SwanShadow Thinks Out Loud

This explains the police helicopter overhead the other night.

I’d read over the weekend about the murder of local artisan Taku Sakashta, an internationally renowned creator of hand-crafted guitars. Early Monday morning, Rohnert Park police chased down and eventually captured a suspect in the slaying — Joshua “Crash” Begley, a recently released felon with a list of priors stretching back more than a decade — just a block or two from our house.

At the moment, it’s unclear why Begley might have killed Sakashta — although, given Begley’s history of drug-related offenses, money for dope looks like a decent bet from here. Sakashta’s body was discovered last Thursday evening near his car, a Nissan 350Z, so there’s some thought that he might have surprised Begley attempting to steal the vehicle.

Sakashta’s custom guitars sold for upward of $30,000 each. He’s described by friends — including Ken Tominaga, owner of our little burg’s best sushi restaurant, Hana — as a sweet, gentle man who routinely worked late hours in his shop without locking the front door. He leaves behind a wife and many friends.

As for the suspect, he was in custody last Monday on drug charges when he briefly escaped using a handcuff key he’d secreted in his mouth. He was recaptured, then released on bail on Tuesday.

Less than three days later, Taku Sakashta was dead.

Nice going, Sonoma County law enforcement.

This entry was posted on February 16, 2010 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Aimless Riffing, Dead People Got No Reason to Live, My Home Town, Ripped From the Headlines, Taking Umbrage. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.