Darrell Rae McNeill

Sources

1. Man accused in shooting says he was molested by victim as child; others come forward with similar charges, The Press Democrat, July 5, 2009.
2. Town backs slaying suspect who tells of abuse, SFGATE, February 10, 2010.
3. Man Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison For Killing Alleged Abuser, ABC News, June 10, 2010.
4. Town Rallies Behind Murderer Who Claims He Was Abused, ABC News, May 10, 2010.
5. Vigilante Aaron Vargas, Who Killed His Alleged Molester, Gets Nine Years in Prison, CBS News, June 16, 2010.
6. INSIDE STORY: Molestation Victim Who Killed His Alleged Tormentor, People, April 27, 2010.
7. Community stands behind accused murderer, ABC 13, March 16, 2010.
8. Man pleads no contest in slaying of his alleged molester, CNN, April 6, 2010.
9. Exclusive: Aaron Vargas Regrets Killing Alleged Abuser, ABC 4, May 21, 2010.
10. Manslaughter of Darrell Rae McNeill, Wikibody Wiki, June 29, 2026.
11. Town rallies around accused killer of molester, Today, July 10, 2011.

• 1. Man accused in shooting says he was molested by victim as child; others come forward with similar charges

  • 20090705
  • News article
  • The Press Democrat

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  The winding mountain road that twists out of Fort Bragg and east into redwood forests was dark and deserted the night last February when Aaron Vargas drove to the home of a man he had known since boyhood.

  This was not a social visit.

  Vargas, 31, carried an antique black powder revolver, one that requires the loading of primer, wadding and a projectile before cocking the weapon, details that would become important months later.

  On this night the gun was made ready to fire. Vargas approached, and now stands accused of pointing the gun and firing a single shot into Darrell McNeill’s chest while McNeill’s stunned wife, Liz, looked on.

  As the 63-year-old man lay dying, according to court testimony, Vargas disassembled the gun, placed it on the kitchen counter, and told McNeill’s wife why he was there: The man he shot was his molester.

  McNeill, Vargas later told family, first molested him when he was 11 years old. He said he was just one of many boys who fell victim to McNeill, a man long seen in the community as a loyal husband, community volunteer and friendly salesman.

  Darrell McNeill settled in Fort Bragg while working for the old Union Lumber Co. He led the local Mormon Church’s Boy Scout troop in the 1980s and mentored youth in the Big Brother Big Sister program before that. He sold families their refrigerators and washing machines from the store he established. That he could lead a secret life molesting child after child was unimaginable, yet even his widow now believes the allegations to be true.

  She now wonders if she ever really knew the man she was married to for 25 years, the man who fell on hard times when his business went bankrupt and he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

  There were no clues, no signs to the abuse, she said.

  The men who have come forward to Vargas’ attorney to say they, too, were abused, are men Liz McNeill calls her “boys.”

  Like Vargas, they were kids that hung around the house to play, kids with whom her husband had a good rapport.

  “What I learned that night, I didn’t know had happened,” said Liz McNeill, whose eyewitness account of the shooting likely will be pivotal in the jury trial set to start in September.

  She has asked prosecutors to reduce the charges against Vargas.

  The community is struggling with questions of justice — for a homicide victim now branded a child molester, and for an accused killer who claims to be a sexual abuse victim. One is buried, the other in jail.

  Prosecutors, however, say vengeance is no excuse for murder and the crime deserves 50 years to life in prison. A pretrial hearing will take place this month.

  Supportive words

  As the trial date nears, more than 1,000 comments asking the District Attorney’s Office not to prosecute the case have been posted on a Web page set up by Vargas’ family. Some of the comments are from victims of sexual abuse. Most are from current or former Fort Bragg residents. Many are coming to terms with a dark secret they may have lived with for decades.

  Since the shooting, at least eight alleged victims have come forward to Vargas’ attorney, Tom Hudson, revealing stories of widespread sexual abuse spanning more than a decade, some of them detailed in written statements.

  McNeill “was always hustling ideas that he could use on these young men to continue a relationship and themselves in a position where he could make advances on them,” Hudson said. “He was always there to help them out.”

  The attorney, based in nearby Albion, said the men have described decades of ongoing molestation at McNeill’s home and on trips with the former youth leader. They said they were plied with alcohol and drugs, then forced to perform sex acts with McNeill.

  None of the alleged victims have come forward to Mendocino County sheriff’s authorities, detectives said.

  “We’ve made an overt attempt to locate victims,” Sgt. Greg Van Patten said. “No one’s come forward. Nothing has been brought forward out in the open.”

  A single complaint, filed in 2001 with the Fort Bragg Police Department, names McNeill. But City Attorney Mike Gogna said the details were not subject to disclosure, adding, “nothing ever happened with that report.”

  Not discussed

  One Fort Bragg man now in his mid-40s said that he was abused by McNeill, but molestation was something not to be talked about.

  “In a small town you save face,” said the man, who did not want to be identified. “You keep your mouth shut because it’s embarrassing and you don’t want anyone to know.”

  “Aaron may have made a bad choice, but he did what he thought was right,” he said.

  Despite the lack of legal record, Liz McNeill said she doesn’t doubt any of the men’s stories and has thrown her support behind the man who killed her husband.

  “I have to believe it,” she said. “Aaron’s an honest kid.”

  For Mendocino County sheriff’s officials and prosecutors, the case against Aaron Vargas is clear cut.

  In a preliminary hearing on the case, Mendocino Sheriff’s Sgt. Joseph Comer testified that Liz McNeill told him that on the night of Feb. 8 she heard a knock on the door of the couple’s trailer. Her husband answered it and she heard Vargas telling her husband “he was never going to hurt anybody again.”

  Then Darrell McNeill was shot. Once. Fatally.

  Not-guilty plea

  Vargas, a part-time handyman who was planning a wedding, taking care of his newborn baby and in the midst of buying a house when McNeill was killed, has pleaded not guilty.

  Vargas’ parents later said in an interview that their son came to their house shortly after McNeill was killed and told them for the first time that he had been sexually molested.

