Obituaries
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2006:
Elora Petrasek, 6, remembered by acquaintances as a very
gentle child who loved animals, was fatally mauled by a bear on
April 13 in Cherokee National Forest, near Benton, Tennessee. The
bear also bit her brother Luke Cenkus, 2, puncturing his skull,
and mauled their mother, Susan Cenkus, 45. The attack, 10 miles
from the nearest highway, occurred as adults tried to drive the bear
off of a hiking trail. A bear in the vicinity was later shot by
rangers, but was not positively identified as the killer. Petrasek
was the 56th person verifiably killed by a black bear in North
America within the past 100 years, according to Lynn Rogers of the
North American Bear Center in Ely, Minnesota, and only the second
person killed by a bear in the Great Smokies. The first was Glenda
Ann Bradley, 50, of Cosby, Tennessee, who was killed in an
un-witnessed attack in May 2000 near Gaitlinburg.
Richard Meza, 52, was fatally shot by an unknown assailant
at about 11 p.m. on April 8, 2006, while feeding a feral cat colony
he attended near Anaheim and Walnut Avenues in Long Beach,
California. No motive was evident; Meza was not robbed. A 30-year
lineman and repairman for GTE and Verizon, Meza and his wife of 24
years, LoAnn, 48, planned to retire in June 2006 to a home they
were building in Virginia. LoAnn, who was losing her sight,
received a cornea transplant from her late husband.