When I left the post office on South Salina Street where Miss Dee regularly helps me process the packages of stuff I sell on ebay, I encountered the immediate aftermath of some trouble one block to the north.  Seven Syracuse Police Department vehicles had pulled up to the tiny convenience store called Styles and officers were cordoning off the area with yellow police tape.

The police officer I questioned wasn’t authorized to speak to me and by the time Syracuse Police Sgt. and spokesman Tom Connellan arrived I was standing across the street with the other onlookers.  I was unable to reach him by phone, as I no longer represent the working media in this town, he was under no obligation to take my call and give me details of what happened.

I saw another familiar face in the crowd, Rich Puchulski of Syracuse United Neighbors, an advocacy organization for inner city neighbors and business owners. Rich heard the commotion from his office nearby.  He pretty much blocks out the sound of sirens that race up and down South Salina Street each day but when that sound turns constant he gets out to take a look.

We ran into Addie Hightower, another friendly and commanding presence in this neighborhood.  Standing a whisker under five feet, Addie stood tall in the sunlight and wondered like everyone else what had happened.   She appeared puzzled to hear witnesses say store owner Craig Davis clunked a customer on the head with a hammer, a customer who may have been involved with drugs.  She said Davis and his wife whose name Addie could not recall, host an annual barbecue for neighborhood children in Kirk Park each summer.

Some detectives stood watch outside the store  and others moved about inside before a man identified by onlookers as Davis was lead in handcuffs to a waiting police cruiser.   As it pulled away from the curb the cruiser nearly took a block of yellow police tape with it.  The side view mirror had been used as an anchor for the tape.  Oops.  That’s something I would have done had I been in uniform.

Addie told me she has lived on the South Side since 1962 so you could say it’s the understatement of the year to suggest she has seen changes through the decades.  She flirts with the idea of moving to the suburbs but then she says someone greets her with a friendly hello and she is reminded why she stays.

“These are my neighbors, and if I moved away, I might not find good neighbors somewhere else”.

Indeed, during our 20 minute chat just outside the police tape barrier several people of all description; young, old, male and female recognized Addie and gave her a warm hello.

See the tape tied to the mirror? Moments later the cruiser carrying the man identified as Davis pulled away

It was still an active investigation when I got into my car to drive home near Syracuse University and Manley Field House where pale legs exposed to the elements for the first time in months carried students in a game of Frisbee on the lawn.

Two very different ways spring fever took hold in Syracuse today, each just about two miles apart.

Post script: Sgt. Connellan spoke with the Syracuse Newspapers.  Click here for the story on syracuse.com.

Around ten o’clock tonight I set out for a walk around the neighborhood with Eika, my German shepherd.  Otto had to stay home this time; I learned the hard way early on that when its 15 degrees outside we don’t get very far before Otto needs to be picked up and carried under my arm like a football the rest of the way.

Intensely stubborn and determined to come too, he apparently cried and clawed at the kitchen door until Andreas, my Swiss Boarder, let him out.  Andreas thought Otto really needed to do some big business out there, and would return freezing in 30 seconds as he always does this time of year.  This time though, Otto bolted out of the yard at a hundred miles an hour until he disappeared into the night.  Andreas was frantic.

I knew none of this.  I was on a blissful walk with Eika, taking note of how the streetlights made the snow sparkle like old-fashioned Christmas cards.  I had my warm coat, she had hers, and she had a large fireplace log in her mouth which makes her appear ridiculous but she seems to think more highly of herself for walking a ten pound log in her jaws for a mile or two.

When we arrived home, Andreas met us at the door, asking if we knew where Otto was.  I told him he was probably in Christian’s room under a warm blanket but Andreas told me no, Otto took off 25 minutes ago and hadn’t been seen since.

Before the worry could build in me, I turned around to see Otto trotting back to the driveway from the street, with a Syracuse University Public Safety cruiser right behind him.  Oye.  What kind of trouble did Otto get into now?

Officer Ed Babcock was on routine patrol when he spotted Otto in the road, all alone, trying to hold his little feet off the snowy ground.  I knew then Otto had tried to catch up to Eika and me because that was the route we had taken.  Officer Babcock was afraid Otto would freeze to death out there and tried to grab him, but Otto was quick and stayed beyond the officer’s reach.  That’s when Babcock had an idea.

