Family and Friends Mourn Young Man Slain in Baja

Under a bright, blustery sky, the family and friends of Mitchell James Kessler bade farewell Saturday to a young man who, by all accounts, had shown nothing but promise.

Kessler, a 1981 graduate of Laguna Beach High School, had played tackle on the school’s football team during one of the team’s best years. He was intelligent, athletic, and outgoing, and “loved the water more than anything,” said Steve Clark, a high school friend.

But tragedy struck last Sunday, when a long-planned vacation in Baja California went awry.

Kessler ,21, was stabbed to death in an altercation with two other tourists who intruded on a private party Mitchell’s family and friends were having in their rented bungalow in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, authorities said.

Mitchell, his sister Peri, 19, and their friends had driven to Cabo San Lucas early Christmas morning, planning to spend several weeks in the fishing and resort community.

“It was Mitchell’s first trip to Mexico. We had been talking about it since the summer,” Peri Kessler said.

“It was just a tragic, freak accident,” said Kathy Dammeyer, a relative. “He was out there protecting, like he always does.”

The men appeared drunk and spoiling for a fight when they burst in on the party, Peri Kessler said. One wore a mask and brandished a martial-arts weapon, she said. When Kessler asked the men to leave, he was stabbed once in the back and twice in the upper leg. He bled to death from a leg wound that had severed an artery, she said.

John Russell Word, 27, of Burlingame, has been charged with killing Kessler and is being held by Mexican authorities in San Jose del Cabo. A preliminary hearing was scheduled Saturday, but details were not available.

Tom Peter, described by authorities as a West German tourist and a friend of Word’s, was held for questioning and released.

After the killing, the young people found themselves with no one to turn to.

“We had run out of money by that time,” Peri said. Through the aid of Keith Ross, a British engineer who has lived in Cabo San Lucas for 26 years, Peri was able to cut through governmental red tape and leave Mexico with her brother’s body within 24 hours.

“(Ross) was a godsend, a miracle worker,” Peri said. “He paid for all our tickets home.”

Friends remembered Kessler for his kindness.

“He was a real caring person,” said his best friend, Richard Begley. “He had a real big heart. He’d do anything for you. He threw a birthday party for me at his family’s beach house and he paid the way for all of us to go down to Cabo San Lucas.

“He’s the last person I thought anything like this would happen to,” Begley said.

“He was a fine young man, full of life,” recalls Begley’s mother. “He was always very helpful. He’d come over and do things like put the rocks in our rock garden,” she said. “It’s been terrible for everybody.”

“He was really athletic and very outdoorsy, “ said his sister Peri.

Kessler had attended Orme, a boarding high school in Arizona, where he played lacrosse and football, and transferred to Laguna Beach High School for his senior year.

“He cared a lot about his friends,” Clark said. “He was very friendly and a great athlete. Our team wasn’t that good, but he was one of the top players and he kept everybody’s spirits up.”

After graduation Kessler attended Orange Coast Community College and then transferred to Fort Lewis College in Colorado.

He decided to take time off from college and had recently returned to live in Laguna Beach.

“He really wasn’t into school,” Peri Kessler said. “He was working in construction and for our uncle, who is in the newspaper business. He was just saving his money and trying to decide what to do with his life.”

“He had done so much,” said his aunt, Angelique Karr. “Every time he set a goal he’d achieve it. He was just an awfully bright kid,” she said.

In addition to Peri, Kessler is survived by another sister, Kelly, 24, brothers Matthew, 17, and Dean, 19, his mother, Diane Kessler, and grandmothers Sally Kessler and Violet Cox.

The family has requested that donations be made in Mitchell’s name to the athletic department of Laguna Beach High School.