LOUIS Bostich went to Mt. Shasta and prayed.
Sober for about a year, he found himself reaching for the bottle again. And he knew why. It was the same reason he drank away a promising Navy career, a string of other respectable jobs and his only meaningful relationships.
He was thinking of what he did to Jami Vitteli.
Bostich never told anyone what happened. Not his father, who raised him after his mother died of an aneurism when he was 5. Not his friends or U.S. Navy shipmates.
He began drinking himself to sleep. His addiction didn't go unnoticed. When he tried to reenlist, the Navy said no, sending him on his way with an honorable discharge.
Trained as an electrician, Bostich sought jobs that allowed him to work in virtual isolation and drift from place to place. Over the years, he was a technician for Southern California Edison in San Diego, a pipe fitter in Long Beach and general hand at a small sawmill in Washington state.
He donated money and time to charities, working for such outfits as Habitat for Humanity, hoping somehow it might balance out the events of that dreadful night in Huntington Beach. It didn't.
Sitting behind security glass at Orange County's Theo Lacy Jail, Bostich recently shared his story about that night, admitting that some details had been lost to years of hard drinking.
\o7He's at Perqs, a bar in Huntington Beach. It's Memorial Day weekend, 1987. He's on leave from his Navy ship, the frigate Roark stationed in San Diego. The place is crowded. He \f7\o7had gone \f7\o7there alone, the second or third joint that night. She is standing in a group near him. Her dark hair is long and thick, and she carries a few extra pounds. Not his type. But they strike up a conversation. She's intelligent and friendly. An artist. That's what draws him in. \f7\o7
They talk for a while, mostly about art. Bostich had sketched as a kid and thought one day he might become an artist. At some point, she asks him whether he\o7's\f7 interested in trying the latest fad drug. Intrigued, he follows her outside. He doesn't want to risk getting caught doing it in the open. So they head to her place, a few blocks away.
\f7ALWAYS something of a free spirit, Jami Vitteli had left home on Long Island, N.Y., midway through college, planning to transfer to a California school to finish her degree in communications.