Familiar with dog behavior after 25 years with the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Department and 5 years at S.U., and the owner of two dachsunds himself, Babcock knew if he frightened Otto, Otto would probably run home, which he did, with police escort, lights flashing and all.   Otto was running all over the street so Babcock turned his lights on to clear a path for the freezing, stubborn, wayward dog.

I was heartened, relieved and slightly embarrassed by all the fuss caused by this five pound dog not much bigger than a squirrel.  Little dog.  Big trouble I always say.

Thank you, thank you Officer Ed Babcock of the Syracuse University Department of Public Safety.  You are one of the good guys and a great reflection on your force.  You had no idea how long your “wild” ride would last tonight, but you followed that little dog up the hill and through the little alley of this quirky old neighborhood to find my house and now the dog you saw freezing in the road is safe and warm and hogging Christian’s bed where he belongs.   Merry Christmas Officer Babcock!

Otto you little trouble maker !

On another topic, my friend M.C. Antil has a unique business, placing telephone calls as “Santa” to good little boys and girls.  M.C. grew up in Syracuse, worked in local theatre,  and now works as a freelance writer in Chicago.  He’s been making Santa calls for nearly two decades.  His ad is on my website if you’d like more information.

How do you go on when your mother tried to kill you?  The Stacey Castor story is so bizarre, so incredible, I don’t think Lifetime Television would consider it’s story line.  Surely there are no self-help books on this one.  How many people would need to buy it?

When David Castor of Syracuse died of suicide by antifreeze poisoning in 2005, authorities never stopped thinking about Castor’s wife.  The drinking glass on the night stand held the fingerprints of only one person; Stacey Castor.

For two years prosecutors worked to build a case of murder and in 2007 their efforts led them to another crime.  They exhumed the body of Stacey Castor’s first husband David Wallace who died of a suspected heart attack in 2000.  A subsequent autopsy revealed he died of antifreeze poisoning too.

With the truth bearing down on Stacey, the mother of two warned her daughters, 20-year old Ashley and 15- year old Bree, that the police were opening old wounds and causing trouble for all of them.  The girls believed their mother was a victim and did not deserve this stress after all the tragedy in her life.

On the eve of Ashley’s 21st birthday, Stacey offered to give her daughter a first celebratory cocktail.   She mixed two vodka drinks and the pair sat down to enjoy the evening.   Ashley recalls her mom encouraging her to finish every last drop of the drink.

That night, Bree inquired about her sister and her mom said Ashley was resting in her room and would sleep until morning.  Ashley’s boyfriend telephoned her, but Stacey said the girl was sleeping and should not be disturbed.  He asked Stacey to look for an item left behind in Ashley’s bedroom and Stacey returned to the phone to say she looked and couldn’t find it.  The boyfriend was calling from just outside the house and never saw the light go on in Ashley’s room.

The following morning, Bree entered her sister’s room and found Ashley dazed and incoherent at the foot of the bed.  Bree went to get her mother and when she returned a few minutes later, she saw a typewritten suicide note on the bed that was not there a moment earlier.  In it, Ashley confessed to killing both her father and her stepfather, however the note bore no fingerprint from Ashley.  Only Stacey and Bree, who had picked it up to read it left fingerprints on the paper.  Ashley was  rushed to the hospital and recovered from her poisonous cocktail of alcohol and prescription drugs and her mother was arrested.

Stacey Castor was convicted last week of murdering her second husband and attempting to murder her daughter.  Prosecutors in an adjacent county are now building a case of murder against Castor for her first husband’s death.  Castor is 4o and will likely never live outside prison again, and yet it is the life sentence of the daughter that I can’t shake.

What will it take for Ashley to repair her wounds?   She told prosecutors she considered her relationship with her mother to be close, which makes it even worse.  Had they been competitive or estranged from one another, Ashley would have had a little distance to protect her.  This attack came from deep inside the heart.

I think of all the life events where Ashley will want a mother.   New jobs, a bridal shower,  a wedding, pregnancies and parenting advice.    Holidays, birthdays, Mother’s Day.  All the moments through all the years where we place a phone call home or we come together and toast to the happy occasion.

Will Ashley ever have a drink when she doesn’t remember her mother’s special recipe?  Will she ever have a cocktail again at all?

The courtoom photograph of a sobbing Ashley shows the finality of what her mother tried to do.  Did  Ashley harbor any doubt about the truth until that moment when a body of informed adults confirmed it?  We cannot know.  Hopefully Ashley will receive counseling and friends to carry her to the other side of this nightmare, where the woman who brought her into this world also attempted to take her out.