SAN FRANCISCO — Tanya Tilghman moved to the Bay Area as a teenager to live with her mother. She later married, had two sons, and made a home in San Francisco’s historic Italian neighborhood of North Beach, above the tourist and financial centers.

Even when her marriage fell apart, she never considered leaving. This was her city, her people. Liberal like her, with a mix of income levels and an overall sense of community. She wasn’t worried about her growing boys taking to the streets, where she herself always felt safe.

But those streets have changed, she says. She believes actions by city hall and even groups helping the homeless have exacerbated some of the problems and the community she once felt a part of has disappeared, she says. And her son got caught up in a scene that’s hard to ignore in the city: the drug scene.

Tilghman said Roman Vardanega first tried illegal drugs early in high school when he took a prescription drug at a friend’s house.

He quickly became addicted, his mother said, and then switched to cocaine, heroin, and later fentanyl, all of which were available in the city’s seedy Tenderloin area.

Tilghman admits she was uninformed, even naïve, about the proliferation of hard drugs. But it wasn’t something she encountered every day. Then “I think it’s a lot worse now than it was when I was growing up here,” she said. “When I was a teenager we always came to the Tenderloin because we thought it was just fun and quirky and I never felt insecure as a teenager. But I also don’t remember people coming up to me and asking if I wanted to buy drugs.

One of her first clues that her son was deeply involved was when she accompanied him on a tour of City Hall while he was at school. It was a few blocks from the Tenderloin, and some of the homeless people on the street knew him by name, like he’d been out there hanging out with them a lot — and that’s exactly what he did by collecting his drugs.

She tried to help. Vardanega spent 11th grade in rehab but persuaded his mother to let him return. She welcomed him home, but so did the streets.

By this time, their neighborhood had changed, and drugs seemed freely available even when they rode the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system home.

“The first thing I got asked when I walked out of the BART station was if I wanted to buy drugs,” Tilghman said. The ease of getting and using drugs made the city a dangerous and sometimes deadly playground for people like her son.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Vardanega began living on the streets full-time. The city was shut down, residents left or stayed indoors, and at the height of the pandemic, more people died from drug overdoses than from Covid-19.

“Everyone in town started putting up tents,” Tilghman said. “The outdoor drug market got a lot worse. And so it became easier for him to buy drugs and use them outdoors.”

And what Tilghman found puzzling was that the city just seemed to be looking the other way.

“The city’s policies absolutely harmed my son, it harmed us, and it caused him, I would say, to fall into his addiction a lot more,” she said.

“If you get caught for drugs, you most likely won’t go to jail, the cops would just let you go,” she said. “That made things worse, especially for my son because he’s very young and he’s still in that party mood.”

Tilghman’s state of mind was focused on one goal: finding her son. She knew he was addicted. She knew she loved him so much it hurt. And she knew that she wouldn’t stop looking until she found him, even if it put her in danger.

She walked the streets looking at things that most people tried to avoid and looked straight into the eyes of the people who lived on the streets. Sometimes she got blank looks back. Sometimes a sympathetic ear or a hopeful hint as to where her son might be.

She didn’t find him, but so many people were like him. “What makes me sad is seeing my son’s face on everyone’s faces … out on the street,” Tilghman said.

When Covid broke out, many residents started disappearing and the tent cities exploded on the sidewalks along with the drugs, the addictions and the signs of mental illness.

Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the city to set up a “liaison center” at the Tenderloin, touted as a place for addicts to seek services that can help them.

When it opened in January 2022, Tilghman hoped it might be a place her son would find himself in, and one day she went to have a look. When she got there, she heard blaring music and tried to peek inside.

“I saw people doing drugs. I could not believe it. I think this is a place where people should get help. And they actually do drugs?” Tilghman said.

A little later she pretended to be an addict and went to the center to take a closer look.

“I told them I wanted to quit drugs and that I needed help,” she said. “And they laughed at me. And the guy at the door said, ‘We can help you use drugs. But if you need help with drug recovery, you have to come back tomorrow,'” Tilghman said.

The center had an area intended to treat overdoses, but it became known as a place for taking drugs and not for other services.

