happy birthday
Victim's mother urges 'life, then some'
BULLWINKLE SLAYING: The defendant learns her fate after the slain woman's family tells of its pain.
01:36 AM PDT on Saturday, May 14, 2005
By JOHN F. BERRY / The Press-Enterprise
Kinzie Noordman
Sentenced to 45 years to life in prison
Victim's family asks for maximum possible sentence
Co-defendant Damien Guerrero next appears in court on June 24
A photograph of a smiling Kelly Bullwinkle faced her killer Friday, when Kinzie Gene Noordman was sentenced to 45 years to life in prison.
Bullwinkle's high school graduation picture was positioned across a wooden courtroom table from Noordman, who was sentenced Friday, 20 months to the day after the 18-year-old Bullwinkle was shot twice in the back of the skull and buried in a shallow grave near Redlands. Her decomposing body was found three weeks later.
"I wanted Kinzie to see her," Diana Bullwinkle, Kelly's mother, said after the sentencing. "Kelly is present and speaking to us. She's not a victim. She's not a Jane Doe. She's Kelly with a face."
Noordman, 21, was found guilty March 9 of first-degree murder and using a gun in the slaying. The trial of co-defendant Damien Matthew Guerrero, 20, had ended in a mistrial one day earlier. He faces a retrial.
Both Noordman and Guerrero had pleaded not guilty to murder charges, claiming that the shooting was an accident and part of a practical joke gone wrong.
About 80 people packed the courtroom Friday, when, for the first time, Diana Bullwinkle did not restrain her feelings about her daughter's killer.
"I ask the court to put Kinzie Noordman far away from society for the rest of her life and then some," Bullwinkle read from a prepared victim-impact statement. "She should not be able to destroy another innocent victim and their family like she destroyed ours."
Bullwinkle described how train whistles and coyote howls woke her up in the nights before her daughter's body was found in San Timoteo Canyon, a few miles from her south Redlands home.
"I cannot escape the images of Kelly as she lay there in the cold earth," Diana Bullwinkle said. "There are constant reminders ... of how close she was to her home -- and how I couldn't find her because you, Kinzie, kept that secret."
The puffy-eyed and nervous Noordman, in her first public statement since her arrest on Nov. 5, 2003, apologized to the Bullwinkle family.
"My first months in jail were spent in a self-hating misery," she said. "I know in my heart there is no excuse for what I did. I made a bad decision that took my best friend's life."
Noordman said she became a different and better person after discovering God.
"I hated myself for what I did, and I thought no one would ever forgive me," she said. "It wasn't until I read the Bible that I found someone who would, and that person is Jesus Christ."
Bruce Noordman told the judge that his daughter is not a monster, as he said the prosecution and media have depicted her. He outlined her accomplishments, including volunteering to help abandoned animals and encouraging organ donation.
"Unlike the jurors, we feel this whole ugly mess was an accident," he said. "We know our daughter is not a cold-blooded killer."
A San Bernardino County Probation Department sentencing report said Noordman, interviewed by probation officials on May 2, admitted to having been on drugs during the killing. It said she has taken medications for depression and hallucination. It also said she previously had used methamphetamine, ecstasy and cocaine.
Deputy District Attorney Lewis Cope said the sentence was appropriate. He said Noordman would likely serve all 45 years before being considered for parole.
Cope said a trial date for Guerrero could be set when he appears in court on June 24.
-----------------------------------------------
over the past week, i've been waiting for today to come with dread and fear, knowing that i would be forced to remember a lot of things i've been trying really hard for almost two years to forget. it's really easy to escape newspapers and hometown gossip from a hundred miles away when you do your best to dissect yourself from that setting and the people you used to call friends. it's not as easy to escape memories, or even just memory. i'm really good at remembering birthdays. on june 1, i realized it was one week until kelly's birthday and since that realization, i've had a shitty feeling in my stomach. i've been out of it. i've been withdrawn and unhappy and apathetic about things that i should be more responsible and concerned for. i think a lot of it is guilt. i've been feeling guilty for twenty months now. the rest of it is uncertainty, which is a feeling i've grown rather accustomed to as the story has unfolded.
i feel guilty for not being a better friend. she would come to me for advice a lot in high school. i would try and give it as best i could, but i didn't always know what to tell her. at the end of our senior year of high school, she would ask me for advice on specific situations that i feel now, had i known better, could have changed the course of events that happened later that summer if i had said the right things and told her what i really thought rather than try and tell her what she wanted to hear.
i feel guilty that after graduation, i didn't ever see her again. she would call me and i would make up an excuse not to hang out with her. why? because i had lost a cd she let me borrow and i was stalling for time to find it or buy a new one. i didn't find the cd until the night i found out she was dead. the cd was by the band Dead Can Dance. irony blows. i'll never get to hang out with my friend ever again and i missed the last few opportunities i was presented with because of a cd.
