sonora2sonoma

by Tim Konrad

Chapter Twelve

Buzzy Bamber was the talk of the town my freshman year of high school. A few years my senior, Bamber, who hailed from the town of Tuolumne, led law enforcement officials on an extended chase not once, but two separate times after escaping jail. Skilled in living off the land and bold and daring, Bamber once swam a river and sneaked within 50 feet of the sheriff, where he pilfered his lunch practically from under the man’s nose before disappearing back into the bush. Each manhunt lasted over a week and Bamber was never apprehended locally, instead only being captured in traffic stops far from Tuolumne County.

The local newspaper followed Bamber’s ecapades closely, weaving a tale full of adventure and daring and shading his actions with an air of mystery reminiscent of the press coverage that followed the likes of Bonnie & Clyde in an earlier time. The attention  garnered in the press by accounts of Bamber’s antics presaged the hullabaloo that would accompany the Ellie Nesler affair decades later.

The human tendency to root for the underdog as manifested in the public’s fascination with colorful ne’er-do-wells has been around since the days of Robin Hood. The fascination surrounding the celebration of criminals and their activities is at least in part a product of the human tendency to display more interest in following news about disaster than news that is uplifting and positive.  Whatever needs of the human psyche are being addressed  by this activity, the identification with individuals at odds with the prevailing power structure has been a potent theme transcending time and culture and one of the universal characteristics that unites us  in our shared humanity.

I remember hearing when I was quite young–maybe 6 or so–about a woman who lived out Tuolumne Road somewhere around Steve’s Place who had poisoned her husband, dismembered him and buried his body parts in her flowerbeds. According to the story, she was released from prison after serving around seven years. Because of that story, and also on account of the unusually high number of reported suicides in the county,  Tuolumne County was once described on the Tonight Show as the place to go if you want to murder somebody and get away with it.

But what is likely the most sensational case to come out of Tuolumne County since the Bartlemei kidnap-murder in the early 60s was the one in which Ellie Nesler shot and killed the man accused of molesting her son as he sat in a courtroom awaiting arraignment.

The circumstances surrounding the Ellie Nesler affair serve well to illustrate the dynamics commonly present in narratives that have achieved sensational status.  For those of you not familiar with the story, the drama began in 1993 when Nesler, reportedly fearing that the alleged molester, Daniel Driver, would be set free, took matters into her own hands by shooting Driver in the head with a pistol as he sat at his arraignment awaiting the arrival of the judge.

As reported by CBS News, after Nesler saw Driver ‘smirk’ at her son in the courtroom, before going to her car and returning with the handgun. “I may not be God,” she was quoted as saying at the time, ” but I tell you what, I’m the closest damn thing to it.”

It isn’t uncommon in rural areas for a person to have a wide circle of acquaintances. What may be less common is to have been acquainted with so many of the players in this drama.  I knew the judge in whose courtroom the crime occurred, I knew the mother of the victim, who left town abruptly after her son’s killing and I knew one of the prosecutors.

Regarded by some as an “avenging angel,” Nesler achieved a kind of local notoriety almost cult-like in expression, with throngs of followers gathering daily at the small park below the courthouse in demonstration of their support, cheered on in news bites by defense attorney Tony Serra, a man practiced in the manipulation  of the news media for purposes of persuasion. Containing all the elements that make for a good story–the harried heroin, the heroic defender, the act of passion that brought them together, the character twists and turns–the trial dominated the headlines, locally and beyond, throughout its duration.

Nesler’s story is not a happy one. She served 3 1/2 years in custody while her case worked its way through the courts, eventually pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. The remainder of her life was spent, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “struggling with the complicated power of fame and infamy, battling cancer and drugs, earning money from her tale, losing it all, and seeing her son fall into his own spiral of violence, ending with his imprisonment for murder.” https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Nesler-dies-killed-man-accused-of-molestation-3178158.php

Nesler’s son, Willie, didn’t fare much better. An hour after his release from jail upon completion of time served for attacking a man during a dispute over tools, he returned to the scene of the original crime and beat the man to death. Charged with first-degree murder, Nesler was sentenced to serve 28 years to life in prison.