  “He left Darrell’s house and drove to my parents’ house and told my mom the cops are coming for him and he was sorry,” Mindy Galliani, Vargas’ sister, said.

  Vargas was arrested as he walked away from his parents’ house that night.

  From a police perspective, the facts of the case add up to first-degree murder.

  “Aaron Vargas went over there with the intention to kill,” Van Patten said.

  The revolver used to kill McNeill required the shooter to be deliberate: loading the primer, wadding and projectile, cocking the gun and firing.

  “For him to do that, he had some knowledge of what he was about to do,” Detective Jason Caudillo said. “It’s a cut-and-dried homicide.”

  Vargas’ claim that McNeill sexually abused him has little bearing on the facts of the case, Van Patten said.

  “It really doesn’t change the circumstances of the case, other than to shed light on the motive,” he said.

  The motive, Vargas’ attorney says, was the bottled-up rage from years of abuse.

  Fort Bragg in the 1980s was a town of just over 5,000 people. It was a quiet, idyllic place to raise a family, said Jere Mello, a Fort Bragg resident since 1966 and a current City Council member.

  “Fort Bragg was very family oriented and very conservative,” Mello said. “Union Lumber was the employer. If you were a graduate, the mill had a job for you. It was a pretty close-knit town.”

  McNeill employed young men to work in his American Homes Store and befriended his sons’ friends, whom he regularly took on out-of-town fishing trips and vacations.

  In 1987, 10-year-old Vargas was a happy-go-lucky kid who played Little League and took piano lessons. He was a country boy who could kill a deer and hook a fish. In family pictures, Vargas is frequently seen with his finger linked through the gills of that day’s catch.

  He grinned wide and crooked. He told jokes and made neighbor Liz McNeill laugh. He was a friend of Darrell McNeill’s son, Michael, and a frequent visitor at the McNeills’ home next door to his own.

  That changed after a fishing trip with McNeill, when Vargas was 11, his mother, Robin Vargas, said.

  That’s what she says her son told her from his jail cell in Ukiah. Robin Vargas said the family still doesn’t know when the sexual abuse ended, or the extent of it.

  Psychological abuse

  Hudson said it was as much psychological as sexual.

  “There was a continuation of harassing Aaron and molesting Aaron,” Hudson said. “The older Aaron got, the more sporadic the sexual action became. But on the other hand, the more energetic McNeill was in trying to further contact him.”

  Selena Barnett, the defendant’s fiancee and mother of his 9-month-old daughter, said psychological abuse was ongoing.

  For months before the shooting, McNeill harassed her family, she said, dropping by the house at all hours, calling constantly and making repetitive demands to baby-sit Vargas’ newborn.

  That portrait will likely be part of the trial. It’s a far different view of the man his friends remembered.

  McNeill “was always a sort of jovial fellow, a nice guy,” Mello said.

  “I don’t know anything about any abuse,” he said. “On the other hand, this Vargas fellow took the pistol and drove out Sherwood Road. That’s a long ways.”

  As the case now stands, Vargas faces charges of first-degree murder, false imprisonment of Liz McNeill and preventing her from calling the police. All three counts are felonies and carry special allegations that he committed the crimes using a firearm, which would add time to his sentence.

  Assistant District Attorney Beth Norman, who will argue the case with District Attorney Jill Ravitch in September, said she expects the case to evolve as prosecution and defense teams exchange information relating to the death and Vargas’ mental state at the time of the shooting.

  Hudson said self-defense and battered-woman’s syndrome, a psychological stress disorder that has been applied legally to murder cases and resulted in lesser charges against a defendant, could be effective arguments in Vargas’ defense.

  Lesser charges sought

  Anything that reduces the sentence that Vargas is facing would end up pleasing both the Vargas family and the murder victim’s widow.

  “I’m angry at the situation,” Liz McNeill said. “At the man I didn’t know, at the man I did know.”

  Robin Vargas says in death, McNeill simply got off too easy:

  “At first I was so frustrated that I couldn’t yell at him or beat him. I wanted him resurrected.”

  And for Selena Barnett, who regularly visits her fiance at the Mendocino County Jail, it should have been McNeill on trial.

  “That would have been pretty damn satisfying,” she said.

  Fort Bragg residents without ties to either family agree justice will be difficult to find.

  “On the one hand, you feel badly for what (Vargas) went through,” said Josh Richardson, bishop of Fort Bragg’s Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which no longer counts McNeill as a member. “On the other hand, we are a nation of laws.”

  Dan Gillman, assistant pastor at Calvary Chapel with offices next door to McNeill’s former storefront, said Vargas “still needs to stand, be accountable for what he’s done wrong.

  “Our past doesn’t absolve us of doing something wrong or right,” Gillman said.

  Liz McNeill, who describes herself as still “numb” and “doubly shocked” by her husband’s murder, is grasping for something to hang onto.

  “I can understand why he did what he did,” she said. “I don’t condone the killing, but I can understand it.”

  You can reach Staff Writer Laura Norton at 521-5220

  or laura.norton@

  pressdemocrat.com.

• 2. Town backs slaying suspect who tells of abuse

  • 20100210
  • News article
  • SFGATE

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  For someone accused of shooting a 63-year-old former neighbor in front of the man's stunned wife and then standing by for half an hour to watch him die, Aaron Vargas has an awful lot of supporters in this damp little coastal town.

  The reason?

  Vargas says the dead man, Darrell McNeill, started raping him at the age of 11.

  The abuse continued into his 20s, Vargas' relatives say. And even when the now-32-year-old handyman finally broke away, McNeill kept badgering and pursuing him - until finally, Vargas snapped and confronted him.

  Nobody disputes that Vargas brought a gun with him when he went to McNeill's home last February. Whether the gun went off by accident or on purpose may be an issue when Vargas goes to trial March 22 - but to his defenders, it's almost immaterial.

  That's because just about everyone in this former logging town, now a tourist satellite of Mendocino, believes the molestation story Vargas has told relatives from his jail cell. The only people who want him to do hard time, it seems, are the detectives working the case and the district attorney. Even the victim's widow is calling for leniency.