i feel guilty because maybe if i had hung out with her more that summer, she wouldn't have hung out with them as much. or not at all. and maybe that would have been enough to keep diana bullwinkle from ever having to worry about escaping the images of her daughter laying there in the cold earth.
i feel guilty because i abandoned a lot of my old friends. i didn't have to confront the situation that way. it was easier.
i remember when i met kelly in 8th grade. we were in a PE assembly and she commented on mr. boyd's huge package. i thought she was weird. but i liked her because i was weird too. i started calling her kelly colors because i thought the last name bullwinkle sounded stupid and she was always bright, cheery, and colorful. i remember teasing her a lot freshman year of high school for having crushes on really gross dudes. i remember going to market night with her and making fun of street-corner evangelists and smoking cloves in alleys. i remember job hunting with her. she got called back at every place she applied and i was unemployed that whole summer and the rest of my senior year, but i still visited her at baker's anyway. in one of my yearbooks, i remember her signing it with something about how she planned to live secretly underneath my bed and "scamper" out in the middle of the night to rub butter all over my floor. in another one, she was sure she was going to be moving that summer and she wrote about how she would always consider me a friend, no matter where she lived. she didn't move and i wish she had. she tried to talk me into smoking purple rain with her and kinzie once. that's the first time i was ever really concerned about her and her new friends. but i didn't do much other than tell her it didn't sound like a good idea. i remember homecoming when she wore a blonde wig and would only respond to the name 'navy bean' and i remember her dancing like a lunatic while crowds formed and people stared, but she kept dancing. it's one of my favorite memories of kelly. it's tied with the time she, chris, sean, and i sat in my car across from a shop with newspapers covering the windows, where we could see silhouettes of the people inside, and we spent hours speculating on what they were doing in there. we imagined weird sex scenarios and illegal gambling rings and drug deals and mafia meetings. kelly was imaginitive. i miss that about her the most.
her phone number is permanently saved in my cell phone. i haven't been able to delete it. she's still on my AIM buddy list and my email address book too. i had a dream the other night that i was on my computer and sagepony signed on and i tried to IM her but there was no response. i kept typing "hello?" but nobody replied and then she signed off. i woke up crying.
kelly would be 20 today. on her last birthday, i bought her a used jane's addiction cd. the song 'jane says' reminds me of her and when it comes on the radio, i have to change the station. if i don't, i have to make a very strong effort not to start crying.
the last time i went home to visit my family, my mom tried to show me an article about kinzie's trial. i immediately got defensive and was pissed at her for even bringing the ordeal up. she asked if i was happy that kinzie got 45 to life. i really don't know. it doesn't fix anything. my dad said, "well, i think they did it. it's a good thing she's going to jail for a long time. do you think there's any chance that their defense could be true?" and i couldn't answer that question. i could only cry. a year ago, when i was on shrooms having a terrible trip, looking at the rolling stone article, with an artist's rendition of kinzie and damien and kelly in the canyon, with the trees swaying in the breeze and kinzie breathing long, deep breaths, and damien's growing smile looming over a motionless (the only thing in that picture that wasn't moving) kelly, who i could see slowly bleeding, i was absolutely positive that they had planned to murder kelly. i hated them. i hated them so much, the sight of the picture and the thought of what they did made me vomit. damien and kinzie haunted my nightmares for months. the nightmares always consisted of me being somewhere and one of them showing up and trying to hang out like nothing had happened. and they were always so nice in the dreams. and i would feel sympathetic and decide not to hate them. and then i would remember kelly and feel guilty for being empathetic towards her murderers and the dream would end with me throwing up blood. and then i'd wake up crying or gagging. when these dreams still plagued me, i was sure they did it. now that more time has passed, i really have no idea if they murdered her intentionally or if it was a stupid, fucked up prank-gone-wrong. my former reasoning was that they were not stupid enough to make a mistake like that and then proceed to actively and continuously cover it up. it's hard to believe it was accidental. it's hard to believe they would be that stupid. but it's also hard to believe that they could be so cruel and evil and malicious. i always thought damien was a nice guy. i didn't know kinzie, but she was pretty well-liked. i don't know how they could kill someone. they did. but i don't know how. i really have no idea what the fuck happened anymore. the more time passes; the more facts i learn; the more confused i get.
i honestly just needed to get this out. i've been holding most of this back since 2003. i needed to publicly voice my guilt, good memories, and confusion so that i can feel a litle bit resolved on the issue. i have a final to study for and i couldn't do it with all this on my mind.
rachel posted this picture on her journal and i like it so i'm posting it on mine too.
in case i borrow any CDs from any of you and you don't see me for awhile, i love you and sorry i don't always show it.
happy birthday, kelly colors.
