Fierce Mudflow Kills Ventura Couple as They Sleep

Michele Bovee had been counting the days until March, when she was scheduled to give birth to her second child.

As the rain began Tuesday evening in Ventura County, the 27-year-old woman organized baby toys and clothes at the home she shared with her fiance, Glenn Queen, 30. When the storm became stronger during the night, the dirt on the hills behind the rented house started to swell and shift.

Shortly after 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, a wall of mud carrying large trees and rocks in its wake swept down the hillside with the force of a bulldozer and crashed into the bedroom where Bovee and Queen were sleeping.

The couple and their unborn child were buried under six feet of debris and died. Three other people who lived with the couple were uninjured.

Friends, who were planning a baby shower for Bovee on Feb. 22, say she and Queen were well liked. Both attractive and outgoing, they made friends everywhere they went, friends said.

For six years, Bovee--a 1983 graduate of Ventura High School--had worked in the office of the Ventura County tax collector, explaining procedures to residents at the service counter on the first floor of the county government center.

“She was a good example for the rest of us,” co-worker Moises Orozco said Wednesday. “She had the same good nature all the time. . . . She had a beautiful smile.”

Queen was also described as a hard worker who went out of his way to help neighbors. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley, but moved to Ventura County to work as a free-lance flooring contractor.

“He was the kind of person who made you happy you moved into the neighborhood,” said next-door neighbor Tamara Conlan. “He was always willing to offer a helping hand.”

Bovee and Queen met several years ago at a party given by a mutual friend. They had not set the date for their wedding. Friends and family said Bovee was thrilled to be pregnant.

“All she wanted in this world was to have a baby,” said her father, Steve Bovee of Oak View.

Michele Bovee’s first child had died after being born prematurely. Bovee had been preparing a special room for the new baby at the four-bedroom home north of Ventura that the couple shared with two of their best friends and Queen’s nephew, Jason.

Roommate Steve Rutledge said he was sleeping in an upstairs bedroom when the slide occurred. When he heard a loud crash and the sound of shattering glass, he rushed downstairs to find mud oozing from under the couple’s bedroom door, he said.

“I kicked in the door,” he said. “There was six to seven feet of mud and glass everywhere. I just started digging.”

Next-door neighbor Conlan said she first thought there had been an earthquake. She ran to the home and found Rutledge inside clawing at the mud.

“He kept digging at it,” she said. “It was horrible. We were all hoping they were still breathing.”

It took Ventura County Fire Department officials nearly two hours to free the bodies from the debris.

“It hit with tremendous force,” said Mike Lindbery, a spokesman for the county Fire Department. “Like a bulldozer.”

Visiting the scene several hours later, Ventura County Supervisor Susan K. Lacey said she will ask county planners to determine if the home had proper approval to be built at the base of the hillside.

“We’ll have to take a look at what happened,” Lacey said. “We will certainly ask . . . if this could have been avoided. This might just be a freak of nature. It’s a tragedy.”