“The most disturbing thing… was that the damage reduction area was more like a party scene,” Tilghman said. “If my son went there for services because he’s a drug addict, if he saw a party scene where people were dancing and singing and taking drugs and most likely selling drugs there, there just wouldn’t be an option for him to access it.” Because he was so distracted and excited that he went and used it.”

In her opinion, the city’s laissez-faire philosophy had simply gone too far.

“If you walk into a store and steal less than $1,000 worth of merchandise and get away with it, that’s going way too far,” she said. “It’s going too far when you could smoke crack in front of a cop and the cop just looks at you and doesn’t even arrest you.”

The struggle to save her son was wearing her down. Not once, but three times, Tilghman says she was so depressed and so hopeless that she attempted suicide.

The situation is beginning to change, both for Tilghman personally and perhaps for her town.

The Tenderloin Linkage Center, later renamed the Tenderloin Center, closed last December. Tilghman has found new support and a mission working with Mothers Against Drug Addiction and Deaths. A new district attorney took office after the previous one was removed by constituents who perceived him as soft-spoken about crime. Tilghman’s son Vardanega got into trouble with the law, served a prison sentence and was sent to a court-ordered rehab program.

For Tilghman, incarceration is a good thing for him — it keeps him alive, off the streets, and gives him a chance in a treatment program.

For them, San Francisco is still beautiful – with the Golden Gate Bridge, the Presidio and Fisherman’s Wharf, the Italian enclave of North Beach. But it’s gotten even scarier, and she thinks part of the blame lies with the politicians whose job it is to clean up the streets.

“I’m liberal,” Tilghman said. “My politics have stayed the same and things have gone crazy around me.”

The post ‘I see my son’s face in everyone’s faces; Heartbroken mom believes San Francisco’s decline claimed her son appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The handyman lover of a married Queens mom claimed he killed her because he thought she had given him HIV during their two year affair and tossed her laptop into the Hudson river because it had explicit videos.

David Bonola, 44, of Queens, was arraigned on Tuesday on a 13-count indictment for the April 16 murder of Orsolya Gaal, 51, who was stabbed 58 times in her basement and stuffing the body in a duffle bag while her son was upstairs .

According to the court documents, when detectives questions him on April 20, Bonoal allegedly claimed Gaal was cheating on him and that, ‘She gave me HIV,’ the New York Post reported.

‘She lied to me, she used me. She told me that she loved me. She couldn’t be with one person.

‘I took her laptop because she had sex videos on the laptop,’ he added. ‘I threw her laptop in the Hudson River where I used to visit her.’

Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael Aloise charged Bonola with two counts of murder in the second degree, two counts of burglary in the first degree, concealment of a human corpse, tampering with physical evidence and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree.

If convicted, the handyman faces up to 25 years-to-life in prison.

David Bonola (above), 44, of Queens, was arranged on Tuesday on a 13-count indictment for the April 16 murder of Orsolya Gaal, 51

Gaal, a mother of two, was found in a duffle bag in the middle of the street in Queens. Police said she had been brutally stabbed nearly 60 times

He allegedly told police that he went to her home on the night of the murder because he believed she had given him HIV during their two-year affair

If convicted, the handyman faces up to 25 years-to-life in prison

Prosecutors said Gaal had returned to her home in Forest Hills on April 16, at around 12:30 am, when Bonola went into the house just a few minutes later.

Bonola, who had worked as Gaal’s handyman for the last two years and had an affair with the mother of two, got into an argument with her and went on to slash her throat while they were in the basement, according to the charges.

NYPD officials said Bonola had gone over to the home in an attempt to resurrect the affair as the relationship had come to ‘the end’.

According to the statements from the April 20 interrogation, Bonola also confronted Gaal about the HIV claim.

‘I told her that I just wanted her to tell me the truth about why she gave me HIV,’ Bonola told police. ‘She said she didn’t have HIV.’

When Gaal told him the affair was over, he said she grabbed a knife and ordered him to leave, but Bonola told the police he refused.

‘I grabbed the knife and cut her from the neck,’ Bonola allegedly told the police. ‘She kept fighting and we fall. She was moving and trying to grab me so I stabbed her in the neck to get her to stop attacking me.’

