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SONOMA COUNTY / Mother, daughter found dead in car / Pair were reported missing -- apparent murder-suicide
Peter Fimrite, Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writers
Published 4:00 am, Saturday, June 11, 2005
- Amber Alert � Missing At-Risk Mother and Daughter. The Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office has issued a regional Amber Alert in the case a missing Walnut Creek (unincorporated) mother and daughter. The Sheriff's Office believes that both are at risk. The two were reported missing to the Sheriff's Office on June 9, 2005 by family members. Investigators have discovered that the possibly suicidal mother left a note to the family indicating that their "bodies" would be found. Detectives have reason to believe that the two were heading to the Mendocino area. Authorities in Mendocino County have been notified and are assisting in the search for the two. The mother is 39-year-old Mary Alicia Driscoll, 5'6�, 150 pounds, brown colored hair, blue eyes. The daughter is 5-year-old Jineva Belle Driscoll. (There is no clothing description on either of the two). The vehicle involved is a white Dodge Durango 2000 with California license plate of 4PGH849. Anyone with any information on the whereabouts of the two should immediately call the Contra Costa Sheriff's Office at (925) 646-2441 or the Sheriff's Office tip line at 1-866-846-3592. Courtesy of Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office Photo: Courtesy Of Contra Costa County
A Walnut Creek woman and her 5-year-old daughter, missing for more than week, were found shot to death Friday afternoon in the back of their sport utility vehicle in rural Sonoma County.
The deaths of Mary Alicia Driscoll, 39, and Jineva Belle Driscoll, appeared to be a murder-suicide. Authorities had been looking for them since relatives received a letter from the single mother saying their bodies would be found.
Driscoll and her child were found lying down in a white Dodge Durango parked behind a wooden storage building at Ernie's Tin Bar, a country market on Lakeview Highway south of Petaluma. A gun was found near the bodies.
Relatives reported the mother and daughter missing on Thursday after receiving a letter mailed from the North Bay in which Mary Alicia Driscoll wrote about what was bothering her.
"What caused us concern," said Contra Costa Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee, "was that portion that said their bodies would be found." The letter said their bodies would be found in Navarro River Redwoods State Park in Mendocino County.
Sheriff's deputies said they do not believe anyone else was involved and are not seeking any suspect.
"We have no reason to believe anyone is outstanding," said Sonoma County Deputy Sheriff Roger Rude, "but we are not leaving any stones unturned."
After sheriff's officials read the mother's letter, Lee said, they asked the California Highway Patrol to issue a statewide Amber Alert but were told the case did not meet the agency's criteria. The CHP could not be reached for comment Friday evening.
Contra Costa Sheriff's Lt. Joe Gorton said there were two verified sightings of the pair in Fort Bragg on Wednesday and as late as 8 p.m. Thursday. The department sent a search team to Fort Bragg and to the state park but found nothing.
The bodies were found shortly after 2 p.m. Rude said nobody in the area of pastures and rolling green hills had reported hearing any gunshots.
In the semi-rural Walnut Creek neighborhood where the mother and daughter lived in a single-story yellow house on Norris Road, neighbors were stunned by the news. They described the mother, who went by her middle name of Alicia, as having been distraught and feeling overwhelmed lately.
Neighbors said she was a hardworking and helpful woman who owned her own sign company and doted over her daughter, building her a playhouse and filling the backyard with toys. She also worried about what her daughter watched on television -- limiting her to the Disney Channel -- and had enrolled her in Score!, a tutoring center, to help prepare her for kindergarten. They described Jineva as a spunky, outgoing little girl who ran freely about the neighborhood, bouncing from house to house, knocking on doors, playing with kids, greeting their pets, and popping in and out.
"She was just this happy little elf," said Don and Jeanne Elium, a couple who live down the street and write parenting books.
Paul Earl, 35, a next door neighbor, said Jineva often played with his daughters, who are 13, 7 and 5.
"The little girl knocked on my door morning, noon and night," he said. "I just had to tell my 7-year-old she not going to see her again. She was asking to play with Jineva today."
Earl's girlfriend, Jolie Ferguson, 34, said Mary Alicia Driscoll had seemed troubled in the past few weeks, sometimes driving fast and recklessly to and from her home. About two weeks ago, she said, the mother came over to talk to her, tears streaming down her face.
"She was saying she felt her family was taking her for granted and didn't make her feel like she was a good mother," Ferguson said.
Driscoll mentioned that she had recently bought a wooden play structure from Costco and couldn't get any of her family members to help her put it together. She eventually hired some day laborers to assist her.
"She said, 'I ask for one thing, and nobody would help me,' " Ferguson said. "She said she was going to divorce her family."
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