Santa Barbara County

Seeing images of their slain son's duct tape-bound body projected on a courtroom screen, the parents of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz sobbed Tuesday as a prosecutor urged a jury to find Jesse James Hollywood guilty in his death. "Justice has waited nine years," Joshua Lynn told the jurors. "The time has come." The dramatic moment came on the first day of closing arguments in the case, which was the basis for the 2007 film "Alpha Dog."

In a dramatic second day on the witness stand, Jesse James Hollywood denied ordering the execution of a 15-year-old West Hills boy to avenge a $1,200 drug debt owed by the boy's older half-brother. At least a dozen times, the 29-year-old former marijuana dealer told a Santa Barbara County Superior Court jury how much he regretted the events that led to the 2000 death of Nicholas Markowitz, who was shot nine times and buried in the Santa Barbara foothills.

With his love of old-time Hollywood glamour, showy art and showmanship, Michael Jackson would probably have welcomed his family's announcement Tuesday that his remains will be interred in the star-laden, sculpture-speckled confines of Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale. Jackson will be interred Aug. 29, which would have been his 51st birthday, in an intimate morning service for family and friends in the expansive cemetery's Great Mausoleum, according to a statement from the family publicist.

Milder-than-expected winds Thursday allowed firefighters to make some progress against the Jesusita fire, gaining 10% containment by nightfall. But late in the day, officials also expanded the evacuation area to the west, explaining that the wildfire was still spreading and remained unpredictable. "The fire is going to go where it wants to go. We have to anticipate that," said Drew Sugars, a Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department spokesman.

It may be picturesque, but this upscale village of red-tile roofs and stunning seascapes is sending a huge number of lost souls to the county morgue. Bodies show up on the beach, in parks, along railroad tracks and in the heart of the business district, steps from four-star restaurants and boutique hotels. Sometimes it's murder. Usually it's a case of used-up bodies giving out under the swaying palms. "We just had another one," Santa Barbara County social worker Ken Williams told me Thursday morning.

Until the evacuation orders were lifted at 10 a.m. Sunday, Paul Reide held out hope that his home on tidy, tree-lined Montrose Place in the foothills north of downtown Santa Barbara had survived last week's devastating Jesusita fire. Less than 30 minutes later, the tall, silver-haired retired salesman stood forlornly on a block of concrete that was once the foyer of the 3,000-square-foot tri-level home he liked to call "a quiet little paradise."

Narcotics agents said Tuesday they had little doubt that the nearly 90,000-acre La Brea fire was started by Mexican drug traffickers who were tending a large, sophisticated marijuana farm planted on the side of a mountain. The growers apparently fled as firefighters approached the source of the fire and are still at large, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said. Their abandoned site was similar to other illicit plots planted by Mexican nationals and discovered by drug agents in recent years.

An adventurous spirit, Angelo Crippa often foraged for wild mushrooms in the hills above Santa Barbara. But the 82-year-old's lifelong hobby turned tragic when he mistakenly picked the wrong ones in a wooded park near Arroyo Burro Beach, sauteing them with a steak for what would be his last meal. Crippa died a week ago at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, seven days after he ate a heaping plate of the deadly Amanita ocreata mushrooms, said his wife, Joan Crippa.

As the Jesusita fire raged around Santa Barbara this week, Mitchell Sjerven decided to temporarily close his Seagrass restaurant near the normally bustling State Street. The move to shutter the elegant "coastal cuisine" spot, where a "surf-and-turf" entree costs $48, could cost thousands of dollars.

Santa Barbara County supervisors this week began a crackdown on oil companies that repeatedly spill fuel, asking staff to draft legislation that would increase penalties, make companies pay for the emergency response and give the county the tools to shut down repeat offenders. The tough plans were prompted by the many complaints that supervisors heard Tuesday during a four-hour hearing on the Greka Energy Corp., a Santa Maria-based company with fields in northern Santa Barbara County.