty over what befell her.

“Our minds are going crazy over these questions,” said Ed Piotrowski, her employer of 20 years and former father-in-law. “It is not right, what happened, but we just don’t know what happened.”

The two unidentified men shown in the surveillance images may have been the last to have been with her on the November night when she apparently met them at a familiar restaurant bar, close to the home where she lived for much of the past 20 years.

They may have been the reason Bejar then went to a bar on the outskirts of Santa Rosa, which according to her loved ones was far from the usual places she would visit along the bus routes accessible from her home.

And the men, being sought for questioning by Napa County detectives, may be the only people to know precisely how she came to be found before dawn lying on a remote stretch of highway in northern Napa County.

Napa County sheriff’s officials released the images this week in the hopes that someone might help identify them. The images were taken at Mi Ranchito Mexican Restaurant in Cotati on the evening of Nov. 15. A bartender told detectives it appeared Bejar and the men had just met that night.

Before dawn the next day, Bejar was found lying in a lane of Highway 29 about 5 miles north of Calistoga. She died while being flown by emergency personnel to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.

That portion of the highway is lined by sprawling ranches and woodlands and leads through Robert Louis Stevenson State Park to the Lake County border.

It is a remote area where Bejar, who didn’t drive, was unlikely to go, Piotrowski said.

Bejar lived with Piotrowski at his home-care site off East Cotati Avenue in Rohnert Park for many of the past 20 years. She cooked, cleaned and made sure the young boys living there brushed their teeth each night and helped them get off to school in the morning, “everything that a mother would do,” Piotrowski said.

For 15 of those years, she was married to Piotrowski’s son, Michael Piotrowski. They remained close after they divorced about four years ago.

A native of Spain, Bejar lived in Seville until her mother died when Bejar was 3. She then lived with her grandmother in Madrid. Bejar went by Cruz, pronounced Cruth because of the Spanish dialect of the region.

Around 1994, Bejar met Michael Piotrowski at a club in Berkeley and soon thereafter began working for his father. Bejar spoke Spanish, English, French and German and was a savvy traveler who took annual trips to Europe and regularly visited friends in far-flung places such as Malaysia and Thailand. The Piotrowskis and the boys they cared for often traveled with her.

“Even though we got divorced, we were still family,” Michael Piotrowski said.

“We are her family,” Ed Piotrowski said.

Bejar lived in a portion of a room off the modest single-story home’s living room.

A wicker chest at the base of the bed holds stacks of photos and mementos of her life. A portrait from her wedding with Piotrowski stands on the bedside table.

A photograph of Bejar’s mother in an ornate beaded gown and headdress sits nearby in a gold frame on top of an upright organ.

Bejar said the rosary each night, Piotrowski said.

In the living room, he placed her rosary beads on the mantel alongside photographs of her as a child in her first Communion gown and veil and a more recent photo showing Bejar with platinum hair and wearing makeup.

A “Bill of Rights” for children with disabilities hangs on the wall.

Bejar was just shy of 5 feet tall and almost always wore towering heels.

Piotrowski said Bejar was gregarious. She talked with her hands and was quick on her feet. She loved hearing her native tongue and “would seek out people who spoke Spanish,” he said.

She had a natural rapport with the children they cared for, who could sometimes be challenging.

“They all respected her. She could handle all of them,” Piotrowski said. “She could touch anyone’s heart.”

Anyone with information about the case can call the Napa County Sheriff’s Office investigation bureau at 253-4591. Anonymous tips can be left with Napa Valley Crime Stoppers online at www.napavalleycrimestoppers.com or by phone at 800-450-9543. People may also text tips to 274637 by typing NVCS at the beginning of the tip.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.