Prosecutors said he went on to stab her 58 times before grabbing one of her son’s hockey duffle bags and stuffing her body inside. Gaal’s 13-year-old son, Leo, was asleep upstairs when the murder allegedly took place.

Her husband, Howard Klein, and oldest son, Jamie, were out of town looking at colleges.

Video outside the home shows Bonola rolling the bag through the quiet neighborhood before police discovered it near Forest Park at around 8 am

Prosecutors said police were able to trail the blood from the duffle bag to Gaal’s home, where the found the knife hidden in the house as well as Bonola’s jacket.

After he was arrested and questioned, Bonola allegedly admitted to police that he stabbed Gaal and moved her body, according to court records.

He also admitted to going to the hospital for a deep cuts he suffered on his hands.

In a statement following the indictment, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said: ‘This heinous murder left two teenagers without a mother and terrified an entire community.

‘As alleged, this defendant brutally stabbed the victim over 50 times before stuffing her body into a duffel bag – which he then dragged for several blocks in an attempt to dispose of the victim’s remains.

‘The defendant has now been indicted and arraigned on very serious charges and faces a lengthy prison sentence if convicted.’

Bonola had allegedly gone to the home on April 16, just after midnight, to try and rekindle a two-year affair he was having with Gaal

This is believed to be Orsolya Gaal’s killer, dragging her body along the sidewalk after slashing her throat and stabbing her nearly 60 times in her basement

Police found the murder weapon (above) hidden inside Gaal’s house along with Bonola’s jacket

The criminal complaint charging Bonola cites both surveillance video footage and his own ‘statements and admissions’ as evidence in the case against him.

Bonola, who hails from Mexico and had moved to the US more than 20 years ago, was arrested on Thursday.

Police sources who spoke with the New York Post say he spilled his guts in an entirely ‘matter of fact’ manner – and then proceeded to eat a bagel with cream cheese as if nothing had happened.

‘It was very matter of fact, very thorough, he answered every question they had,’ a police source told the newspaper. At no point did he request a lawyer.

Then, as he was put in a police car on Thursday in front of journalists asking why he killed her, he screamed: ‘F**k you motherf****r!’

Bonola and the victim first started seeing each other in 2020 after he worked in the family home where Gaal lived with her 53-year-old husband and two sons. It was an on-off relationship which they rekindled in April, but which had recently ended again.

According to NYPD sources, Bonola had gone over to the home in an attempt to resurrect the affair after it had come to ‘the end’.

‘A heated argument ensues between the two in the basement. A knife is brandished. A violent struggle ensues, resulting in our victim being stabbed ruthlessly and brutally in excess of 55 times, causing her demise,’ NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig explained.

He then retrieved her son’s hockey bag and waited until 4am, then wheeled her body out of the home and dumped it less than half a mile away. He also sent a text to Klein, Gaal’s husband, claiming to have been someone she once sent to jail in a failed attempt to throw police off his scent.

The 51-year-old mother of two allegedly let Bonola inside the home on April 16

Gaal with her sons, 17-year-old Jamie and 13-year-old Leo, and husband Howard Klein on Christmas Eve in 2021. Let was in the home at the time of the murder

Bonola had worked as a handyman in Gaal’s home for two years. He was often seen in his neighborhood riding his bike and playing music

Those living and working near Bonola’s 114th Street home described him as being something of a ‘night owl’.

He was often seen riding his bike and playing music, sometimes carrying a guitar. the man as being a ‘night owl.’

Bonola had been married once before and had two sons of his own with a woman who had later died. A local said that Bonola had also served in the Mexican army.

‘What’s the sense of this? I don’t know the reason why he did it. She’s gone,’ Richie, a worker at 7-11 told Fox News. ‘What did he accomplish?’

A local florist, Martin Calixto, said that Bonola would often stop by and buy a single red rose each and every time. He even recognized Gaal from photos that Bonola had showed him in the past.

‘He was very in love with her. He was talking about her as a very nice girl, very respectful. It’s hard to believe. He was a nice guy, dammit. For me it’s hard to believe,’ he went on.