  Popular sympathy only grew as 12 other men came forward over the past year to say they, too, were molested as youngsters by McNeill, a onetime Boy Scout leader and Big Brother. Relatives of another man who committed suicide say McNeill molested him as well.

  Vargas, defense lawyers, prosecutors and police are barred from speaking about the case by a gag order that a county judge imposed last summer. But their legal intentions are clear.
  Seeking murder conviction

  The Mendocino County district attorney is seeking a first-degree murder conviction with a possible sentence of 50 years to life.

  Vargas' defense team has entered a not guilty plea. His family says he was suffering from post-traumatic stress after years of abuse and was packing a gun because he was afraid of McNeill. They contend he should get a short stretch behind bars at most.

  The T-shirts, mugs and bumper stickers sprouting up around this community of 7,000 carry the slogan that seems to embody the attitude of nearly everyone outside law enforcement: "Save Aaron."

  "Should that guy go to prison for standing up for himself? No way," 18-year-old Katie Taylor said one recent afternoon as she hung out downtown with her friends. "The old guy was a creep and deserved what he got."

  Her pals nodded their heads in agreement. None was close to either McNeill or Vargas. But everyone knows at least a little about everyone here, they said, and they'd heard enough.

  "They shouldn't even take Aaron to trial," 50-year-old Deb Evans said. "We don't like pedophiles in this town."
  Making case for counseling

  There's not much precedent for the Vargas case.

  About half the approximately 20,000 boys sexually abused each year are molested by acquaintances instead of relatives or strangers, according to the Crimes Against Children Research Center - but there are no numbers parsing how many of those boys grow up to kill their abusers. Media accounts are few.

  "My guess is it's pretty rare, at the very least," said researcher Lisa Jones of the center in Durham, N.H.

  The Vargas and McNeill families say precedent or not, the only course for justice that makes sense is to brand McNeill as a molester and to provide Vargas with more counseling than punishment.

  "I know the man I was married to, but this other man who abused kids, I didn't know," said McNeill's 52-year-old widow and wife of 25 years, Liz McNeill. "I call them Darrell One and Darrell Two - but I have no reason not to believe Aaron.

  "I do think Aaron needs to spend some time in jail, but not a lot," McNeill said, lips pursed tightly. "I can understand being driven to the edge, but I do not condone what he did. He just needs help. I've known him most of his life, and I still love the kid."

  Vargas' 51-year-old mother, Robin Vargas, has known the McNeills since the time her children were small and Darrell McNeill was the kindly neighbor next door.

  "I thought we lived in a safe community, and my children never went more than a block away from home by themselves before they were 12," she said. "I didn't know the real danger was really just 25 feet away."
  Some words, then gunfire

  Robin Vargas and Liz McNeill said they knew nothing of the alleged abuse until the chilly night of Feb. 8, 2009, when Aaron Vargas drove his fiancee's pickup to Darrell McNeill's trailer, had a few quiet words with him at the door, and then - prosecutors say - fired a .44-caliber round from a Civil War-style cap-and-ball revolver into his chest.

  Before the gun went off, Vargas told McNeill "he was lucky" his wife was there, Liz McNeill said - a statement that Vargas' family says it will use to show that he may have intended to scare Darrell McNeill, not kill him. They note that cap-and-ball revolvers have hair triggers and say he may not have meant to shoot.

  At any rate, McNeill died slowly, moaning, while Vargas stood by for a half hour and disassembled the pistol, Liz McNeill recalled.

  "After he shot Darrell, he told him something to the effect of, 'You're not going to hurt anyone again,' and then he told me all about how Darrell abused him as a child," McNeill said. "I was shocked at all of this. He told me he wasn't going to hurt me, but I was never scared. I knew he wouldn't."

  Vargas was arrested that night at his parents' house.

  "He came over and told me he'd shot Darrell, and I knew something traumatic had happened," Robin Vargas said. "And he told me Darrell had molested him and was still on the prowl to molest others.

  "My world went upside down in a few seconds. I sat down and held him in my arms, and my heart has ached ever since."
  Fateful Oregon fishing trip

  Vargas soon told his family that McNeill began molesting him on a fishing trip the two took to Oregon when he was 11.

  Before that trip, his family says, Vargas was a fun-loving boy who enjoyed fishing, hunting and baseball. Afterward, he was withdrawn and his grades plummeted. He graduated from Fort Bragg High School, then began drinking too much, was convicted three times of drunken driving, and never seemed to get his life on track.

  His main jobs were doing construction and other odd work around town - which included stints at McNeill's American Homes furnishing store, hanging window blinds and fixing plumbing.

  McNeill, meanwhile, was considered "a nice guy who gave good service in his business," said City Councilman Jere Melo. He mentored boys in the local Scouts and Big Brother programs in the 1970s and '80s, had a stable marriage for decades, and "seemed like a good citizen," Melo said.

  "I was totally surprised at the incident."

  Vargas' relatives say they agonize now at not having figured out what was going on.

  "We knew something wasn't right all those years, but we never put things together," said Vargas' 30-year-old sister, Mindy Galliani. "Now it all makes sense."
  Breaking off relationship

  Vargas finally stood up to McNeill and stopped the sex at least four years ago, but McNeill refused to leave him alone, Galliani said. Even after Vargas became engaged a couple of years ago, McNeill would drive by his house and call him, asking him to visit, she said.

  When Vargas' fiancee gave birth to their daughter a year ago, McNeill turned up the pressure, Vargas' family says. Sometimes he would call 10 times a day to ask to visit and to babysit the girl.

  "It was like a sick obsession," Galliani said. "He knew his control over Aaron was slipping away, and he just didn't want to let go."

  According to court records, three days before the shooting, McNeill's 46-year-old stepson, John Clemons, told Vargas that McNeill had molested him, too, as a boy. The two were visiting with McNeill's biological son, 34-year-old Michael McNeill, who said in court filings that he'd become convinced his father had molested his friends when they were all children.

  The pent-up frustration Vargas had been nursing overflowed, Galliani said.

  "I don't think Aaron went over to Darrell's that night to actually kill him, but I'm sure he wanted to scare him," she said. "He wanted to be left alone, and for him not to hurt other kids."
  Killing seen as deliberate

  To prosecutors and investigators, whatever molestation McNeill might have carried out means very little.

