Another long-unsolved bombing

I can empathize with the Holloman family and Gary Holloman's 30-year quest to bring his wife's murderers to justice (Feb. 5 and 6, Page A-1).

It seems that when a law enforcement agency couldn't solve a crime back then, their fallback was to blame the victims. In December 1978 when my father and I discovered a pipe bomb in our car, after completing their investigation, the best explanation that the Modesto Police Department could come up with was to suggest that he put the bomb in the car himself. In April 1979, he was killed when a bomb in his car exploded on Highway 99 through Ceres while he was on his way home from a friend's house.

Justice has not come for our family, either; after the investigation by the Ceres Police Department, no one has ever been arrested or convicted of his murder. It has always been difficult for me to understand how some people can live with their secrets for so long and go about their lives as if nothing was wrong with what they did. Our family's lives were forever changed. I sometimes wonder what our lives might have been like had he lived. My brothers and I were left parentless; my mother had died just seven months before my father. Both were missed at weddings, the births of their grandchildren and now their great- grandchildren. Life has gone on, but I will never forget, and I still hope that someday those responsible for my father's death will be brought to justice.

VANESSA BOTTERON MONN Turlock