SOMBER ANNIVERSARY; PAIN LINGERS FOR FAMILY AFTER WOMAN'S KILLING.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

Life is celebrated in the Cavaletto home.

Lemon and avocado trees covering 50 acres have produced buckets of nature's bounty since Al and Elaine Cavaletto put down roots to farm in the rural Las Posas Valley some 41 years ago.

The three Cavaletto children raised countless farm animals through the local 4-H Club. More than a dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren now keep the home buzzing during visits and on holidays.

This spring, a new garden is beginning to bloom in the Cavalettos' back yard - planted with flowers from their daughter Monica's funeral a year ago.

Tuesday is the first anniversary of the day Monica Lynne Leech was shot execution-style at the end of a takeover robbery at the Western Financial Bank branch in Thousand Oaks, where the mother of two was working as a teller. The two masked gunmen walked away with $9,000.

``We're reminded of it constantly,'' said Elaine Cavaletto, a former bank teller herself. ``The holidays were very hard to get through because of the fact that we spent a lot of time together.''

``Every time there's a bank robbery, we wonder if they're the ones,'' Al Cavaletto said. ``I still think that someday they will be caught. When that will be, who knows? I have to feel that way, that they are just not going to get away with it.''

Despite a reward of $174,000 and hundreds of tips - including a partial license plate and a description of the white sport-utility vehicle used to get away - the FBI and Ventura County Sheriff's Department haven't been able to gather enough evidence to make an arrest.

Authorities confirmed they believe three people - members of a Los Angeles street gang - were involved in the robbery.

``There is a group of gang members that we believe did this. We don't have any positive identifications on any suspects,'' said Capt. Bill Montijo, who heads the sheriff's detective bureau. ``We know there are witnesses and friends of the suspects out there. It takes a lot of different things to motivate people and maybe cash will get people to speak.''

Montijo noted that two sheriff's detectives continue to pursue the case daily. ``They dig every day on it.''

Floyd Leech is sure authorities are doing their best to arrest the men who killed his wife. ``We all want to see it come to end. We all want to see these guys off the street.''

Although nearly a year has passed, Leech said he isn't frustrated with the fact no arrests have been made. Staying informed as much as possible on the investigation's progress helps.

``They told me they would answer my questions whenever I call, and they do,'' said Leech, service manager for a Camarillo auto care shop. ``They give you some insight into what's going on. I leave with an understanding that they're working on this case daily and that they will solve this.''

Lasting impact

Measuring by the hundreds of cards bearing sympathetic words and thoughts Leech and his wife's family have received, many others who never knew Monica Leech also are keen on seeing the case solved.

The brutal slaying had an impact that won't easily fade.

The three other tellers working inside the tiny storefront branch when it was robbed have all left banking, said authorities and an official for Western Financial Bank.

Bank officials are preparing a subdued memorial for Monica Leech at the branch on Tuesday. An area will be set aside for flowers and other items left in her memory, said Mike Johnson, executive vice president of administration and marketing for the Irvine-based bank.

``Our company has always prided itself on its feeling of family. So this was clearly something that the bank encountered together,'' Johnson explained.

``She certainly was a valued employee, and we will remember her in that way,'' he said. ``I think it will be a private moment. This has been a long healing process for us.''

To help deal with the pain, Floyd Leech said he will be with family members in the Seattle area on Tuesday.

``I go through periods where I don't want to be around anybody. I go through periods where I want to be around other people,'' he explained. ``It's a giant emotional roller coaster still.

``There's times you start remembering some good thoughts and start feeling happy and then you feel guilty for feeling happy.''

Al and Elaine Cavaletto only know that sometime on Tuesday they will visit their daughter's grave at Conejo Mountain Memorial Park in Camarillo.

``It's hard to go. We're still kind of struggling,'' Elaine said. ``I don't think enough time has passed to make it easier. It still is very much in the forefront in all of our minds.''

The Cavalettos hope their daughter's children, 14-year-old Andrew and 11-year-old Stephanie, will come down from their upper Ojai home to join them Tuesday. The children now live with their father, Jeff Mince, from whom Monica Leech was divorced in 1986.

``These kids lived with us after Monica divorced. These kids consider this their home,'' Elaine Cavaletto said. ``We see them about every three weeks. It has not been easy.''

Close-knit family

The Cavaletto family's strength has always been togetherness, and Monica often was the closest to home.

After graduating from Rio Mesa High School in 1975, she attended Ventura College before taking her first banking job at the Bank of A. Levy. She started in the County Center branch in Ventura and later worked at branches in Port Hueneme and Oxnard.

Surviving a series of bank mergers, she was working for Home Savings of America when a former colleague suggested she apply for a teller's post at Western Financial Bank. Elaine Cavaletto recalls that she was essentially hired over the phone, reflecting her credentials in community banking.

``Monica gave special service to people. She had a knack,'' her mother said.

Even as others left the business in the wake of mergers that Elaine Cavaletto contends sapped personal service from banking, Monica Leech hung on. Her mother retired from Citizens Bank of Santa Paula in January following a merger, ending 36 years in the banking business.

``And she had talked about going back to school and doing something in the medical field,'' Elaine Cavaletto said.

``But one of the main reasons she didn't was that she spent a lot of time with her children,'' she recalled. ``Her family really meant a lot to her.''

Al Cavaletto beams with pride when recalling his daughter as both a mother and bank professional. He said her last job was the best because it was the type of small, personal banking she enjoyed.

``It was amazing after she died the people that came up to us and said we only banked at that bank because of Monica,'' Al Cavaletto recalled.

``There's a lot of strangers that wrote us and contacted us that we haven't had a chance to thank,'' he added.

Those comforting cards, mostly from people who didn't know Monica Leech and yet shared in the grief over her death, are mounted on bright-colored paper and bound in three white binders that one day will be given to her children.

``I think it's important that when they get older they can know their mother through the comments of other people,'' Elaine Cavaletto said.

Rather than dwell on their daughter's senseless killing, they remember the love and joy that marked her 39 years.

So Al and Elaine Cavaletto often go into the back yard and look over the large plot where daffodils stand tall and other blooms are starting to show under a deep purple plum tree.

``We call it Monica's garden because Monica loved flowers,'' her mother noted. ``It's just kind of a good place to come out and sit.''

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Photo

PHOTO (Color) Elaine and Al Cavaletto hold a picture of their daughter, shooting victim Monica Lynne Leech.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News