The post Handyman lover of married Queens mother claimed he killed her as a result of he believed she gave him HIV   appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Twitter still wants to be sold to Elon Musk, executives at the social media giant said on Thursday – despite Musk’s claim last week that the deal was ‘on hold’, and his repeated questioning of the company’s user numbers.

Hours after the discussion, claims emerged that Musk had sexually harassed a flight attendant on a SpaceX corporate jet in 2016 – and was paid $250,000 for her silence in 2018.

Musk said there was ‘a lot more to the story’ and described it as ‘a politicially-motivated hit piece’.

Asked initially why he wanted to buy Twitter, the South African billionaire said it was to promote free speech, and that he intended to ‘clean up’ Twitter, and get rid of spam and bots. Then, on Friday, he said that the $44 billion deal was ‘temporarily on hold’ until Twitter could prove that less than 5 percent of its users were fake or spam accounts.

‘This is a big deal,’ he said on Monday at a podcast summit.

‘It seems like if you said, ‘Okay, I agree to buy your house.’ You say the house has less than 5 percent termites. That’s an acceptable number. But if it turns out it is 90 percent termites, that’s not okay. It’s not the same house.’

Musk remains convinced that Twitter’s leadership is not being honest with him about the number of bots, and on Thursday tweeted a meme of an astronaut, labeled ‘Elon’, staring into the abyss and saying: ‘Wait it’s all bots?’

Another astronaut, labeled ‘Twitter Board’, holds a gun to his head and replies: ‘Always has been.’

Elon Musk, 50, has repeatedly questioned whether high numbers of Twitter users are fake accounts. On Thursday he repeated his claim that executives were lying about the data

Musk on Thursday tweeted a meme showing himself looking at the Twitter data and realizing many accounts were bots – while the Twitter board said they always knew that

Musk on Thursday afternoon insisted he was not spending an excessive amount of time on the Twitter deal

When CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted a lengthy explanation of the 5 percent figure – which was stated in company documents before Musk made his offer – the billionaire responded with a poop emoji.

Parag Agrawal, the CEO of Twitter, has insisted less than 5pc of accounts are fake

On Thursday afternoon, Musk tweeted: ‘To be clear, I’m spending <5% (but actually) of my time on the Twitter acquisition. It ain't rocket science!

‘Yesterday was Giga Texas, today is Starbase. Tesla is on my mind 24/7.’

He attached the ‘distracted man’ meme, with him distracted by Twitter, while an annoyed Tesla looked on.

‘So may seem like below, but not true,’ Musk said.

Analysts have speculated that Musk may be fixing on the issue of fake accounts as a way of withdrawing from the deal, or driving the price down.

Amid the turmoil, Insider reported on Thursday that SpaceX paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim against Musk in 2018.

The attendant worked as a member of the cabin crew on a contract basis for SpaceX’s corporate jet fleet.

She accused Musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg without consent, and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage, Insider reported.

Musk said there is ‘a lot more to this story.’

He added: ‘If I were inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely to be the first time in my entire 30-year career that it comes to light,’ calling the story a ‘politically motivated hit piece.’

Yet staff at the San Francisco-based company were told on Thursday that the deal was still going ahead, according to sources who spoke to Bloomberg.

Musk said he was still committed to the $44 billion purchase of the social media company pending an investigation into how many spam accounts are on the site

Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer, said on Thursday the deal was still going ahead

Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer and head of policy, who was in tears when she discussed Musk’s plans for the company last month, told workers at an ‘all-hands’ meeting that there is ‘no such thing as a deal being on hold. ‘

The deal will still go through for the $44 billion agreed on April 25, the executives said. The deal pegs Twitter’s shares at $54.20 each – a significant increase in their value over the last few weeks, where they have traded as low as $36.50.

Twitter stock jumped about 2 percent on the news of the meeting. Earlier the shares had declined by as much as 1.7 percent.

The stock closed on Thursday at $37.29.

