Longo slayings still pain community.

Byline: LARRY BACON The Register-Guard

WALDPORT - People here haven't forgotten the Longo children and their mother. The fresh white rose in the blue vase on the Highway 34 bridge across Lint Slough provides mute testimony to that.

It was a year ago today that the body of 4-year-old Zachery Michael Longo, clad only in his underwear, surfaced in the slough near the bridge. His sister, 3-year-old Sadie Ann Longo, was found in a rock-weighted sleeping bag in the same dark waters three days later.

When there was just one unidentified dead child, residents clung to the hope that it might have been an accident - that the boy with the angelic face may have somehow wandered away while visiting a grandparent, who became too anguished to report him missing. But when the little girl was discovered, the awful truth began to dawn.

Someone had killed the beautiful children. The nightmare turned even uglier Dec. 27 when the bodies of the two children's mother, MaryJane Longo, 34, and their 2-year-old sister, Madison Jeanne, were found in submerged suitcases on the Newport waterfront. Early the next month, Christian Longo was arrested in Mexico and brought back to Newport to face aggravated murder charges for the killings of his wife and children.

His trial is set for Feb. 17. Longo, now 28, faces the possibility of the death penalty.

The horrible fate of the mother and children stunned Lincoln County residents and cast a pall over their holidays last year. In Waldport, residents conducted a Christmas Eve candlelight vigil on the bridge, which became stacked with flowers and balloons and toys left in memory of the Longo children.

"Christmas last year was very subdued and low key," Waldport Mayor Scott Beckstead remembers. "The Longo murders deeply affected Waldport. I think we still see lingering effects among members of this community."

Presbyterian Pastor Jim Howe walks across the bridge each day on his way to his church. And on each crossing of the slough, he says, he thinks about the Longo children. Throughout the year, he said, people have continued to leave flowers even though highway officials have discouraged it.

To Howe, the slough remains a beautiful and peaceful place despite being the site of such horrific discoveries. He often pauses to enjoy the slough's beauty and to think about the children.

"There are herons and kingfishers and otters and ospreys there sometimes," he says.

No ceremonies or services are planned in Lincoln County today to take notice of the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the terrible series of events, "but they are definitely etched in our memory," Howe said.

He plans to mention the Longo children in the sermon he has prepared for a Christmas Eve service. But the tragic nature of their deaths will not be the focus of his remarks. Instead, he will speak of the sacred nature of children and the wonder and joy they bring to mankind.

Beckstead said the loss of the Longo children, who lived for a time with their parents in Waldport before they moved to Newport, has helped bring the community together and create a sense of kinship. "It's like these children didn't belong to any of us, so therefore they belonged to all of us," he said.

Christmas this year, the mayor said, will not be as difficult for Waldport residents. But the loss of the mother and her children will be on people's minds. He predicts the upcoming trial will provide a sense of closure. "But I think it will be an event that will always be remembered in this town," Beckstead said.

And that's only right, says Tedd Larsen, a father of two young girls and owner of a bakery and deli. "To me, if we forget these kids, I feel like we would be writing them off," he said.

Earlier this year, Larsen and another local minister, the Rev. Aaron Gushwa, looked for some way to honor the lives of the Longo children with a permanent remembrance. They secured the donation of a slate plaque that Larsen said will be mounted on a marker in Veterans Memorial Park early next year. "In memory of the Longo children," the plaque says. "They are safe in His arms."

In smaller letters are these words from the Bible (Matthew, 19:14): "Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.' '

Larsen hopes to invite the family of MaryJane Longo and her children to a dedication for the marker. He also helped establish a Longo Children's Memorial Fund shortly after the deaths. The original purpose was to help pay the expense of returning the bodies to Michigan for burial, but the money was not needed, he said.

On Tuesday, he wrote out a check for the $400 that was raised to My Sisters' Place in Newport, an organization that helps Lincoln County victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

It seemed like the proper place to send the money, Larsen said. Maybe it can feed a few people at Christmas time or put a couple of extra gifts under a tree for some needy kids, he said.

Larsen plans to keep the fund going - collecting what he can to provide donations in the name of the Longo children as the years pass to benefit My Sisters' Place because it's the kind of agency that perhaps could have helped MaryJane Longo and her children if things had gone differently.

"If this can help even one person from this happening to them, it's worth the legwork," he said.

There was no vindictiveness or anger expressed toward murder suspect Christian Longo among several people interviewed in Waldport on Wednesday - only that justice be served and that Longo, if convicted, gets what he deserves.

And that need not be the death penalty, Howe said.

"Personally, I would be just as happy with a life sentence," he said. "It may be best for somebody like him to spend his life in jail."

Another person's hope for the final chapter of the Longo saga was expressed in three words written on a tag next to a spray of rain-washed plastic flowers tied with a ribbon to the Lint Slough Bridge. "Justice for Madison," the writing said.

MY SISTERS' PLACE

Donations in the name of MaryJane Longo and her children may be sent to P.O. Box 2152, Newport, OR 97365, or call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

Associated Press Photos of MaryJane Longo and her children were part of a makeshift memorial erected in Newport in January. "I think we still see lingering effects among members of this community." - SCOTT BECKSTEAD, Waldport mayor MY SISTERS' PLACE A DOMESTIC & SEXUAL VIOLENCE PREVENTION & INTERVENTION PROGRAM Donations in the name of the MaryJane Longo and her children may be sent to: P.O. Box 2152 Newport OR 97365 [phone] MY SISTERS' PLACE Donations in the name of MaryJane Longo and her children may be sent to P.O. Box 2152, Newport, OR 97365, or call [phone].