Dennis Boardman Murdered In Fort Bragg

On January 2, officers of the Fort Bragg Police Department conducted a welfare check at an address located in the 100 block of Morrow Street in the city of Fort Bragg. Upon making entry into the residence, officers discovered the resident, Dennis Boardman, deceased on the floor. Due to the suspicious nature of the discovery, officers secured the residence in order to obtain a search warrant and continue their investigation. Officers further discovered that Boardman’s dog “Bugsy,” and his red 1990 Chevrolet pick-up truck equipped with a homemade camper, were not at the location. In the early morning hours of January 3, 2016, the Fort Bragg Police Department received notification from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office that Boardman’s vehicle had been located and recovered near the community of Carpinteria in southern Santa Barbara County. It was reported that Boardman’s unoccupied vehicle had been located by Sheriff’s Deputies on December 30, and Boardman’s dog was removed from the vehicle due to lack of food or water. This investigation is ongoing, and the Fort Bragg Police Department will continue to update the public and media as information is received and becomes releasable.

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Dennis Boardman lived in the Anderson Valley for about a decade of what might be called his lost years. The late Homer Mannix gave Dennis a place to stay in the old Mannix Building, and some nights Dennis would sleep up on the hill west of town on property Homer owned and walk all the way into town from up there. I picked him up one rainy night as he staggered westbound past the high school. He was on his way up the hill. And he would have made it, too. A tall, handsome man, Dennis was a tough old boy. He'd been a star high school athlete at Fort Bragg, did a tour in Vietnam, and even in middle age he had the upper body of a weight lifter although the only weight he lifted was his own. It's no discredit to Dennis's memory to say that he drank heavily and was often drunk in public. But drunk or sober he was a man of enormous personal charm. We all liked him, and we all wanted to see him stop drinking. And then he did, and everyone who knew Dennis rejoiced. With the steady help of the Philbrick family, among others, Dennis soon had his own place in his Fort Bragg home town, and the years passed and Dennis passed them sober, so thoroughly sober he got his driver's license back. He was proud of himself, and we were proud of him for pulling himself together. It was positively inspirational to see Dennis drive up in his new red pickup with his old dog as road company. A skilled wood worker, Dennis built a unique, hand crafted camper on the back of his truck, and everywhere he went his dog Bugsy went with him. Most of us had thought Dennis wouldn't survive his years at the bottom of the bottle, but that one magic day he got into one more rehab of the many he'd been through and darned if he didn't sober up and darned if he didn't stay that way. To know that he's died would be sad enough, but to know he was murdered is way past disgusting. And the killer will be someone he was good to because he was good to everyone, and it will be twice as disgusting to know that he died because he was good to people. To beat all his devils only to be murdered by one is not the way Dennis Boardman should have gone out. He was 67.

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September 2000 — Dennis Boardman, aka “Squint,” is one of Anderson Valley’s most enthusiastic tourist greeters. He and his raucous but invisible twin, John Barleycorn, often are the first persons visitors to our fair valley meet. And often probably the last because Dennis’s and John’s enthusiastic welcomes can be misunderstood. Last week a woman approached me in front of Otto’s Ice Cream Shop in downtown Boonville to ask where she and her husband might spend the night. I rattled off those accommodations I could recall off hand. The woman, in her 60s and dressed conservatively, listened politely. Dennis and John, listing in the background like a small boat in a rough sea, soon approached and entered the conversation. He pointed in several different directions, wobbled unsteadily and slurred instructions just inches from the tourist woman’s ear. Her husband looked on from the car parked nearby. He seemed only slightly amazed. The tourist woman looked alarmed, but her eyes really bulged when Dennis wrapped her in a friendly embrace. They swayed together, the woman wrapped up in a loose bear hug, the two of them seeming to slow dance in the Boonville sun. I smiled and went back inside the ice cream shop, then watched out the window as Dennis walked to the woman’s car, knocked on the window, and opened the passenger side door to talk to the woman’s husband, inserting his head just inches away from Mr. Tourist’s face, welcoming the man to Boonville. When the petrified couple finally drove off, Dennis stood on the sidewalk and waved goodbye. Boonville may be small but it makes a big impression. — Olivia Duggan