Sex. Murder. Mystery(102)

An eight-year stint in the Marine Corps in El Toro where John was a pilot and helicopter aviator brought them to California. Like so many others who made the military migration during the forties and fifties, they saw California as a golden hope for a life of opportunity. When John left the Marines, like his father and father-in-law, he became a teacher. He taught philosophy and government at Santa Ana College.

“I'm a good teacher,” he once told a reporter. “I've always been able to make a subject interesting. No one falls asleep in my class.”

Part of what made that a true statement was that the man had an undeniable charisma and wit. He was brash, brilliant, and handsome with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pencil-thin mustache. John G. Schmitz was onstage whether his audience was a single student or a roomful. He was the center of the world. In the beginning, the lightning rod for attention presided over a family that was the envy of friends and neighbors.

“They were a devoted family,” said one neighbor who still keeps in touch with John and Mary. “The kids all loved each other. It was sort of like, the family that prayed together, stayed together.”

Indeed, prayer was an important ritual at the Schmitz home. Visitors to the house then—or any other place the family lived—never recalled a single meal when prayer wasn't a prelude to dining. Life revolved around the church. John sang in the choir at St. Cecelia's and Mary hauled the children in their station wagon (“our Catholic Cadillac”) to class each day.

To supplement his college instructor's wages, John worked part-time at Disneyland as a Cobblestone Cop.

“That made him a real hero among the kids,” the neighbor said.

Although Mary Kay has memories of her father as that Disney character, she would later tell a friend she wasn't certain if she actually remembered it or had been told about it so often that she had kept it as memory. “It is a glimpse,” she told a friend many years later, “when I was three years old. Like a Mary Poppins doll I had, or putting my father's hair in curlers at our first house, just a glimpse of my childhood.”

It was a lovely beginning to what everyone thought would be a wonderful life. Summer nights were filled with the laughter of the boys playing kick the can, hide-and-seek. Summer days they played baseball or football games that stretched for hours. In time, the family would get a German shepherd that John named Kaiser.

In the early 1960s there were still orange groves off Irvine Boulevard, not far from houses lined up in the sun along Brittany Woods Drive. It was a beautiful place and time. California was challenging the East Coast as the center of the universe. The Beach Boys had just released “Surfin' Safari”—their first big hit. It was sunshine and beaches. And on January 30, 1962, Mary Katherine Schmitz was born. She would be her father's staunchest ally and, some would say later, her mother's greatest disappointment.

No one wanted to talk about it years later, and no one wanted to put much importance on the fact. What would happen later with Mary Kay was not a bonding problem. But the fact was that Mary Schmitz had an injury that made it impossible to care for her new baby daughter for several weeks. As the baby stayed with the neighbors across the street, her mother convalesced in her bedroom.

Later, the woman who cared for the Schmitzs' firstborn daughter refused to talk about the cause of Mrs. Schmitz's need for convalescence. She believed it had no influence on their daughter.

“They loved Mary Kay then, and they love her now,” she said.

When John Schmitz returned to Brittany Woods Drive, he always made a beeline for the neighbors' to hold his daughter in his arms. Every day. Mary Kay's blond hair was but a faint downy glow around her little head. But her brown eyes were enormous. No father could have been more pleased.

“Sons are wonderful,” said the neighbor who took care of Mary Kay. “But to a father, a daughter is extra special.”

If mother and daughter didn't bond, as had been suggested, those closest to the family in those early years didn't see it. It appeared that the little blond-haired girl was her mother's pride. It was true that Mary Schmitz expected a lot from her children, and probably more so from her sons.

“When Mary Kay was a little girl,” said the neighbor, “… I can still see that front bedroom fixed like she was a little princess or something. Mary always seemed to be there to help her and Mary Kay went right along with it. So she had to be very happy with her mother.”

No matter how busy they became, no matter where they would live, the Schmitz children were always foremost in their parents' minds, according to the neighbor.

“They never forgot the kids,” she said.