Pain remains, but faith, family strengthened wife of slain winery worker

Cathy Toovey remains intensely private and protective of her two grown children, but in a brief statement Monday she suggested she ultimately was not undone by the killing of her husband on a spring day in 1989.

Tracy Toovey was an assistant winemaker at Grand Cru winery near Glen Ellen when he was shot to death, one of seven people killed 20 years ago today by winery worker Ramon Salcido. Toovey left behind a 35-year-old wife and two young children.

"It has been 20 years, yet it feels like yesterday," Toovey, who since has remarried, said in a statement Monday. "I cherish every memory of the time shared with Tracy. I live with the pain of the loss, but as a result of my faith, I have also found myself surprised by joy.

"It is important for people to understand that as I move into the future and find hope and joy, I live with the wounds from the past that will never quite heal."

Her statement refers to a comment made nearly 20 years ago when her pastor assured her that one day she again would be "surprised by joy."

In a 1990 Press Democrat story, she spoke of her grief and her efforts to heal emotionally after her husband's death. She made clear the Salcido murder trial and the surrounding news coverage continued to inflict pain on her and her relatives.

Despite feeling at times like she was falling into an abyss, she said she continued to cling to her friends, her faith and her two children.

"I've got too much to lose to just sit and allow this to get the better of me," she said then.

She now works as the director of small group ministries at her church in the Sonoma Valley.

She has a daughter who is now 25 and a son who is 20.

Those in law enforcement said the Tooveys are the forgotten family in the Salcido killings.

"Her suffering is probably lost in all of this," said Sonoma County Sheriff's Capt. Dave Edmonds, who 20 years ago was a detective working the Salcido case.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat

.com.