The puzzle seemed to be taking shape pretty quickly a fortnight ago.
We knew for sure that Gary Holdren, a 54-year-old medical device
salesman, lay critically injured and comatose in a Mission Hospital bed.
And Newport Beach police detectives were as certain as it gets -- sans
eyewitnesses -- that Holdren had been felled March 24 by a hail of
paint-ball pellets as he skated along a Back Bay bicycle path.
The evidence seemed to indicate as much. Police found paint bursts on
the path near where Holdren lay. Holdren's right eye was swollen,
indicating he had been struck in the face with one of the projectiles.
And at least two witnesses reported seeing a trio of young males toting
paint-ball guns in and around the immediate area about the time Holdren
was allegedly ambushed. And so for the better part of 16 days, the
police and the community have been on the hunt for this band of young
assailants. They have yet to turn up, and curiously so.
Why? Because since the first day following the incident the picture of
what happened to Holdren has only grown murky. Two days after being
declared brain dead -- his body harvested for organs to save others --
the Orange County coroner reported that it found no evidence Holdren had
been struck with anything, let alone paint-ball pellets. His swollen eye,
it turns out, was caused by the internal injuries to his brain when he
fell.
The results, strangely, had Newport Beach police in a full-scale
backpedal Monday. "There was no evidence that Mr. Holdren was struck by a
paint ball or that he suffered any direct injury from a paint-ball
strike," Newport Beach Police Sgt. Steve Shulman told the Daily Pilot.
"We're still actively investigating what led to his injuries."
The news, said Bonita Young, Holdren's girlfriend, left her "surprised
and confused." Me too. And very skeptical. I mean, how can the fine
detectives of the Newport Beach Police Department be so certain about
what felled Holdren a day after the incident (indeed, certain enough to
disseminate the theory to the media), and yet so thoroughly and publicly
uncertain as to the cause two weeks later?
I suspect something else is up, and it has to do with the missing
three. If we parse what's really going on here, I'm convinced the police
still believe -- as do I -- that Holdren's fall was the direct result of
several paint balls exploding near him as he skated along the Back Bay
path. It's either that scenario or the city's gumshoes so thoroughly