  Given that Vargas had to pack a percussion cap, powder and a bullet into the replica antique pistol and drive to McNeill's house before he shot him, the killing was clearly deliberate and thus first-degree murder, they have argued.

  And Vargas was not a boy when he shot McNeill - he was a man who, even if he was molested as a child, had had sex with the older man while he was an adult.

  The community, however, doesn't appear to buy it.

  In the past year, 1,267 people signed an online petition asking for leniency for Vargas. Hundreds, including Fort Bragg Fire Chief Steve Orsi and reportedly several police officers, have attended fundraisers for Vargas' defense that raised $10,000.

  "Nobody I've talked to says throw the book at Aaron," said Orsi, who added that he didn't attend the fundraiser in his capacity as chief. "You just can't go shoot somebody ... but I think there's something to the story of the abuse.

  "It's all just shocking. And very sad."

  Vargas' sister says that "everybody thought Darrell was such a nice guy, an upstanding member of the community, but when he was around my brother, Aaron became that scared 11-year-old again. Nobody knew how twisted Darrell was."
  Some say they sought help

  Some say they did, however - and two say they filed police reports about McNeill a decade and more ago that weren't followed up.

  "Darrell was very smart about what he did, very persuasive, real friendly," said Todd Rowan, a 46-year-old carpenter who says McNeill molested him from the ages of 15 to 19. "He'd pick out guys like me who were loners or vulnerable, and have us over to drink beer and smoke pot. Then when you were stoned, he'd go at you."

  Rowan said he finally told McNeill to lay off when he got big enough to resist, but the trauma drove him to substance abuse and suicide attempts. In 2001, he took his accusations to Fort Bragg police - but nothing happened, he said.
  'I went through hell'
  image
  The Bay Area's best free newsletter.
  Stay informed, and entertained.
  Email
  Your website

  By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy.

  Vargas' defense team has a copy of the report. Fort Bragg officials, bound by the gag order, aren't commenting on it - or on the report that McNeill's ex-wife, Jenny Cotilla, says she made to the department about 20 years ago alleging her ex-husband had molested his stepson John Clemons. Nothing happened with that report either, she said.

  "I went through hell because of that man," Rowan said. "I'm now with a great woman and I'm clean and sober, but it's still hard to talk about this. Look, up here this is a redneck town. Nobody would believe you about this stuff.

  "But enough is enough after what happened with Aaron, so I'm talking now. Maybe if we'd all talked more back then, it would have never to come to all this."

• 3. Man Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison For Killing Alleged Abuser

  • 20100610
  • News article
  • ABC News

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  June 16, 2010— -- In front of a packed California courtroom, Mendocino County Superior Court Judge Ronald Brown sentenced 32-year-old Aaron Vargas to nine years in prison. Vargas faced a maximum of ten years after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter this past April for the 2009 shooting of Darrell McNeill, a man Vargas claimed had abused him since age 11.

  The judge's decision was a crushing disappointment to Vargas' family and many supporters in his northern California community of Fort Bragg, who had hoped for probation. Local newspapers reported that in sentencing Vargas, Judge Brown said: "I believe the defendant intended to kill [McNeill] and intended him to suffer," and that Vargas' actions "were consistent with an intentional killing."

  When Darrell McNeill was shot and killed in the entryway of his home on the evening of February 8, 2009, people in Fort Bragg were stunned. McNeill, a local businessman, father, and husband who had volunteered for the Boy Scouts of America, owned a popular store and was considered an all-around nice guy.

  But local residents were never prepared for the revelation that McNeill, 63, may have been leading a secret life, and that what initially seemed like a cut-and-dry case of revenge would test the town's sense of right and wrong.

  It all started with a gunshot in February 2009. Mendocino County sheriff's investigators raced to the scene to find McNeill lying on the ground, dead from a single shot to the stomach. McNeill's wife, Liz, told investigators that Aaron Vargas, a man she had known for decades, was the lone gunman. She said she ran into the room after hearing the shot and saw Vargas standing there with the gun.

  Vargas, 32, a father and part-time construction worker, had grown up next door to the McNeills and was their son's good friend. Before he fled the scene of the crime, Liz McNeill told investigators, Vargas had revealed to her a deep and dark secret: Darrell McNeill had sexually molested him since he was a young boy.

  But there were more surprises around the corner for sheriff's investigators, the McNeill and Vargas families, and the entire town.

  "As far as the case goes, it wasn't a whodunit," Mendocino County Sgt. Greg Van Patten said. "It was very clear that Aaron Vargas shot and killed Darrell McNeill. The only question about this case was what was the motive for the killing."

  While investigators spoke with Liz McNeill, Vargas arrived across town at the home of his parents, Bob and Robin Vargas.

  "He just stood there," his mother said. "He said that he had shot Darrell, and that he wanted to tell me he was sorry and tell me goodbye. And that's when he told me Darrell had molested him."

• 4. Town Rallies Behind Murderer Who Claims He Was Abused

  • 20100510
  • News article
  • ABC News

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  May 20, 2010— -- Is it ever OK to take the law into your own hands? That question has divided a California community since the murder of a respected town businessman last February.

  Aaron Vargas, a 32-year-old father about to be married, shot and killed Darrell McNeill -- a former neighbor and the father of his childhood best friend -- while McNeill's wife watched.

  The news shocked the small coastal town of Fort Bragg, but residents were even more stunned to learn of the alleged dark secrets kept for decades between the two men: McNeill had been sexually abused Vargas since age 11.

  As Vargas' story of abuse spread, the family said a dozen men in their thirties and forties came forward saying that they too had been abused by Darrell McNeill. Some even said they had gone to warn the Fort Bragg Police Department, but no action was taken.

  "This story just kept getting worse and worse. The more we learned, it was just like when we thought things couldn't get any worse, we would find something else out," said Mindy Galliani, Vargas' younger sister.

  Galliani was so outraged that she began a grass roots campaign to tell her brother's story and how he acted to stop the cycle of alleged abuse before it ensnared anyone else. From protests and petitions, to media appearances and fundraising at Saveaaron.com, a once-skeptical community rallied for Vargas, who had been arrested and indicted for first-degree murder.