BULLWINKLE SLAYING: The defendant learns her fate after the slain woman's family tells of its pain.
01:36 AM PDT on Saturday, May 14, 2005
By JOHN F. BERRY / The Press-Enterprise
Kinzie Noordman
Sentenced to 45 years to life in prison
Victim's family asks for maximum possible sentence
Co-defendant Damien Guerrero next appears in court on June 24
A photograph of a smiling Kelly Bullwinkle faced her killer Friday, when Kinzie Gene Noordman was sentenced to 45 years to life in prison.
Bullwinkle's high school graduation picture was positioned across a wooden courtroom table from Noordman, who was sentenced Friday, 20 months to the day after the 18-year-old Bullwinkle was shot twice in the back of the skull and buried in a shallow grave near Redlands. Her decomposing body was found three weeks later.
"I wanted Kinzie to see her," Diana Bullwinkle, Kelly's mother, said after the sentencing. "Kelly is present and speaking to us. She's not a victim. She's not a Jane Doe. She's Kelly with a face."
Noordman, 21, was found guilty March 9 of first-degree murder and using a gun in the slaying. The trial of co-defendant Damien Matthew Guerrero, 20, had ended in a mistrial one day earlier. He faces a retrial.
Both Noordman and Guerrero had pleaded not guilty to murder charges, claiming that the shooting was an accident and part of a practical joke gone wrong.
About 80 people packed the courtroom Friday, when, for the first time, Diana Bullwinkle did not restrain her feelings about her daughter's killer.
"I ask the court to put Kinzie Noordman far away from society for the rest of her life and then some," Bullwinkle read from a prepared victim-impact statement. "She should not be able to destroy another innocent victim and their family like she destroyed ours."
Bullwinkle described how train whistles and coyote howls woke her up in the nights before her daughter's body was found in San Timoteo Canyon, a few miles from her south Redlands home.
"I cannot escape the images of Kelly as she lay there in the cold earth," Diana Bullwinkle said. "There are constant reminders ... of how close she was to her home -- and how I couldn't find her because you, Kinzie, kept that secret."
The puffy-eyed and nervous Noordman, in her first public statement since her arrest on Nov. 5, 2003, apologized to the Bullwinkle family.
"My first months in jail were spent in a self-hating misery," she said. "I know in my heart there is no excuse for what I did. I made a bad decision that took my best friend's life."
Noordman said she became a different and better person after discovering God.
"I hated myself for what I did, and I thought no one would ever forgive me," she said. "It wasn't until I read the Bible that I found someone who would, and that person is Jesus Christ."
Bruce Noordman told the judge that his daughter is not a monster, as he said the prosecution and media have depicted her. He outlined her accomplishments, including volunteering to help abandoned animals and encouraging organ donation.
"Unlike the jurors, we feel this whole ugly mess was an accident," he said. "We know our daughter is not a cold-blooded killer."
A San Bernardino County Probation Department sentencing report said Noordman, interviewed by probation officials on May 2, admitted to having been on drugs during the killing. It said she has taken medications for depression and hallucination. It also said she previously had used methamphetamine, ecstasy and cocaine.
Deputy District Attorney Lewis Cope said the sentence was appropriate. He said Noordman would likely serve all 45 years before being considered for parole.
Cope said a trial date for Guerrero could be set when he appears in court on June 24.
-----------------------------------------------
over the past week, i've been waiting for today to come with dread and fear, knowing that i would be forced to remember a lot of things i've been trying really hard for almost two years to forget. it's really easy to escape newspapers and hometown gossip from a hundred miles away when you do your best to dissect yourself from that setting and the people you used to call friends. it's not as easy to escape memories, or even just memory. i'm really good at remembering birthdays. on june 1, i realized it was one week until kelly's birthday and since that realization, i've had a shitty feeling in my stomach. i've been out of it. i've been withdrawn and unhappy and apathetic about things that i should be more responsible and concerned for. i think a lot of it is guilt. i've been feeling guilty for twenty months now. the rest of it is uncertainty, which is a feeling i've grown rather accustomed to as the story has unfolded.
i feel guilty for not being a better friend. she would come to me for advice a lot in high school. i would try and give it as best i could, but i didn't always know what to tell her. at the end of our senior year of high school, she would ask me for advice on specific situations that i feel now, had i known better, could have changed the course of events that happened later that summer if i had said the right things and told her what i really thought rather than try and tell her what she wanted to hear.
i feel guilty that after graduation, i didn't ever see her again. she would call me and i would make up an excuse not to hang out with her. why? because i had lost a cd she let me borrow and i was stalling for time to find it or buy a new one. i didn't find the cd until the night i found out she was dead. the cd was by the band Dead Can Dance. irony blows. i'll never get to hang out with my friend ever again and i missed the last few opportunities i was presented with because of a cd.
