Your Tuesday Paper: Little League Cheers, Horse Story Shifts, Ed Walker Remembered — Mother Seeks Justice After 5‑Year‑Old’s Holiday Drowning; Stay Safe This Year
We received a report Tuesday of a woman struck by a car in front of Rite Aid. It turned out to be a medical call, not a traffic incident. We also heard about power outages in the Albion area. PG&E says there was a planned outage near Heritage House to repair lines, but they had no information on the additional outages we were told about. If you have details, please contact us.
We continue to look into the horse shooting story at a ranch along Highway 20. Our Monday news story is below.
Update on Tuesday: We spoke with the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, and the facts differ from what’s circulating online. Yes, one horse was shot and killed. And yes, other horses were shot — but with a pellet gun, and likely not by the same party involved in the killing of the championship rodeo horse below. We need to get this story straight before reporting it fully, but we can say there is a lot of false information out there. As we noted earlier, it’s a terribly unfortunate situation, but again, let’s not jump to conclusions before we have verified facts.
To change gears to something GOOD about kids…
Fort Bragg Little League is growing. Come out with your red, white and blue and enjoy baseball and hot dogs!
There’s plenty of fun on the calendar this weekend, but nothing delivers bigger smiles or a better place to hang out with friends than Little League baseball.
Fort Bragg Little League had 204 players this year and launched a brand‑new 50/70 division — something usually seen only in larger programs. The “50/70” refers to the pitching mound being 50 feet from home plate and the bases 70 feet apart. It’s a step up from the traditional Little League diamond (46‑foot mound, 60‑foot bases) for players who aren’t quite ready for the full‑sized high‑school field, which uses the same dimensions as college and the Major Leagues.
Preliminary games are underway around the region. Fort Bragg’s top teams take the field this weekend, with visitors like Cloverdale coming up to enjoy the cool weather, parades, salmon, and fireworks. The Fort Bragg All‑Star Minors face Cloverdale on Thursday, and the big game — Majors, Fort Bragg versus Ukiah — follows on Friday.
Fort Bragg’s new 50/70 division team lost both their games and are out of the All-Star tournament.
“Our Junior All-Stars won two in the All-Star tournament and placed third. That was a great accomplishement, ” Jana Luzzi said.
Here is the picture of Fort Bragg Little League
5 Tball division teams- not in all stars
5 Farm division teams- not in all stars
4 Minors division teams- make one all star team
2 Majors division teams- make one all star team
1 50/70 division team- eliminated
2 Juniors division teams- placed third in the division
Fort Bragg’s teams play each other and schools in neighboring areas. Little League Baseball was founded in 1939 by Carl Stotz in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and is now played around the world. While baseball began in the United States, countries where the sport is even bigger — Japan, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic — often beat the U.S. in the Little League World Series, which is still held in the town where the game’s youth program started.
The 79th Little League Baseball World Series runs from August 19 to August 30, 2026, at the Little League International Complex in South Williamsport. Last year, Taiwan defeated a U.S. team from Las Vegas to win the title. While 31 countries have competed in the Little League World Series, Major League Baseball’s “World Series” includes teams from only two countries. Last year’s MLB championship was more global than most, with the Los Angeles Dodgers beating the Toronto Blue Jays.
Here is another fun youth event for after the Mendocino 4th of July Parade we got from friend Savannah Gilchrist.
“It has been a true blessing to volunteer with this organization to put on the inaugural Red, White and Blue race. Come volunteer, come run, come walk, come hangout and cheer on the participants! Our first responders, veterans, and military personnel have stepped up for our community. Help support Code 3 Mind Health, Inc. to provide mental health services for these people.
Ed Walker remembered by generous community—
The community has not forgotten Ed Walker, who died less than a week ago doing a dangerous job that matters deeply here. His death has left a real gap in Fort Bragg.
The community has stepped up, giving $15,200 in small gifts — many, many of them. The largest was a $1,000 donation made anonymously. It’s a strong show of support at a difficult moment.