  "The community just stood right up. There were just people coming out of the woodwork. They were saying, 'Let this kid out of jail,'" said Tom Hudson, Vargas' defense attorney.

  In jail, Vargas also left behind his fiance Selena Barnett, who feels she's locked in a prison of her own, raising their 18-month-old daughter Josie alone. The night McNeill was shot the couple was two weeks away from their wedding.

  "I'm scared to death that he won't come home. And ... if I psych myself up for coming home, then I'm not doing what I need to do for my kid, which is make sure that we have a life," Barnett said.

  By keeping Vargas behind bars, Galliani believes law enforcement is perpetuating the cycle of abuse by depriving Josie of a father.

  "I know it's their job to prosecute people. But I don't think that includes checking your humanity at the door when you go to do your job. I don't think that includes not having any compassion. I don't think we need to quit being humans in order to do a job," Galliani said. "He doesn't deserve it."

• 5. Vigilante Aaron Vargas, Who Killed His Alleged Molester, Gets Nine Years in Prison

  • 20100616
  • News article
  • CBS News

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  UKIAH, Calif. (CBS/KPIX) A judge showed no mercy Tuesday in sentencing 32-year old Aaron Vargas to nine years in prison, for murdering the man he claimed sexually molested him as a child.

  According to CBS affiliate KPIX, Vargas testified that 63-year-old Darrell McNeill sexually abused him when he was 11 and continued to pursue him into adulthood. Vargas shot McNeill in February 2009 with a Civil War-style pistol and watched him take his last breath while the victim's wife, Elizabeth McNeill, stood nearby.

  Vargas, initially charged with murder, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the killing and faced a maximum of 10 years in prison, reported KPIX. Following the death more than 10 men came forth claiming McNeill had sexually abused them, too, including McNeill's stepson. Hundreds of community supporters advocated for leniency in Vargas' case, claiming he was not a threat and needed psychological help, said KPIX.

  However, Judge Ronald Brown believed Vargas went to McNeil's home with a single intent--the intent to kill.

  "The circumstances support the conclusion the defendant intended to kill the victim, and the method was intended to make the victim suffer," Brown said. Brown continued to say that he could not overlook the use of violence to resolve problems, reported KPIX.

  According to the station, psychiatrist Donald Apostle reported that Vargas had symptoms of sustained trauma. Court records indicated on the night of the shooting, Vargas' blood-alcohol content was almost twice the legal limit at .15. Though Vargas testified he didn't remember all the details of that fatal night, he recalled McNeill denied the sexual allegations, and then told McNeill he would not hurt anyone else, before Vargas then fired the gun, stated KPIX.

  "It's not over. We're going to appeal," said Minday Galliani, brother of the Aaron Vargas. "It's clear that the justice system still doesn't have an understanding of childhood sexual abuse."

  The Vargas family is considering an appeal and founding a nonprofit organization in his honor in hopes of aiding other victims of childhood sexual abuse

• 6. INSIDE STORY: Molestation Victim Who Killed His Alleged Tormentor

  • 20100427
  • News article
  • People

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  After Aaron Vargas endured years of sexual abuse, it seemed inevitable that something would finally have to give. One night in February 2009, he downed beers and vodka, drove to a mobile home in Fort Bragg, Calif., and shot the man he says was his tormentor once in the chest.

  “You’re not going to hurt anyone again,” Vargas, 32, allegedly said as 63-year-old Darrell McNeill lay dying.

  The fatal shooting in the quaint town flanked by redwood forests and spectacular coastal views has sparked a debate over whether Vargas should be treated like a hero for killing a man who many, including his own family, considered a danger to children, or a criminal for allegedly taking the law into his own hands.

  Initially charged with murder, Vargas’s attorney Tom Hudson contends the gun went off by accident during a scuffle, although his client got too drunk to remember. Prosecutors earlier this month agreed to a plea deal for voluntary manslaughter. They cited evidence that McNeill had molested Vargas as far back as when Vargas was 11 years old, along with Vargas’s clean record and the sentiments of McNeill’s family, who have come out in support of Vargas.
  Petition of Support

  But Vargas can still get anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison at the sentencing hearing, which starts June 14 in Mendocino County Superior Court.

  “That boy should be out right now – time served – and should get an award for what he did,” says Richard Masingale, 51, of Fort Bragg, who claims his brother was another molestation victim of McNeill’s. Masingale says his brother had contemplated shooting McNeill four years ago – but killed himself instead.

  Vargas’s supporters have collected thousands of signatures for a petition saying he has suffered enough and deserves leniency. Supporters also have rallied in the streets of Fort Bragg, Calif., shouting “Free Aaron,” and “End the Silence,” and carrying signs saying things like “It is time for justice for all the many victims.”
  Other Victims

  Vargas says he was first molested by McNeill during a fishing trip. His family says McNeill continued to abuse him as a kid, and stalked and harassed Vargas as an adult. Vargas tried to stay away from McNeill, at times even moving to other states, but family and relationships kept bringing him back. In 2008, family members say, the stalking got worse, with McNeill calling Vargas a dozen times a day and showing up at his doorstep with a handful of diapers, offering to babysit Vargas’s newborn daughter, Rosie.

  About a dozen people have now come forward to say they, too, were molested by McNeill, and they’re glad he won’t hurt anyone else. McNeill’s family doesn’t dispute that McNeill was a child molester. His second wife filed a police report after her divorce, complaining McNeill molested her son, but she said police took no action because the case was too old.

  Despite police complaints over the years, McNeill was never arrested or charged. Authorities now say that, in each case, either the alleged victim couldn’t be located or the statute of limitations had expired.
  Family Supports Him

  McNeill’s third wife, Elizabeth, who witnessed the shooting, went so far as to attend the first fund-raiser for Aaron’s defense.

  “I do believe that something having to do with Aaron’s childhood sexual abuse caused Aaron to snap, and do what he did,” Elizabeth wrote in a letter to prosecutors.

