Grief, questions linger in Mendocino killings

Why did he kill two men?

"My biggest question I want to ask him, if he was in his rational mind, is there anything we could have done to peacefully end this?" Allman said.

Two signs greet visitors to Madeleine Melo's home. One, a wood-carved sign announcing "Camp Jere."

The other is one she typed and printed during the excruciating search for her husband's killer:

"If you use any drug and/or tolerate those that do, you are not welcome here — go away. Say no to drugs. Shout hell no."

For Madeleine Melo, her husband's death is a symbol of criminals who have invaded the woods, endangering forest workers, and she is determined to fight back.

"In this town people tell their children to stay out of the woods," Madeleine Melo said. "It used to be the gates were open on the logging roads."

In 1982, she bought a yellow house on a Fort Bragg cul-de-sac. Jere Melo lived across the street.

"My dad would bring him over to help fix stuff; I was always apologizing profusely," she said.

They married in 1987, celebrating with barbecued salmon. They were known to hold hands nearly everywhere they went.

"He was the best, he was the love of my life," she said.

Bassler, 35, grew up playing in Fort Bragg's woods. As an adult, he grew increasingly reclusive and for long stretches lived in the forest. He had a deal with his parents to check in every two weeks.

On the day he was killed, Melo was investigating reports that Bassler was squatting on private timberland. Melo set out with resident Ian Chaney, whose family lived nearby.

They came upon a bunker Bassler constructed with wood and barbed wire. He was growing potted opium poppies in flats on a terraced hillside.

Bassler fired at both men. Melo was killed. Chaney escaped.

Bassler's motives were perhaps driven by paranoia and mental illness, but Madeleine Melo has channeled her anger toward what she sees as the most common human threat to forest workers, and the reason her husband patrolled the woods:

illegal marijuana growers.

"I will do anything, anything, to make sure this never happens again," she said.

Those were the same words she used when, after Bassler was killed, she walked into the office of Steve Horner, her husband's boss and area manager of Campbell Timberland Management.

What emerged was the Jere Melo Foundation, a nonprofit run

by Melo's wife, co-workers and friends. The goal is to spread the word about the environmental pollution and violence that accompany illegal marijuana gardens, particularly those where growers have trespassed onto public and private lands.

"I felt passionate that no others should feel that threat," she said.

Logging remains one of the most dangerous professions, and the risks are compounded by land poachers, said Horner, standing under the redwoods and fir of Otis R. Johnson Wilderness Park, a city park Melo helped establish.

"Imagine, every day we go out into the woods, a lot of times working at night for wildlife surveys," Horner said. "We know the threat is there. And we encounter it. The threat is constant."

Families living on the outskirts of Fort Bragg and in remote parts of the forest were acutely aware of the search for Bassler. Among them was Matthew Tarnuff, 33, who with his wife and three children, at the time age 3, 5 and 8, were living on a Pudding Creek-area farm on the edge of the forest.

From behind his vegetable stand at the Fort Bragg market, Tarnuff recounted the day last year when the family decided to temporarily move to a safer location.

A helicopter was circling nearby as officers in heavy camouflage tramped through the property and into the forest. "Seeing (Bassler's) picture everywhere, all of the officers coming on our land ... Whenever we heard the helicopter it was like a Pavlovian response, your spine starts to tingle," Tarnuff said.

The family lived with friends for three weeks, returning once the search ended. They now live on the other side of town.

During the search for Bassler, Liebenberg, the state parks biologist, said she and her colleagues suspended activities that put wildlife volunteers in remote areas, such as the annual summertime shorebird surveys at Ten Mile Dunes beach.

Across the aisle at the market, volunteers with the Mendocino Coast Chamber of Commerce handed out cups of apple cider.

"This hit two diverse communities," said Maggie Watson, 54, of Little River, who works for a solar installation company, Mendocino Solar Service, and is a member of the chamber.

Both Melo and Coleman were stewards of the land, one through his career in timber and civic work and the other through his work for environmental conservation.

Coleman is memorialized 10 miles down the coast from Fort Bragg with a solid redwood bench installed on a high bluff above the Big River estuary. The stunning view takes in the essence of Coleman's life on the coast, where for years he surveyed shore birds and salmon, removed invasive plants and worked to allow a native ecosystem to thrive.

His photographs of harbor seals on the Noyo and Navarro rivers, a damsel fly and American Goldfinch are on display in the heart of Mendocino village at Frankie's pizza and ice cream parlor on Ukiah Street.

"After Matt died, it has been difficult," said Michael Miller, Big River program manager with the Mendocino Land Trust, and a friend. The work felt grueling without Coleman.

But a 23-year-old Central Valley intern has brought fresh life to the office, his position funded by the newly formed Matthew Coleman Fund for Environmental Conservation and Education, Miller said. The intern has spent the summer surveying the wildlife Coleman tracked, conducting invasive plant removal events where Coleman worked.

"When Matt died, the thing that echoed in my head — what he would want — is to do the work, continue the work," Miller said.

In Fort Bragg, Melo's likeness is carved in redwood in the Town Hall on Main Street. The sculpture of the forester, with his characteristic smile and hard hat, stands behind the council table.

On Aug. 13, the council honored Chaney for his bravery during the confrontation that cost Melo his life. Chaney shot back at Bassler and ran, scrambling down hill to the rail line and flagging down an auxiliary car. He led law enforcement to Melo's body and provided the witness account that allowed investigators to link Bassler to both killings.

Chaney has not spoken publicly, most recently declining comment through a person who answered his phone.

Work also continues for James Bassler, Aaron Bassler's father. The Fort Bragg fisherman has found himself thrust into the public discussion over his son's apparent mental illness.

"It has changed me," James Bassler said. "I'm involved in a lot of politics now, which is not what I want to do with my life, but I feel compelled to be politically involved with some sort of change."

Now a member of the Mendocino County Mental Health Board, he has been outspoken about the lack of ways for families and agencies to help the mentally ill who do not seek help on their own.

"The most dangerous mentally ill aren't the ones walking around, homeless and talking out loud," James Bassler said. "It's the ones who keep that mental illness inside."

(You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com.)