Twitter’s stock rose slightly on news that executives said the deal would still proceed

Twitter’s share price has plummeted since Musk announced his offer had been accepted on April 25, amid fears he will pull out of the agreement

Gadde told employees that Musk must ‘do everything he can’ to make sure he gets his financing in order to close the deal.

She said that it’s possible Twitter could try and ‘enforce’ the terms of the deal ‘if we ever needed to do that in a court.’

She added that getting to that step would be ‘pretty rare.’

If the deal falls through, Musk must pay a $1 billion fee.

The world’s richest man, Musk is worth an estimated $210 billion – but he has lost $49 billion since his deal to buy Twitter was announced, according to Fortune. Tesla shares are now down 28 percent since Musk launched his bid to buy Twitter on April 14, causing the massive losses.

Ned Segal, Twitter’s chief financial officer, said that the gap in Twitter’s stock price and Musk’s offer was a reflection of some doubt that the deal would go through.

Musk said he could ‘in theory’ buy the company outright himself, but he has been working with investors to try and encourage them to come on board, and limit his own cash expenditure. Musk would have to sell shares in his other companies to pay for the Twitter purchase: he has sold some, but does not appear keen to sell more.

Segal said executives are still engaging with Musk and his team, and working with them ‘regularly’ throughout the process to prepare for Musk taking over.

Segal also discussed how Twitter’s board came to the decision to sell to Musk, which included an analysis of Twitter’s business projections if a deal didn’t happen.

Twitter’s annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for May 25.

The shareholder vote on whether to approve the deal with Musk will take place at a later date.

The post Twitter bosses inform workers Musk takeover IS transferring forward after he claimed app stuffed with faux customers appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The coronavirus husband who tore off his oxygen mask after hearing his wife died of the disease in another ward: Bill, 90, died just days after Mary, his 63-year-old wife

• Mary Dartnall, 90, stopped responding and went to the hospital in Southampton
• After initially things seemed to be better, Ms. Dartnall died a few days later
• Bill Dartnall took off his oxygen mask after learning of his wife’s death
• How to help people affected by Covid-19

By Henry Martin for Mailonline

Released: 4:50 AM EDT, April 29, 2020 | Updated: 11:09 AM EDT, April 29, 2020

A retiree with coronavirus died on the same day as his 63-year-old wife after she was refused treatment when he learned of her death.

Bill Dartnall, 90, took off his oxygen mask after learning of the death of his wife Mary, 81, who had also tested positive for the virus.

Mr Dartnall worked as a chimney sweep in Southampton for over 40 years and was also a noted beekeeper with his wife.

After Ms. Dartnall fell ill, she stopped responding and was taken to Southampton General Hospital, where she tested positive for Covid-19.

A few days later, her husband suffered a stroke and was admitted to the same hospital where he was found to have the virus.

The couple who lived in Millbrook were both treated for something called Covid-19 pneumonia.

Bill and Mary Dartnall at the hospital on March 17th before landing on the coronavirus ward

Bill and Mary Dartnall on their wedding day in November 1956. It was a devastating double tragedy for the couple’s two daughters, Rosemary and Ann

After initially improving, Ms. Dartnall deteriorated for the worse and died a few days after she was admitted.

When her husband was given the news, he refused any further oxygen and died five hours later.

It was a devastating double tragedy for the couple’s two daughters, Rosemary and Ann.

Rosemary said, “When he was told that Mom had died, he tried to pull the mask off his face and made it clear that he no longer wanted oxygen.

When Mr. Dartnall was given the news, he refused any further oxygen and died five hours later

Mr and Mrs Dartnell in their garden. According to the NHS England, patients have the right to refuse treatment

“Dad refused to wear the mask – we don’t know exactly why, but he didn’t want to continue.

“He continued to receive care and passed away peacefully in his sleep a few hours later.

“Dad probably wouldn’t have wanted to live without mum. They were very much a couple and it’s hard to imagine either of them without the other. ‘

According to the NHS England, patients have the right to refuse treatment.

The website states, “If you refuse treatment, your decision must be respected, even if it is believed that refusing treatment would result in your death.”

advertising

Share or comment on this article:

The post Retired chimney sweep, 90, died simply hours after virus claimed lifetime of his spouse appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.