  Assistant Mendocino County District Attorney Beth Norman says her office hasn’t yet decided what sentence to recommend – but she’s glad that the case has ended with a felony conviction, which should send the message that “violence is not the answer.”

  For more on the Aaron Vargas case, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now

• 7. Community stands behind accused murderer

  • 20100316
  • News article
  • ABC 13

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  FORT BRAGG, CA

  It happened in Fort Bragg, along the Mendocino County Coast and now his family is talking about what drove him to violence.

  Aaron Vargas' mother says he was just a happy kid who loved fishing, hunting and baseball, but after a trip to Oregon when he was 11 years old, Aaron was never the same. That is when Vargas says Darrell McNeill, started raping him.

  Last February, Vargas went to McNeill's house with a gun and killed him front of his wife. Vargas stood by McNeill for half an hour, taking apart the pistol that fired the fatal shot.

  "I think he just broke, because he was pushed so hard by Darrell, he would not leave him alone," Vargas' mother Robin said.

  Whether or not he intended to shoot his alleged abuser will be decided at Vargas' upcoming trial.

  Vargas claims McNeill relentlessly pursued him and continued to abuse him into his 20s. He says McNeill would drive by his house, call him up to 10 times a day and asked to babysit his newborn daughter.

  "Aaron was never a drinker, he never seemed to struggle with addiction and he would go months and he would seem fine, everything would seem fine," Vargas' sister Mindy Galliani said.

  For friends and family who knew nothing of the secret Vargas had been keeping, his erratic behavior over the years suddenly made sense to them.

  "All of the sudden his whole life would fall apart; he would quit his job, he would go on like a binge and get drunk, him and his girlfriend would break up and it was like his whole world would fall apart," Galliani said.

  Since the shooting a dozen other men have come forward to say they too, were molested by McNeill, a onetime Boy Scout leader and Big Brother.

  Todd Rowan told ABC's Chris Cuomo he was one of McNeill's victims. Rowan filed a police report 10 years ago, but police never followed up.

  Chris Cuomo: "What did you think when you heard about the Aaron Vargas situation?"

  Todd Rowan: "There was some relief there; no one's going to get hurt anymore."

  The revelations have hit the small community hard, but not the way many would expect. "Save Aaron" t-shirts, mugs and bumper stickers are sprouting up around the community. Even McNeill's son has come out in support of Vargas.

  A judge has imposed a gag order in the case preventing many people from talking about it.

  The Mendocino County District Attorney is seeking a first-degree murder conviction with a possible sentence of 50 years to life. They say life experience alone does not excuse conduct.

  "That seems completely ignorant to me," Vargas' fiancée Selena Barnett said.

  Barnett has joined the chorus of people who say Vargas has suffered enough.

  "Your life experience is what creates who you are as a man; you can't say this and that happened to you when you were this old, but now that you're 30 it doesn't matter anymore," she said.

  "I know it's their job to prosecute people but I don't think that means checking your humanity at the door when you got to do your job," Galliani said.

  Vargas' defense team has entered a not guilty plea. The family says psychiatrists have diagnosed Vargas with post-traumatic stress disorder and Stockholm syndrome -- a condition emotionally bonding him to his attacker.

  Chris Cuomo: "What's your fear?

  Robert Vargas (father): "That they are going to send him to prison for more time than he deserves."

  "Aaron needs to be in counseling, he needs to be home with his wife, his family, his baby; he doesn't need to be locked up, it's not his fault," Robin Vargas said.

  McNeill's widow, who witnessed the killing, says she knew nothing about all the abuse. She will be asking the judge for leniency when Vargas' trial begins April 19.

• 8. Man pleads no contest in slaying of his alleged molester

  • 20100406
  • News article
  • CNN

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  Man kills his alleged abuser
  STORY HIGHLIGHTS

  Aaron Vargas was set to stand trial for first-degree murder next week in Darrell McNeill's death
  Vargas says McNeill molested him as a teen, emotionally tormented him as an adult
  Many in community support Vargas; other adult men say McNeill abused them as children
  Mendocino County District Attorney says there is no way to substantiate abuse claims

  RELATED TOPICS

  /topics/Crime_and_Law">Crime and Law
  /topics/Child_Abuse">Child Abuse
  /topics/California">California

  (CNN) -- A California man pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter with the use of a gun Tuesday in the shooting death of a man who he claimed sexually abused him as a teen, a prosecutor said.

  The plea comes less than a week before Aaron Vargas' first-degree murder trial was supposed to start for the slaying of Darrell McNeill, a neighbor from his childhood and a family friend whom Vargas claims began molesting him when he was 11 years old.

  Under the terms of a plea deal, Vargas, now 32, faces anywhere from probation to 10 years in prison for shooting the former Boy Scout leader and local businessman last year in his home in the Northern /topics/California" class="cnnInlineTopic">California community of Fort Bragg.

  Lawyers will return to court April 20 to place a statement of facts on the record before Judge Ronald Brown decides on the final sentence.

  "There's some relief that we know we won't lose him for the rest of his life, but there's also a lot of anxiety about what the judge is going to do," said Vargas' sister, Mindy Galliani.

  "I won't have closure until he's home," she added. "But even when he's home, it's still not going to be closure. We need to get him into treatment so he can get help. I feel like this is only the beginning."

  Since his arrest, Vargas' family has waged a tireless campaign to reduce the charges and raise awareness over child sex abuse, earning support from members of the community and giving rise to more sex abuse allegations against McNeill.

  McNeill used his position as a Boy Scout troop leader and as active neighborhood father to win the trust of Vargas and other young boys, Galliani said. He took the boys on camping trips or hikes, gave them alcohol or drugs and molested them, Galliani alleged.

  The alleged sexual abuse waned as Vargas grew into adulthood, but McNeill continued to call him and visit the home where Vargas lived with his wife and infant daughter. The continued contact drove Vargas to the breaking point, his sister said.

  Vargas was under the influence of alcohol the night of February 8, 2009, when he drove to McNeill's mobile home with a loaded gun and shot him in front of his wife, Mendocino County Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Norman said.

  The prosecutor said she consulted with the victim's family and reached what they thought a jury may have found -- that his level of intoxication placed the crime more along the lines of an "emotional decision rather than an intentional first-degree murder."

