Posting this here as it gives details that link JAG to other places, like Mira Mesa and Lawndale.
Picture emerges of suspect as deeply troubled
RUNNING SPRINGS — He was popular with girls and made fun of by classmates. He ran errands for neighbors and discovered outdoor sports. He could be moody and aggressive when he didn’t take his medication.
By any measure, the adolescent years that accused killer John Albert Gardner III spent in this mountaintop village were the high-water mark of a deeply troubled life.
He was never a standout at Rim of the World High School, the all-weather campus along state Route 18 overlooking the Los Angeles Basin. Many teachers and former students at the Home of the Fighting Scots don’t even remember him.
But this is where Gardner, a 30-year-old convicted sex offender charged Wednesday with the murder of 17-year-old Chelsea King of Poway, also flourished.
It’s where he spent his formative years, where his mom bounced checks for the hockey equipment he needed, where he dated for the first time and where classmates teased him for being “dorky and unpopular.”
This is where he excelled at pottery, listened to country music and sang in the high school choir. Those who knew Gardner considered him bright, intelligent and full of promise.
But today Gardner is confronting life in prison — perhaps the death penalty — if he is convicted of killing Chelsea, the track star and French-horn player who went missing Feb. 25 while out for a jog at Lake Hodges.
“The person that we knew and the person that they’re describing are two different people,” said one of Gardner’s former neighbors, who did not want her name published because she fears her business would suffer. “In my heart, if he did do these things, I think it was just because he gave up,” the woman said. “He got tired of asking for help.”
Gardner was living in the Los Angeles suburb of Lawndale in 1990 when his mother filed for divorce from his father. The family packed up and moved to this San Bernardino Mountain vacation retreat after her divorce became official.
Catherine Jeannette Gardner also had two older daughters, then 17 and 18, from a previous marriage; she would have two more husbands before her son’s latest arrest.His parents’ separation caused him extreme anxiety, eventually leading to hospitalization and psychiatric treatment, court records say. The divorce records show Gardner’s father was ordered to pay $70 a month in child support.
Even through the months leading up to their son’s 18th birthday, Gardner’s mother and father fought in court over money, custody and much more.
“I have left message after message for John but I never hear from him,” his father wrote to a family court judge in November 1996. “My Christmas gift to John was returned even though I sent it to the correct address.”
While enrolled in public schools, Gardner was identified as an SED child, or seriously emotionally disturbed. A psychiatrist noted that lithium helped the boy’s bipolar disorder until he had to discontinue the medication because of side effects such as irritable bowel syndrome.
Up on the mountain, Gardner generally managed to stay out of trouble. He played baseball in the spring, skied through the winters and used a neighbor’s climbing wall. According to the divorce file, he even joined the law-enforcement component of the school’s regional-occupation program, which tries to match young people to suitable careers.
Family friends said despite Gardner’s outward confidence and cheery disposition, he struggled through adolescence. He suffered dramatic mood swings and talked openly about needing help.
“It seemed like his medications changed a lot, and we didn’t know if that was because of his mother or because he was seeing someone new” for treatment, said the neighbor and family friend, who also said Catherine Gardner worked as a mental-health administrator.
His first criminal conviction came in 1998, a year after he graduated from Rim of the World. Records show he was charged with disturbing the peace after showing up on the campus uninvited.
Local officials recommended probation because of his clean record. Despite getting a break from prosecutors, Gardner had difficulty meeting adult responsibilities.
He left the mountain in search of work, a career, someplace where, as his mother put it in court papers later, he could “contribute something meaningful back to society.”
But friends said Gardner was slow to find his niche.
He took assorted jobs before landing a part-time position at a San Diego sporting goods store, intermittently staying in touch with some friends from his high school years.
In the weeks before he turned 21, Gardner won a promotion at the Big 5 store in Mira Mesa to a full-time job, according to court records. He was singled out for his work ethic and dedication, and began dating a young co-worker.
At the same time, however, his interest in younger girls got the better of him.
On March 16, 2000, he picked up a pair of teenage girls on their way to school and took one of them to his mother’s Rancho Bernardo townhouse. As they watched a movie, he began rubbing the 13-year-old and, his sexual advances rebuffed, he beat and fondled the girl before she escaped.
Gardner was arrested within minutes and eventually pleaded guilty to committing lewd acts with a minor. He was facing more than 10 years in prison, yet three young women wrote to the judge seeking leniency.
“The first time that we went out I probably waited for about 4 hours for him to kiss me but after 4 hours of nothing I finally decided to kiss him,” former girlfriend Beth Melban wrote. “That is why I couldn’t believe he was being accused of forcing himself on a girl.”
One psychiatrist said Gardner showed no remorse and suggested he be locked up as long as possible; another recommended probation and treatment for Gardner, even though he had admitted having sexual relations with two underage girls.
Gardner was 21 when he was sentenced to six years in prison.
R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility is an overcrowded prison on Otay Mesa that often acts as a receiving barn for new convicts. Gardner arrived from San Diego County jail on Sept. 18, 2000.
Three months later he was sent to the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi. While he was there, his father — a self-employed “assembler” — declared bankruptcy in 2002, with $5 in his pocket and $227 spread across three checking accounts.
In April 2005, Gardner was moved to Avenal State Prison in central California until he was paroled that September.
After his release, Gardner was monitored like thousands of other sex offenders who make parole. He was ordered to register with local police wherever he lived. In January 2008, eight months before his parole case was closed, Gardner was “placed on a passive GPS caseload,” a prison spokeswoman said.
Prison officials could not provide details of Gardner’s time in state custody or discuss his parole term. Requests for public records of his case have not yet been processed.
Two months after Gardner’s parole ended, his father died at age 64.
The son kept a decidedly low profile outside prison, although he did receive a few traffic citations. He bounced around between Riverside and San Diego counties. Police now suspect he was spending time scouting young girls.
In January 2009, 14-year-old Amber Dubois of Escondido went missing from a street just two miles from where Gardner was living. Since his DNA was linked to Chelsea on Sunday, he has become a suspect in Amber’s case.
Riverside County investigators are checking a report from October that a man matching Gardner’s description tried to abduct a 14-year-old girl on her way to school in Lake Elsinore, where Gardner also registered as a sex offender.
By early this year, many of the better things in Gardner’s life were falling apart. Within the span of a few weeks earlier this year, he lost his steadiest job and his girlfriend and also crashed his car, according to a family acquaintance in Running Springs.
Witnesses now say Gardner may have been stalking girls near Bernardo Heights Middle School on Feb. 24. The next day Chelsea was gone.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/06/deeply-troubled-picture-emerges-of-suspects-life/