Walker, 68, a logging truck driver, was declared dead at the scene Wednesday after his Frank’s Firewood rig went off Highway 128 near the Navarro Store and struck a tree. He’s remembered as a nice guy whom many people waved to as he made his regular trips through Anderson Valley. His dog, Danny, survived. Walker was the only logging truck driver for Frank’s Firewood in Boonville, and we’ve contacted the company for remembrances. The cause of the crash is under investigation. Walker was a lifelong Californian who also lived in Napa, Ukiah, Calpella, and Laytonville.
Ed had delivered a load of logs to Cloverdale and was on his way back to the Fort Bragg yard, where the truck would have been loaded for another trip the next day. The trailer was stacked on top of the cab he and Danny were in when the crash happened.
The following remembrance from his granddaughter is found on the GoFundMe page.
“Hi, I am Elena, Ed Walker’s granddaughter. As most of the valley has heard, my Papa unexpectedly passed away in a tragic logging truck accident this past Wednesday. Our family is at a loss for words. We are extremely heartbroken, and for those of you who knew my grandpa Ed, you knew he had a heart of gold and would give you the shirt off his back or the last dime in his pocket.
There is still time to contribute to the Go Fund Me campaign, which has a goal of $16,000..
It came with this message
“We are struggling to grieve and handle the expenses to put him to rest. If anyone would like to contribute, our family is very grateful.
If anyone would like to reach out personally please contact his daughters Sheena & Jenna Walker.”
We are also looking into a story from Jenna Sebastian, who has recently been posting widely online and contacting news outlets — from Dateline on down — about the drowning death of her 5‑year‑old daughter, Quinn, over the Fourth of July weekend in 2023. This is not a new case, but it’s getting a fresh wave of attention and reaction. We’re reviewing the renewed claims and will report once we have verified information.
She feels entirely ignored by the media. I told her that most outlets no longer investigate; they rely on press releases, meetings, and official statements. I had two pieces on Dateline and one on 20/20 myself, and those programs no longer take on complex investigative stories — that much I can say for sure. Audiences now get an endless stream of husband‑wife murder cases, stretched into full episodes as if they just happened, while harder stories fall away.
Here is what Sebastian has to say:
“Some of you may forget, but I will speak on this until my lips turn blue…Just like my daughter’s were when I found her unresponsive and ALONE and had to give her CPR,” Sebastian wrote on the Internet. We then talked to her a bit and determined her case is quite real, despite bizarre posts to the contrary.
Authorities, including the California Attorney General, have reviewed this case and found no reason to file charges. That conclusion has held through multiple reviews, even as the story draws renewed attention online.
“In their own words, they acknowledged that the evidence could suggest negligence. Quinn was allowed to drift out of sight down a river toward rapids while under the care of an adult. There was also evidence that he had been drinking, yet no blood alcohol testing was conducted. Still, they determined they could not prove criminal negligence beyond a reasonable doubt. …
Quinn deserved better.
If you have pertinent information about this case, send it to me at frankhartzell@gmail and I’ll forward it. Even with a cursory review, it’s clear there is more to this story and multiple perspectives on what happened. That’s why she should hire an attorney who can sort through the facts and represent her interests. There is effectively no investigative news media anymore, and posting on Facebook accomplishes little beyond generating reaction.
The Coastal Trail is a DANGEROUS walk with dogs on leashes. The one‑wheelers, electric skateboards, electric cars, and all kinds of high‑speed gizmos come up REALLY fast, and it’s hard for the three of us to avoid them. We HAVE now learned to all go the same direction, but they still give us close calls. I try to go in the bushes instead of on the trail, but there are squirrels and rabbits in the bushes.
By Tuesday evening, it felt like Mendocino County in full motion — logging crews grieving one of their own, a mother pushing her story back into the national light, trail‑walkers dodging high‑speed gizmos while German Shepherds invent their own solutions, and a jackrabbit reminding everyone that the brush has its own rules. Even the alumni events are circling back, pulling people toward the places that shaped them. It’s the county as it really is: loud, tender, stubborn, and always moving, even when the stories come at us faster than we can step aside.
