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Gabrielle Rachel Varney, 18, appeared in Lake County Superior Court, according to her attorney, Stephen Carter.
“We entered her plea as not guilty,” Carter said.
Varney is charged with murder and a special allegation of using a deadly weapon – in this case a knife – in the death of 17-year-old Heather Valdez of Clearlake.
Valdez died June 5 after Varney allegedly stabbed her during a confrontation that happened when the teens got off the school bus near their homes, as Lake County News has reported. Both girls were juniors at Carlé Continuation High School.
The incident between the teenagers allegedly was the culmination of a months-long feud, Lt. Mike Hermann of Clearlake Police told Lake County News in a previous interview.
Hermann said Varney told police she hadn't intended to stab Valdez. Rather, she told police Valdez had started hitting her.
Varney allegedly had a folding pocket knife with a 4-inch blade that she had been carrying in her hand before the fight started, and which police later recovered at the home of a neighbor where she went to call for help.
An autopsy ruled that Valdez's death resulted from a stab wound to the neck, with the wound appearing consistent with the knife, Hermann said.
Carter said Varney will return to court July 18, at which time the date of her preliminary hearing will be set.
Varney remains in Lake County Jail, with bail set at $500,000, according to jail records.
For Carter, who began representing Varney a week and a half ago and is beginning his own in-depth study of the case, it's too early to know how long the case might take to get to trial.
If Varney is convicted, she'll face 25 years to life for the murder charge, said Carter, plus one year for the special allegation of using a deadly weapon.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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Lt. Mike Hermann of the Clearlake Police Department said the collision involved a Hey, Taxi minivan and another vehicle on Highway 53 at the Olympic Drive turnoff.
He said the minivan, traveling northbound, was turning onto Olympic.
The van driver thought the car coming from the opposite direction was slowing, so the driver pulled out to make the turn, said Hermann.
However, the other car wasn't slowing for a turn and the two vehicles collided, he said.
There were complaints of pain from the vehicles' drivers and passengers but only minor injuries were reported, according to Hermann.
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Nicholas Gene Wood, 30, of Kelseyville was arrested by Lake County Sheriff's Det. Nicole Costanza just before 8:30 a.m. Thursday, according to Chief Deputy James Bauman, the sheriff's office spokesman.
News of the arrest came as a relief to Uriarte's family.
“Today was a very good day,” said his mother, Christine Diener.
Bauman said Wood was booked on felony charges of assault with a deadly weapon and assault resulting in great bodily injury for the May 16 stabbing of 21-year-old Loren Jason Uriarte, also of Kelseyville.
Judge Richard Martin signed the warrant for Wood's arrest, said Bauman. Once the arrest warrant was secured, Wood agreed to voluntarily meet sheriff’s detectives at the Lake County Jail on Thursday morning, where he was arrested and booked. His booking sheet reports he is a store manager.
Bauman said Wood was released from jail later in the day after posting a $25,000 bond.
On the night of the stabbing Uriarte and friends Darrin Sullivan and Josh Ponce had reportedly gone to downtown Kelseyville to pick up Sullivan's father, Dave, according to Diener. When they arrived, they encountered a fight in the street, during which Uriarte was stabbed.
Bauman said the “alcohol-related brawl” took place in front of the Saw Shop Gallery Bistro and involved numerous people – both male and female – many of whom reportedly had dinner at the restaurant earlier in the evening.
Wood's arrest, Bauman said, followed “a lengthy and challenging investigation.”
As Lake County News reported late last month, as many as 11 people were named in the initial investigative report, with four potential victims among them. An argument between some of the parties had apparently led to the fray.
Amidst the complexities of trying to unravel all of the witness statements, Bauman said investigators' primary focus was who stabbed Uriarte.
The young man and his friends went to his grandmother's home following the stabbing, and from there he was transported to Sutter Lakeside Hospital, as Diener told Lake County News last month.
He underwent a four-hour surgery on the morning of May 16 so that doctors could repair the internal damage from the knife wound, which was located on the left side of his abdomen, a few inches from his belly button. During surgery doctors removed 6 inches from his small intestine, said Diener.
Uriarte, who was hospitalized for five days afterward, is on the mend, according to his mother. “He's recovering well.”
With the relief of an arrest also comes home of moving on, said Diener. “We're just trying to put this behind us now, really.”
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A small residential unit caught fire at Hilltop Recovery, located in the hills above Middletown in the former McKinley Camp, according to South Lake County Fire Protection District Fire Marshal Dave Miinch.
Lori Carter-Runyon, the center's executive director, did not return a call seeking comment.
The fire broke out about 2:19 a.m. in the guest residence, which was vacant and being remodeled, said Miinch.
“It was fully involved by the time the fire department got there,” he said.
The 45 residents of the center were evacuated to a safe zone, and so no one was in danger or injured, said Miinch.
Fifteen fire personnel from South Lake County Fire Protection District and Cal Fire responded, said Miinch, bringing with them a total of three engines, one water tender, a fire prevention officer and a battalion chief.
