MAGIC AT OPEN SPACE Season opens with shows meant to dazzle. Page 14
RESTAURANT | New Indian eatery opens Friday. Page 3 SPORTS | Crew’s first fall regatta a success. Page 18 EDITORIAL | Amanda Knox is free at last. Page 6
REMEMBERING VIETNAM A veteran’s exhibit includes his photos from the war. Page 21
BEACHCOMBER VASHON-MAURY ISLAND
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2011
Vol. 56, No. 37
www.vashonbeachcomber.com
75¢
A church blesses its four-legged friends
Serial rapist’s conviction spotlights a decade of crime
By NATALIE JOHNSON
By LESLIE BROWN
Staff Writer
On Sunday morning Rick Edwards got into his yellow truck and headed, as he does each week, to the Church of the Holy Spirit. And though his partner Tom Land was out of town, Edwards wasn’t alone. His poodle Gracie squirmed excitedly in the seat beside him. “We call her our bouncing bubble of joy,” Edwards, a retired nurse, said of the young dog. The five-month-old black poodle, who still boasts a frizzy coat of puppy hair, bounded with energy as Edwards led her to the lawn behind the Episcopal church. There they joined the small congregation and more than a dozen other four-legged visitors who had come along that Sunday. The crowd seemed to buzz with life as it settled into a makeshift outdoor sanctuary set up beneath the tall conifers that line the church grounds. Some dogs sat quietly at their owners’ sides; others tested the length of their leashes, visiting each other in encounters that only sometimes ended in snarling. The scene was new to Edwards but would have been familiar to
Staff Writer
Land, his partner. Last year Land took the couple’s 16-year-old poodle, who has since died, to be honored at the church’s annual Blessing of the Animals. And what one year ago was a poignant and bittersweet moment in the final months of the dog’s life this year was a time of celebration and thanks for the couple’s new dog, whom Edwards said already feels like part of their family. “I like the spiritual connection (at the blessing) and the idea of God watching over all of us and protecting us,” Edwards said. “It feels like a really good thing to do.” The annual Blessing of the Animals has been held at the Episcopal church for at least two SEE BLESSING, 17
Lawrence Huggins Photos
Rick Edwards’ poodle (top photo) visits another dog during Sunday’s service. Sharon Poole’s dalmatian (bottom photo) is blessed by Rev. Carla Pryne.
A talented couple brings intimacy of chamber music to Vashon By ELIZABETH SHEPHERD Arts Editor
The heavenly strains of masterworks by Beethoven and Dvořák, played by virtuoso musicians, will be heard on Vashon this Friday. It’s the downbeat to the third annual edition of Vashon Allied Arts’ Vashon Chamber Music Series — an effort spearheaded by Islanders Douglas Davis and Rowena Hammill, two acclaimed cello players who decided to make Vashon their home four years ago. Davis and Hammill, a married couple, set-
tled at an outside table at Café Luna on a recent sunny morning to talk about their journey to Vashon and why they are so eager to share the music they love best with Islanders. In the easy banter of musical and life partners, they came straight to the point. “The music that was written for chamber orchestras was some of the greatest masterworks every written,” Hammill said. “Beethoven wrote his greatest music for string quartets. Chamber music crystallizes the skill of the composers.” Hammill and Davis moved to the Island
in 2007 after long and storied careers spent playing in prestigious orchestras and chamber music ensembles all over the world. The pair’s home base was Los Angeles, a place they met while sharing a music stand in the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Before and after their courtship and marriage, they also worked in Hollywood orchestras, recording hundreds of scores for television shows and films. But when Davis, a native of southern California who is now 70 years old, was ready to retire after 32 years with the Los Angeles CHAMBER MUSIC, 23
The conviction of a man last week whom prosecutors call a serial rapist has underscored the need to ensure community members, and especially teen girls, understand that even bucolic Vashon is not immune to such crimes, advocates say. Brian Dublin, 28, was convicted Thursday of two counts of first-degree rape, one count of attempted first-degree rape and three counts of burglary. He faces 37 to 48 years in prison, with a chance that his sentence could be extended to life. Sentencing is scheduled to take place Oct. 21. Dublin, a Vashon resident and a 2000 graduate of Vashon High School, was arrested in May 2010 and charged with the January 2010 rape of a 16-year-old girl and the October 2003 rape of an 18-year-old girl. Charges were later amended to include the attempted rape of a 12-year-old girl in July 2006. In all three incidents, he entered the girls’ ground-floor bedrooms through unlocked doors while their parents slept in nearby rooms and made harsh, obscenity-laced threats to the victims, suggesting he’d come back and hurt them or their families if they told anyone. In a 36-page brief that prosecutors filed last month, they outlined several other alleged assaults on Vashon, painting the picture of a man they called “a serial rapist whose crimes spanned the better part of the last decade.” All told, they contend, Dublin raped or attempted to rape seven girls and women over the course of a decade — in some instances using alcohol and so-called “date rape drugs” that caused the victim to black out. SEE RAPIST, 24