LAKEPORT – As Lakeport Police undertake an aggressive reassessment of a nearly seven-year-old murder, they're reaching out to the community and also getting some help from the national media.
On Wednesday, Lakeport Police Det. Lou Riccardi and Det. Destry Henderson began making the rounds of downtown Lakeport with a new set of flyers seeking information on the 2002 murder of Barbara LaForge.
On the morning of Oct. 8, 2002, the 43-year-old LaForge was shot four times at close range with a .22-caliber weapon at Wildwood Frame Shop and Inspirations Gallery on Main St. in downtown Lakeport.
The city's only unsolved murder, the LaForge case has an active $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction from the Governor's Office which will remain in effect until the case is solved.
Last October, at the time of the sixth anniversary of LaForge's murder, the case came to the attention of Vince Sturla, a Burbank-based producer for the news program “Dateline NBC.”
Sturla – who has worked on numerous stories of national interest, including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to Hurricane Katrina – said one of NBC's New York staff forwarded the story to him.
Since then, he has visited Lakeport about half a dozen times to work on a story about the reopening of the LaForge investigation.
In April, when the Lakeport City Council voted to use $35,000 in city reserves to hire the part-time position that Riccardi – a retired San Mateo County investigator – was hired to fill, Sturla was there to film the action.
As Riccardi and Henderson spent about three hours pounding the pavement in downtown on Wednesday, Sturla and his camera went with them, which generated some buzz of its own around town.
Riccardi said local merchants were very receptive to the flyers and are agreeing to post them in their businesses.
“I was a little surprised that people were not aware that there was a $50,000 reward,” Riccardi said.
He said some community members also weren't aware that the case had been reopened.
“Given all of that, everyone was very supportive of this being done and supportive of the police department and thanked us many times over for doing it,” said Riccardi.
Lakeport Police is in the process of conducting new interviews in the case, Riccardi said.
They've also sent off evidence for examination under new forensic techniques, along with new evidence that's not been tested previously, as Lake County News has reported.
Riccardi said he'll be at the Lakeport Police Department's command post at the Lake County Fair next Friday, Sept. 4, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 5, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
In addition to being able to pick up LaForge case flyers, the community is invited to come and meet Riccardi, speak to him about the case and ask questions.
Sturla said a Dateline feature on the case will probably air at some point in the future.
“We'd wait until after there was an arrest and a prosecution of somebody,” he said.
He added that it's nice to be able to shoot such cases “in real time when possible.”
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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