Discovery of Slain Naturalist Another Blow for Yosemite

The tranquillity of Yosemite National Park was jarred by tragedy once again as the decapitated body of a young employee was discovered in a forested thicket, just months after three female tourists were murdered in a case that gripped the nation.

The slaying of the 26-year-old environmental educator came as another blow to a national park that has been reeling this year from a series of tragedies that have sapped spirits and in some cases turned back tourists.

Last month, a rockslide claimed the life of a 22-year-old climber in Yosemite Valley. Earlier this year, three sightseers mysteriously disappeared from a small town outside the park and turned up murdered a month later. Before that, the last murder inside Yosemite was in 1987, when a man pushed his wife off Glacier Point.

In the gateway communities leading into the park, hotel managers and chamber of commerce officials say the deaths, along with a misperception that entry to the park can only be accomplished by bus and requires a reservation, have made for a slow summer.

“Just as one bit of bad news is ebbing, another surfaces to bite us,” said Peggy Kukulus, executive director of the Yosemite Sierra Visitors Bureau. “At some point, with all the negative news, a family throws up their hands and says, ‘Maybe it’s better to go someplace else this summer.’ ”

The latest hit came Thursday, when rangers found the body of a young woman identified as a field instructor with the Yosemite National Institute, a nonprofit group that provides outdoor education for schoolchildren.

Authorities declined to identify the woman Friday because her mother had not been notified of her death.

FBI officials, who have jurisdiction over Thursday’s slaying because it occurred on federal property, emphasized that there appears to be no link to the slayings earlier this year of Carol Sund, her 15-year-old daughter, Juliana, and family friend Silvina Pelosso, 16.

“At this time we have absolutely no reason to believe there is any linkage at all,” said James Maddock, the supervising agent on both cases.

“In the past 12 years, we’ve had probably 35 million people visit here and only one murder,” said Scott Gediman, Yosemite’s spokesman. “That’s the context people need to understand.”

He said last year was the least violent at Yosemite--there were 15 violent crimes such as assault or robbery. That was a 35% drop from the previous year.

The slain woman was last seen about 5 p.m. Wednesday as she was leaving her office in Yosemite Valley. Maddock said a friend talked to her by phone in the early evening. She was supposed to drive to Sausalito, and when she didn’t show up, friends alerted police about 3 a.m.

The woman’s body was found about 1 p.m. Thursday. Rangers discovered her in a densely overgrown area a few hundred feet from the home in the park’s Foresta community that she shared with two other park employees, who were away on business.

Foresta is an enclave on the western edge of the park. The cluster of 30 or so homes, an area not frequented by tourists, is about three miles from El Portal, the small town where the Sunds and their friend were last seen.

Maddock would not discuss how the woman was killed, but one source said she had been decapitated.

Friends said the woman got her degree in recreational administration at Chico State University.

Her first formal job was with the National Audubon Society. She also spent a year in the Sierra foothills working for the Stanislaus County Office of Education’s Outdoor School.

She had been with the Yosemite National Institute for two years as a field instructor in the park and with its sister organization along the Marin County coast. The nonprofit group runs education programs through a partnership with the National Park Service.

“It’s just so unreal. We think of ourselves as being so safe in the national parks,” said Tanya Eckert, an institute spokeswoman. “To think of this happening is pretty unimaginable. It’s very devastating to us.”

Eckert and others described the instructor as a peaceful and giving person who was passionate about teaching schoolchildren about nature, focusing in particular on her love of birds.

“She was a terrific kid, one of those ones who stick out,” said David Simcox, a recreation and parks professor at Chico State. “She was always one of those bright personalities. She was funny, she laughed easily. To lose someone like her is a blow.”

On Friday, at the Tenaya Lodge off California 41 near the park’s southern entrance, two tourists said they wouldn’t be visiting because of this week’s slaying. There also was a spate of cancellations after the Sund slayings captured national headlines--including a women’s group that dropped plans to meet at a resort in nearby Bass Lake.

Jonathan Farrington, who heads marketing and sales for Tenaya Lodge, said the deaths have had less impact on bookings than the misconception that the park is a chore to enter because of highway construction, mandatory busing or day reservations.

“There’s a lot of confusion regarding Yosemite,” he said. “Actually, only one of the four entrances has construction and there’s no reservations needed to get into the park.”

This is hardly a typical summer for hotel operators in and around Yosemite, who are usually flooded with reservations months in advance. “In the old days, you could never get reservations in summer,” Kukulus said. “Now you call just a day or two before and find a room, an affordable room at that.”