The Life of Chuck

By Gabriel Mendez Freelance Reporter

He always wears a patch patterned flat cap, only taking it off when it’s time to teach. Charles Cecil, or Chuck as he prefers it, is an Anthropology Teacher here at Skyline College, while overall more old fashioned then most others at the college, he is experienced at his job and it shows.

A local boy Chuck grew up in GI housing on Coyote Point. There he attended Burlingame High School and the College of San Mateo. After, he transferred to San Jose State University and then got his Master’s Degree in archeology from San Francisco State University.

When asked why he went down this path, Chuck states, “I was drawn to archeology of ancient cities and peoples.”

His journey began when he was doing archeology in San Jose as a bachelor’s student. “That got me very interested in seeing what was there before.” his curiosity started local but it inevitably took him around the world.

His archeological career took off in the Southwest, where he worked before grad school. His job, excavate any artifacts before a coal mine destroyed it.

“What we were doing was archeology, clearing areas in front of where the coal strip mine was going to work.”

His work on Black Mesa in the Navajo Reservations, helped preserve history. From there he worked at San Jose State, working on a field school studying ancient structures in Hovenweep Utah.

“It’s a massive set of canyons with stone towers and such in them… Why would you put an absolutely vertical stone tower on a large boulder in the bottom of the canyon and make it four or five stories high?”

“Did you figure out the answer to that question?” I asked him.

“No.” he told me with a chuckle. That’s the thing you got to like about Chuck, he’s always in a good mood. The day to day grind can be exhausting, but he keeps on smiling. It can be a great pick me up for any student that sees him walk into class. I know it’s helped me at least.

He then finally got his Masters degree, in a most spectacular way. He worked on the ruins of a Mayan City.

“The maps from my thesis were the basis for an archeological park in El Salvador… The original footsteps so to speak.” For those who dread having to sit at a desk writing an essay on your laptop for days on end, here’s a possible alternative.

Despite his grand travels, he stays humble about the entire thing.

“For me its always been about expanding knowledge for people”

If you’re in the mood for the more recently deceased, Chuck’s got something for that too. He had a long career as a Forensic Anthropologist helping identify dead bodies so that they can be brought to their loved ones. “I did it from about 1985 to 2022.”

In addition to this important work Cecil was employed to help with the investigating of some of the most notorious serial killers in California.

He worked on the investigations on Dorthea Fuentes in Sacramento. Along with other killings done by an infamous duo.

“Charles Ng and Leonard Lake, these serial killers in San Francisco, who would take people, families, young families up to Calaveras County…” These people would then. “kill the man and children and keep the women as sex slaves until they got tired of them and killed them.”

However what might have been his most impactful case happened out of country.

“While I was at the museum, I was contacted by the medical examiner of el salvador and supreme court of el salvador and was asked if I would be available if I could help them with some massacre sights with the civil war that had been going on.”

His work with the United Nations on what is known as the El Mozote Massacre is a case of international importance. I find it best to let him tell you the story.

“It was a sight that had about 1,000 people in this village, and they were for the most part whipped out by the army. And I still haven’t figured out why.”

He was sent down by The Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, so he could train people how to do the necessary archeological work needed to figure out what had happened. He recalls arriving on the site and discovering that the pits dug had turned out nothing. So he examined the buildings in the area.

“I turned around to a burned out house right there, and looked down and saw the head of a humorous, you know the upper arm bone, the bone there with the bullet hole in it.” The bodies of the villagers had been burned.

“After we excavated the room we came up with 96 what we would call clusters of cranial bones… It showed that individuals were deceased when brought in there, and they were laid down in there and it looked like then machine gunned and then some kind of accelerant thrown on them and then grenades thrown in the room…basically cremated in there.”

His work was a hard but necessary part of uncovering the truth.

Chuck’s life can be an exciting time to listen to, and he’s a good teacher to have. Although, admittedly he is behind on the newer technologies. That being said he’s more than just a teacher whose class can check a box on your graduation requirements. It’s a proof of concept for what a Community College student can do. Skyline College is just the starting point for our adventure, and we can take it around the world.