i feel guilty because maybe if i had hung out with her more that summer, she wouldn't have hung out with them as much. or not at all. and maybe that would have been enough to keep diana bullwinkle from ever having to worry about escaping the images of her daughter laying there in the cold earth.
i feel guilty because i abandoned a lot of my old friends. i didn't have to confront the situation that way. it was easier.
i remember when i met kelly in 8th grade. we were in a PE assembly and she commented on mr. boyd's huge package. i thought she was weird. but i liked her because i was weird too. i started calling her kelly colors because i thought the last name bullwinkle sounded stupid and she was always bright, cheery, and colorful. i remember teasing her a lot freshman year of high school for having crushes on really gross dudes. i remember going to market night with her and making fun of street-corner evangelists and smoking cloves in alleys. i remember job hunting with her. she got called back at every place she applied and i was unemployed that whole summer and the rest of my senior year, but i still visited her at baker's anyway. in one of my yearbooks, i remember her signing it with something about how she planned to live secretly underneath my bed and "scamper" out in the middle of the night to rub butter all over my floor. in another one, she was sure she was going to be moving that summer and she wrote about how she would always consider me a friend, no matter where she lived. she didn't move and i wish she had. she tried to talk me into smoking purple rain with her and kinzie once. that's the first time i was ever really concerned about her and her new friends. but i didn't do much other than tell her it didn't sound like a good idea. i remember homecoming when she wore a blonde wig and would only respond to the name 'navy bean' and i remember her dancing like a lunatic while crowds formed and people stared, but she kept dancing. it's one of my favorite memories of kelly. it's tied with the time she, chris, sean, and i sat in my car across from a shop with newspapers covering the windows, where we could see silhouettes of the people inside, and we spent hours speculating on what they were doing in there. we imagined weird sex scenarios and illegal gambling rings and drug deals and mafia meetings. kelly was imaginitive. i miss that about her the most.
her phone number is permanently saved in my cell phone. i haven't been able to delete it. she's still on my AIM buddy list and my email address book too. i had a dream the other night that i was on my computer and sagepony signed on and i tried to IM her but there was no response. i kept typing "hello?" but nobody replied and then she signed off. i woke up crying.
kelly would be 20 today. on her last birthday, i bought her a used jane's addiction cd. the song 'jane says' reminds me of her and when it comes on the radio, i have to change the station. if i don't, i have to make a very strong effort not to start crying.
the last time i went home to visit my family, my mom tried to show me an article about kinzie's trial. i immediately got defensive and was pissed at her for even bringing the ordeal up. she asked if i was happy that kinzie got 45 to life. i really don't know. it doesn't fix anything. my dad said, "well, i think they did it. it's a good thing she's going to jail for a long time. do you think there's any chance that their defense could be true?" and i couldn't answer that question. i could only cry. a year ago, when i was on shrooms having a terrible trip, looking at the rolling stone article, with an artist's rendition of kinzie and damien and kelly in the canyon, with the trees swaying in the breeze and kinzie breathing long, deep breaths, and damien's growing smile looming over a motionless (the only thing in that picture that wasn't moving) kelly, who i could see slowly bleeding, i was absolutely positive that they had planned to murder kelly. i hated them. i hated them so much, the sight of the picture and the thought of what they did made me vomit. damien and kinzie haunted my nightmares for months. the nightmares always consisted of me being somewhere and one of them showing up and trying to hang out like nothing had happened. and they were always so nice in the dreams. and i would feel sympathetic and decide not to hate them. and then i would remember kelly and feel guilty for being empathetic towards her murderers and the dream would end with me throwing up blood. and then i'd wake up crying or gagging. when these dreams still plagued me, i was sure they did it. now that more time has passed, i really have no idea if they murdered her intentionally or if it was a stupid, fucked up prank-gone-wrong. my former reasoning was that they were not stupid enough to make a mistake like that and then proceed to actively and continuously cover it up. it's hard to believe it was accidental. it's hard to believe they would be that stupid. but it's also hard to believe that they could be so cruel and evil and malicious. i always thought damien was a nice guy. i didn't know kinzie, but she was pretty well-liked. i don't know how they could kill someone. they did. but i don't know how. i really have no idea what the fuck happened anymore. the more time passes; the more facts i learn; the more confused i get.
i honestly just needed to get this out. i've been holding most of this back since 2003. i needed to publicly voice my guilt, good memories, and confusion so that i can feel a litle bit resolved on the issue. i have a final to study for and i couldn't do it with all this on my mind.
rachel posted this picture on her journal and i like it so i'm posting it on mine too.
in case i borrow any CDs from any of you and you don't see me for awhile, i love you and sorry i don't always show it.
happy birthday, kelly colors.