“The fire was essentially contained to the structure with a small amount of vegetation that had burned,” he said.
Miinch credited Hilltop Recovery with putting a “tremendous amount” of work into clearing defensible space around its buildings, cutting and raking back vegetation by at least 100 feet, which helped prevent the fire from spreading.
The building was a complete loss, said Miinch, with damage estimated at $20,000.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, said Miinch.
He said the compound was built in the 1940s and used until the 1960s, when it was closed for a long period of time before coming back into use.
It's been a particularly busy fire season for the fire district, said Miinch.
“There has been more fire activity this year, in 2008, than there has ever been in previous years,” he said.
The areas seeing most activity are Cobb and Loch Lomond, he said.
There are many contributing factors, but Miinch said dry conditions don't help.
“We've probably been getting a structure fire every other week in the Cobb area the last month and a half,” he said.
Fires in other parts of the county also have kept firefighters on the run, including a fire along Soda Bay Road Thursday evening and a small fire near Lakeport earlier that afternoon.
Cal Fire also was still on scene at the location of a fire on Highway 20 at Highway 16, where a fire broke out at around 1 p.m. Wednesday, according to Battalion Chief Redhawk Palleson.
That fire – the cause of which also is still under investigation – burned 50 acres along the north side of Highway 20, said Palleson.
He said two engines and a couple of hand crews were still mopping up on Thursday afternoon.
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LAKE COUNTY – No one was seriously injured in two auto collisions that occurred Thursday afternoon.
The first of the two collisions occurred at about 2:15 p.m. It involved two vehicles on the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff about 800 feet south of the Rodman Slough bridge.
A Black 1994 Ford Mustang GT Driven by Dewey Lucas of Laytonville was traveling northbound just five minutes from his destination when he was hit by a white, two-door Chevy Cavalier driven by Teresa Mae Figueras of Nice.
Lucas suffered minor head injuries, complaining only of a headache just minutes after the collision. No one was transported to area hospitals.
According to eyewitness accounts, Figueras came off the bridge at a high rate of speed and was having a difficult time controlling the vehicle, passing into the other lane.
“I could see her expression as she tried to get control but she just kept crossing from one side to the other, 'til she completely lost it around the turn and into the short straightaway,” said Lucas. “For just a flash of a second I thought I just might get past her but at the last possible moment her car turn sharply to the left and slammed in to the left side of my car.”
Lucas' vehicle spun around at least once and traveled approximately 200 feet backwards before slamming into a large tree stump on the side of the road.
Figueras, 51, was given a field sobriety test at the scene. A California Highway Patrol officer arrested her on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. She was booked into the Lake County Jail on $5,000 bond.
A second crash occurred in the 2000 block of S. Main Street in Lakeport after 4 p.m.
Lakeport Police Officer Jarvis Leishman reported that a 19-year-old female from Finley was driving a white 2003 Ford Focus that collided with a Ford Ranger pickup driven by a 30-year-old male Kelseyville resident.
Leishman said there were no injuries, just complaints of pain.
No arrests were made and the investigation is still under way to determine fault, he added.
Elizabeth Larson contributed to this report.
E-mail Harold LaBonte at
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THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED.
KELSEYVILLE – Firefighters were able to quickly contain a fire that broke out along Soda Bay Road near Clear Lake State Park Thursday evening.
The wildland fire, about five acres in size, was dispatched at 5:21 p.m., said Cal Fire Battalion Chief Redhawk Palleson.
Several large columns of smoke in the area could be seen from Lakeport and across the lake on the Northshore.
At the height of the incident, Cal Fire – the lead agency on the incident – had one air attack, four air tankers, one helicopter, five engines, two bulldozers and four hand crews of 17 personnel each, Palleson said.
Fire protection districts from around the lake – among them nearby Kelseyville – were reported to be on scene, as was the Lake County Road Department.
California Highway Patrol closed the road from the west end of Clear Lake State Park to just east of Clark Drive near the Ferndale Resort while the firefighting effort continued. Power lines also were down in the area.
Windy conditions appeared to be pushing the fire up a hill, through timber and brush, on the west side of Soda Bay Road, in an area where homes are located. The fire made its way to the edge of a vineyard, which acted as a fire break.
Air tankers carried out about one dozen water drops on the fire, although they did not drop retardant on the vineyard.
“It's contained,” Palleson said told Lake County News at around 7 p.m. “Things are looking real good.”
At that point, all aircraft had been released, but hand crews and engines were still on scene, he said.
Palleson said the cause of the fire was under investigation.
The cause of the blaze could have been a nearby vehicle fire reported at 5:30 p.m. by the California Highway Patrol.
A gold-colored Cadillac El Dorado was reported on fire in the 6400 block of Soda Bay Road. Officials also had asked Cal Fire's air units to be on the watch for possible suspects in the fire's cause.
CHP reported at 10 p.m. that Soda Bay Road had reopened.
Harold LaBonte contributed to this report.
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