Thousands Say Tearful Goodby to Polly Klaas

In an extraordinary testament to a child most of them never knew, thousands of Northern Californians joined Thursday to say an anguished goodby to Polly Hannah Klaas, the murdered girl who symbolizes for many a world gone badly awry.

Braving rain and traffic-snarled freeways, 1,100 people filled a Petaluma church to honor Polly at an evening memorial service that included soulful performances by Joan Baez and Linda Ronstadt, speeches by the governor and a U.S. senator, and a message from President Clinton. Hundreds more were left outside or congregated in nearby churches.

Elsewhere in the region, others gathered in groups to watch live television broadcasts of the moving, hourlong ceremony, or tuned in by radio while commuting home from work. Most everyone, it seemed, wanted to connect with Polly one final time.

“It’s just incredible,” said Don Gossage, a barber and native of Petaluma who watched in awe as a line for the service stretched along three city blocks of this peaceful suburb of about 44,000. “Polly is in everyone’s hearts. And now everyone is coming here to let her go.”

Although solemn and marked by abundant tears, Thursday’s communal grieving was viewed by many as a catharsis that would help their hearts heal. Now that Polly is gone, they said, it is time to focus forward--for many, on tougher laws that might save other innocents from violent death.

Mark Anderson, an electrical engineer from San Jose, took the day off and drove 2 1/2 hours to attend the service.

“I was drawn here, and I can’t really say why,” Anderson said, a green slicker protecting him from the dripping sky. “This is a terrible tragedy. But I guess in some way I hope it will be a turning point too.”

Roz Morris, a homemaker from nearby Windsor who stood in line for four hours to get a seat in the church, shared much the same hope.

“Polly had 12 wonderful years on earth, and we need to honor that and then get on with our lives,” said Morris, who paused between words to control her rising emotion. “It may not be easy, but it’s what we have to do.”

Polly, a 12-year-old seventh-grader with a glowing smile, was abducted at knifepoint by a bearded stranger while playing a board game with two friends in her Petaluma home. The circumstances--a crime in the sanctuary of a child’s bedroom while her mother slept just down the hall--galvanized this small town, sparking a grass-roots search effort that may have forever altered the handling of missing children cases.

Last week, Richard Allen Davis--a twice-convicted kidnaper--was arrested as the prime suspect in the crime. Attorneys for Davis, 39, said he has confessed to abducting and strangling Polly. Last weekend, Davis told investigators where her body cou Ever since Saturday, when Polly’s remains were found at an abandoned sawmill near Cloverdale, the foundation formed to fund the search for the girl has been deluged with donations and sympathy calls from across the nation. Outside the foundation’s headquarters, an informal shrine to Polly continues to grow, its flowers, stuffed bears and burning candles covering a shopping center sidewalk.

Thursday marked the climax of this outpouring, and a remarkable climax it was. Throughout the day, residents here and around the Bay Area made plans to attend, some packing snacks or baking Christmas cookies that they passed among those waiting in line.

Inside St. Vincent de Paul’s Church, flowers sent by mourners from as far away as the East Coast piled up near the altar, while lighting and sound technicians--some of them taking time out from local movie shoots to help--prepared for the evening memorial.

Kate Nelson, a friend of Polly’s, was impressed by the scale of the memorial, but also a bit troubled by it.

“I knew Polly, and it’s kind of weird because all of these people who didn’t know her are going to fill up the church,” said Nelson, 14, who arrived from school too late to get a seat. “This whole thing brought Petaluma together, which is good. But it’s weird to see all these strangers here.”

George Hobbie was one of those strangers, but he felt he knew Polly nonetheless. Sipping a glass of eggnog as he watched the church from the porch of his home across the street, Hobbie’s eyes grew misty as he thought of what the girl had meant to him: “I feel, I don’t know, like she’s a part of me,” said Hobbie, a retired Naval commander born and raised in Petaluma. “Look at these people. They’re not standing in the rain to show off. They’re grieving. They want something done to prevent this from ever happening again.”

Two of the eight speakers at the memorial service--Gov. Pete Wilson and Sen. Dianne Feinstein--promised to do all they can toward that end, as did Clinton in a telephone call to Polly’s parents and a message read at her memorial.

Polly, Feinstein said as she pledged to tighten laws to keep violent offenders locked up longer, “will not die in vain.” Wilson, his voice breaking, called Polly’s murder the type of crime that is “so shocking and so unsettling that it makes the entire country tremble.”

“We cannot call ourselves a civilized society,” Wilson said, “if our children aren’t safe, even in their own bedrooms.”

A family friend read a message from Polly’s parents, who sat in the audience.

Although it seemed as though all of Petaluma was transfixed by the service, that was not the case. Some people spent the evening picking out Christmas trees. Some, like the clerk at Joe’s A-1 Bakery, were too upset to watch. And others, like Kevin Gilfether, had to work.

Gilfether spent Thursday night manning the late shift at the High Tide Surf Shop, which has no TV. Although upset and sad about Polly’s fate, Gilfether added a perspective rarely heard here during the weeks the girl’s whereabouts were unknown: Why, he wondered, did Polly’s case get so much “hype” when other children are abducted with little notice every day?

“Polly is a tragic thing,” he said. “But the real tragedy, if you ask me, is that America ignores all the rest of them.”