LAKEPORT – The October 2002 murder of Barbara LaForge remains unsolved, but Lakeport Police reports that the agency continues to work on the case.

“We're still aggressively investigating the case,” said Lt. Brad Rasmussen.

LaForge, 43, was gunned down in her downtown frame shop in October of 2002.

Her friend and fellow artist, Gail Salituri, is launching the new LaForge Memorial Fund, which will raise funds for the Lake Family Resource Center's domestic violence shelter fundraising campaign, as Lake County News reported Friday.

Last October, at the time of the murder's fifth anniversary, Lakeport Police Department and the Lake County District Attorney’s Office Criminal Investigation Division created a multi-agency task force, the purpose of which was to aggressively investigate the LaForge murder, as Lake County News has reported. The task force included nine investigators and a secretary.

Within a month of the group's formation, Lakeport Police reported receiving a series of new leads that had resulted in forensic examinations of additional evidence. Rasmussen said at the time that new forensic technology was expected to have an important role to play in the investigation.

Now, nearly six months later, Rasmussen said the task force's investigators – which continue to meet a monthly basis, and sometimes as often as every two weeks – are still following up on those new leads from November 2007.

Last fall Lakeport Police created a new page on its Web site dedicated to the LaForge murder, www.cityoflakeport.com/departments/page.aspx?deptID=76&id=110, and set up a new e-mail just to take information and leads on the case, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Anyone with information can also call Lakeport Police at 263-5491.

The case is Lakeport's only outstanding, unsolved murder.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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