  Norman said she has received four reports of sexual abuse involving McNeill, which factored into the decision to strike a plea deal even though she could not prove they were true.

  "When you have other victims coming forward, that does lend credibility to that scenario," she said. "These people have written me letters and said this has happened, and I have no way of showing this has happened, but it has been put out there."

  The slaying victim's wife, who lived next door to Vargas' family and has known the defendant since he was a child, said she had no reason to doubt his claims of abuse.

  "I love this young man and feel he needs counseling more than anything," McNeill's wife said in an e-mail. She requested that her name not be published.

  "I cannot condone what Aaron has done, but I do understand it. I believe he took the wrong avenue by taking the law into his own hands. Like most of this community, I do not feel he deserves 50 years in prison. Unlike most of this community, I feel he should serve some time, but not much."

  The case, with its suggestions of long-buried secrets, has rocked Fort Bragg, a former logging community that has become a coastal tourist destination. Another longtime Fort Bragg resident has come out publicly with allegations of abuse against McNeill.

  "I was a reserved kid, some considered me a loner; I just kind of kept to myself as a kid, and he would play on that," Todd Rowan said in an interview in March. "He'd give me pot and beer, and he'd get me stoned and a little drunk, and he took advantage of me that way."

  Rowan said the /topics/Child_Abuse" class="cnnInlineTopic">abuse began when he was 15 and continued on and off until he was 19, but the emotional trauma lingered for years, driving him to substance abuse and suicide attempts. He said he brought the allegations to Fort Bragg Police in 2001 but nothing happened.

  "All those years, I wanted to forget about and push it away with alcohol because you're supposed to be a man. And then, when police didn't do anything, that pushed me even further down the hole."

  Repeated calls for comment to the Fort Bragg Police Department and the Mendocino Sheriff, which handled the investigation of McNeill's death, were not returned.

  Rowan said his ability to stay sober for more than two years braced him for news of McNeill's death.

  "When I got news that he'd been shot, the first thing I thought was, 'who got him? Somebody got him. Who else did he do it to?'"

  McNeill's second wife, Jenny Cotila, who divorced him in 1980, said she also went to Fort Bragg Police in the 1990s after she was told that her ex-husband had sexually abused her son years ago.

  "It could've been stopped a long time ago but the police didn't take me seriously when I reported it because they said the statute of limitations was up by the time I found out what happened to my son," Cotila said in a phone interview Tuesday.

  Cotila said she has long felt indifference toward her ex-husband but worried about the effects of his death and the abuse allegations were having on their children, now adults.

  "It's hard for them to cope because they're friends with Aaron, they knew him," said Cotila. "Darrell's their father and he's their friend. They're having a hard time separating their father from the pedophile."

  Members of the community also expressed shock that a "normal" guy like McNeill, a small business owner who installed the blinds in your home after you bought them at his furniture store, was capable of such horrific acts right under their noses.

  "Here we have this man, and he's being the normal, small-town businessman, and he's following all the cultural paths available and all the norms, so when you have people coming forward and saying this man is doing something to me that's outside the norm, there's a tendency to not listen closely or to ignore it," said Jeff Edwards, a hospital employee who has lived in Fort Bragg most of his life.

  "I guess we are to blame in a way, for thinking that this could never happen in our town."

• 9. Exclusive: Aaron Vargas Regrets Killing Alleged Abuser

  • 20100521
  • News article
  • ABC 4

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  May 21, 2010— -- Aaron Vargas, a young father who fatally shot his former neighbor and claimed he had been sexually abused by him, said he regrets killing Darrell McNeill.

  "I'm still trying to make sense of the situation," Vargas told "20/20's" Chris Cuomo in an exclusive interview. "It's not up to me to decide someone's fate."

  On a February 2009 night in Fort Bragg, California, Vargas visited McNeill's trailer and killed him with a single shot to the stomach. But Vargas told Cuomo that killing the 63-year-old man was the last thing he ever wanted to happen.

  "I didn't go to there to shoot the guy. I went there to warn him off," Vargas, 32, said. "He [McNeill] needed to stop. That's for sure. He didn't need to be shot and killed. But he needed to be stopped."

  Within hours of the shooting, Mendocino County sheriff's investigators arrested Vargas and indicted him for first-degree murder. Vargas pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in March and is expected to be sentenced next month. He is facing up to 10 years in jail.

  Vargas said he doesn't belong behind bars.

  "If the law doesn't work, ... it doesn't work," Vargas told Cuomo, adding that police had "plenty of chances" to arrest McNeill.

  After the incident, Vargas' family said several men in their 30s and 40s came forward saying that they, too, had been abused by McNeill. One said they had warned the Fort Bragg Police but no action was taken.

  "He [McNeill ] was actually damaging people and it wasn't a game anymore. You know? He played his whole life like it was a game," Vargas said. "He'd see that, finally, this wasn't going to keep going. And we weren't going to be little puppets anymore."

• 10. Manslaughter of Darrell Rae McNeill

  • 20260629
  • News article
  • Wikibody Wiki

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  In February 2009, Darrell Rae McNeill was shot and killed by his neighbor, Aaron Vargas, in Fort Bragg, California.[1] McNeill was Vargas's neighbor for many years.[2]

  Vargas drove to McNeill's home and confronted him with an antique, black-powder revolver.[3] After Vargas's arrest, approximately a dozen other alleged victims of McNeill came forward.[4][5][6]

  On 15 June 2010, Judge Ronald Brown sentenced Vargas to 9 years in prison. He is currently being held at Solano State Prison in Vacaville, California.[citation needed]
  References

  Fagan, Kevin (21 February 2010). "Town backs slaying suspect who tells of abuse". San Francisco Chronicle.
  Nisbet, Robert (28 May 2010). "Judge Decide in US Paedophile Shooting". Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  Naimah Jabali-Nash (16 June 2010). "Vigilante Aaron Vargas, Who Killed His Alleged Molester, Gets Nine Years in Prison". CBS News. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  "Exclusive: Aaron Vargas Regrets Killing Alleged Abuser". 21 May 2010. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
  Maria L. La Ganga (12 June 2010). "A killing unlocks a devastating secret". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2 June 2011.

  Mike Celizic (8 April 2010). "Town rallies around accused killer of molester". MSNBC. Archived from the original on 10 July 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2010.

  Template:Persondata

  This article "Manslaughter of Darrell Rae McNeill" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

• 11. Town rallies around accused killer of molester

  • 20110710
  • News article
  • Today

  • original
  • archived
  • back to list

  Usually, when someone who’s been a mainstay of a community gets shot and killed in his own home, there’s a public outcry to bring his killer to justice. But not in the idyllic Pacific Coast town of Fort Bragg, Calif., where the citizenry has risen up in support of the man who pulled the trigger.

  Aaron Vargas has been in jail ever since Feb. 8, 2009, when police say he shot and killed Darrell McNeill, the man he alleges sexually abused him when he was just 11 years old. After the shooting, 12 other men came forward to say that McNeill, a former Boy Scout leader and popular member of the community, had also abused them. Some had reported the abuse but law enforcement officials took no action.

  When the truth came out, the town rallied behind the 32-year-old Vargas. Citizens held demonstrations demanding that he be freed from jail. T-shirts supporting his cause are being sold, with the proceeds going to his legal defense. Cars sport bumper stickers supporting him. Even McNeill’s widow is defending Vargas.

  “They understand the situation, and they know Aaron to be a very kind and gentle person and that he doesn’t deserve to be locked up,” Vargas’ sister, Mindy Galliani, told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira Thursday in New York.

  ‘He’s a victim’
  The Mendocino County prosecutor, who initially wanted to push for first-degree murder and 50 years in prison for Vargas, has changed her mind after the outpouring of support for him. This week, Vargas was offered and accepted a deal in which he was to plead no contest Thursday afternoon to voluntary manslaughter.

  TODAY
  Aaron Vargas will plead no contest to killing Darrell McNeill, in exchange for a light sentence.

  In exchange, he will receive a relatively short sentence — perhaps as little as the time he’s already served, and certainly no longer than six years. Sentencing will be in two months.

  Galliani thinks her older brother should be released immediately.

  “It just doesn’t make sense to me to punish someone who has been put through hell for 20 years,” she said. “He’s a victim, and he’s not a danger to the community. He’s a very kind and caring person. Why torture him anymore? Why continue the abuse? Leaving him in jail is continuing the abuse.”

  Years of abuse
  Galliani said that Vargas was a happy child until McNeill took him on a fishing trip to Oregon when he was 11. McNeill began abusing Vargas on that trip and the boy became withdrawn and unhappy.

  “I saw drastic changes in Aaron. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew something was really wrong with him. He was in so much pain,” Galliani said. “He withdrew from his friends, from the family. He was sad and angry. You could just see it in his eyes. He was in pain.”

  TODAY
  Former Boy Scout leader Darrell McNeill abused Aaron Vargas starting at age 11, Vargas alleges.

  The abuse allegedly continued into adulthood. As an adult, unable to shake off McNeill’s control, Vargas continued a sexual relationship with him. Four years ago, he broke it off, but McNeill wouldn’t leave him alone, calling him incessantly and stopping at his house in an effort to reestablish the relationship.

  Galliani has said that after Vargas got engaged and became a father, McNeill offered to baby-sit his daughter. Afraid that his daughter would become the predator’s next victim, Vargas confronted him.

  “I believe that McNeill had mental control over Aaron. It was like he was holding him mentally captive for 20 years. Aaron could not escape him. He was a scared little boy around McNeill,” Galliani told Vieira.

  “I think Aaron became a parent and it put into perspective what was done to him and how horrible it was. And I think he felt his child was in danger and his child was going to be next.”

  Fateful confrontation
  Vargas has not said whether he intended to kill the 63-year-old McNeill, or just scare him a year ago February when he went to McNeill’s trailer home to confront him. Vargas brought with him a .44 caliber replica of a Civil War cap-and-ball revolver. He had the gun out when McNeill answered the door. After a brief exchange of words, the gun went off, the bullet striking McNeill in the chest.

  More from TODAY.com
  7 seductive meals for a successful date night

  Show your soon-to-be significant other why you’re way sweeter (and more useful) than the other suitors with these date-night dishes.
  The price of 14 kids? $15K a month for octuplet mom
  Wearing jeans many days in a row: Normal or not?
  Prosthetic helps golf prodigy, 10, drive ball 200 yards
  Great homes for less than $300K

  McNeill’s wife, Liz, was home at the time. According to police, as McNeill lay dying, Vargas told her not to call 911. He waited a half hour for McNeill to die.

  “After he shot Darrell, he told him something to the effect of, ‘You’re not going to hurt anyone again,’ and then he told me all about how Darrell abused him as a child,” McNeill told The San Francisco Chronicle. “I was shocked at all of this. He told me he wasn’t going to hurt me, but I was never scared. I knew he wouldn’t.”

  Liz McNeill would also learn that among her husband’s victim was her own son — McNeill’s stepson.

  “I think he went there with the intention to scare him to leave him and his family alone,” Galliani said. “Whether or not the gun went off accidentally, that will be discussed at the next hearing.”

  Vigilante justice?
  People are calling it a case of vigilante justice, a man taking action when the authorities did nothing.

  TODAY
  Aaron Vargas’ sister, Mindy Galliani, said that imprisoning her brother would be “continuing the abuse.”

  “I still wouldn’t put that label on it,” Galliani said. “Aaron wasn’t seeking revenge. He’s not a vengeful person at all. It’s really not a case of vigilantism. The post-traumatic stress disorder that he has and the harassment and the stalking and the risk of his child being abused, that’s not vigilantism to me — that’s just a desperate man who’s trying to protect his daughter and himself.”

  It’s not that complicated, she said. “I think he just wants people to know that he’s been through hell and he hit his breaking point. He feels for all the other victims. He feels for the McNeills. He just wants help. He’s crying out for help.”

  What’s most sad is that none of it had to happen, she said.

  “He probably never would have been abused in the first place if something would have been done when it was first reported, and other victims would have been spared, also,” Galliani said.