Mother's Maiden Name: Rossi
---------------------
Anita Andrews was a Napa type of girl
When Donna Hawkins was a child, her mother, Anita Andrews, took her to Disneyland.
Hawkins was so excited that by the time she arrived at the amusement park, she was sick to her stomach. That evening, Hawkins sat on a bench with her head in her mother’s lap, the fairy-tale lights blinking around them.
This is how Hawkins remembers Andrews — a loving single mother who worked hard to provide for Donna and her sister, Diana.
This was before.
Before July 10, 1974, when Andrews was brutally murdered at the Napa bar she co-owned with her sister Muriel Fagiani.
Before Hawkins lived with the nagging fear that her mother’s killer was still out there.
Upbringing
The Fagianis were “100 percent Italian,” Hawkins said.
They were staunchly Catholic. They didn’t share personal details. The girls always wore dresses.
Andrews’ father, Nichola Fagiani, came from Italy and acquired a vineyard and winery Upvalley.
Eventually he sold the operation and bought the building on Main Street in Napa, where he opened Fagiani’s Cocktail Lounge.
He cooked in a kitchen in the back of the bar.
“He was there all the time, and that was like his home,” Hawkins said.
Muriel Fagiani and Andrews called the place “papa’s bar,” As children, the two would often linger there with their father.
It wasn’t like bars are now, Hawkins said. It was a family place, where people knew each other and children were welcome.
Crowned a queen
Andrews was crowned queen of the Napa County Fair in 1940, when she was 17.
“I’m more than happy to have the honor, but a little sorry that Joan didn’t win,” she told the Register at the time, referring to contest runner-up Joan Hofacre.
Andrews graduated from Armstrong’s Business School in Berkeley that same year.
She married Clarence “Mike” Andrews Jr. in a formal white wedding in St. Helena in June of 1942, according to her wedding announcement in the Register.
They moved to Berkeley and had two daughters, Diana Brown and Hawkins, eight years apart.
In 1951, the year Hawkins was born, the couple divorced. Around 1956, Andrews moved with her daughters back to Napa.
Single parenthood
Anita Andrews was a single mother when single mothers were rare, Hawkins said.
She worked as a secretary at Napa State Hospital. After her father died, she co-owned Fagiani’s with her sister Muriel.
Hawkins described her as a hard-worker who prized her family and held education in high regard.
“Education was extremely important to her, and she was very strict about it,” she said.
The two girls went to St. John the Baptist Catholic School for eight years.
Through the years, Andrews remained close with her father. They would go to boxing matches or watch football together, Hawkins said.
In order to maintain the liquor license after their father died, Anita and Muriel had to keep the bar open for at least 24 hours a week. The two women couldn’t afford to have anyone else work there, so they manned the bar themselves, Hawkins said.
Holding two jobs didn’t leave much room for hobbies or vacations, but Andrews remained a big football fan.
Hawkins recalled being in the hospital after she gave birth to her first son on New Year’s Eve. She was craving a little attention, yet her mother was immersed in the football game.
“She watches every game,” she said. “She’s jumping (at) the TV, telling them how play.”
The Neighbor
From about 1969 to 1972, Napa resident Joseph Silva, now 84, lived next door to Andrews on Main Street in Napa, in an old Victorian home converted to apartments.
He saw her nearly ever day, and the two sometimes went to breakfast together. On other days, they would hang out on the front porch, talking.
“She was a very nice person, outgoing and warm and nice to talk to,” he said.
They both had tan Cadillacs — his a 1952 and hers a 1967. People would often confuse who owned which car.
She would work at Napa State Hospital until about 4 p.m., then go to Fagiani’s until closing time.
He remembers getting a call from her one evening.
“She said, ‘I got some creep in here, would you call me back and pretend you’re my boyfriend so I can get rid of him?’” Silva recounted. He complied.
Silva bought a house in 1973, and Andrews moved to a place on Soscol Avenue.
Andrews and Silva had dinner plans July 9, 1974, but she called to ask for a rain check. That was the last time he spoke with her.
She was killed the next night. After she died, he and a friend went to the Oakland and San Francisco airport parking lots looking for her car, which had gone missing.
Andrews, 51, was the type who would have fought her attacker, Silva said. The evidence shows that she did, according to police, but it wasn’t enough.
“I thought to myself, ‘I wonder what would have happened if I had been out and I had walked in there,’” Silva said.
Reliving the crime
Hawkins said that when she was growing up, she gave her mother a hard time.
“We had our moments, mostly because I was a brat and really didn’t understand why her and my dad had to be divorced,” Hawkins said.
The week before her mother died, Hawkins, then 22, was supposed to come for dinner from Walnut Creek, where she lived at the time. But she canceled for an activity insignificant enough to have escaped her memory today.
The guilt of that choice lingers in her voice 36 years later.
“I was supposed to go see her,” she said. “I was supposed to go have dinner with her, and I didn’t.”
She was horrified when she found out what happened in Napa, which was “a really safe town. Those things just don’t happen,” she said.
The family didn’t talk about it. It was a trauma they tried to box up and shelve.
Hawkins suspected the killer was someone her mother knew. She shaped her life around that possibility, living as hidden as possible.
She moved to Hawaii at one point. She had her mail delivered to a post office box. Her name isn’t listed in online people searches.
“Because of this incident, I spent my whole life making sure people can’t find me,” she said.
Then, in January 2010, Napa Police announced they had matched DNA from the crime scene to a man named Roy Melanson, who was serving a life sentence in Colorado for killing a 25-year-old named Michele Wallace.
Hawkins said she doubts investigators will be able to piece a case together strong enough to prosecute Melanson. It’s been too long. Most of the witnesses and people who knew her mother are dead.
Hawkins has mixed feelings about a solid suspect emerging after all these years.
Previously, “sometimes I’d wish for it and other times I’d think maybe it’s best this way,” she said.
The news means revising her portrait of the event that changed her life. On one hand, it’s a relief to know it was a stranger, she said. On the other, it’s hard to understand why a stranger would take an innocent life.
“It’s hard because it makes you relive it, and it took a long time to not relive it anymore,” she said.
Roy Melanson WAS finally convicted of Anita's murder case.
---------------------
Anita Andrews was a Napa type of girl
When Donna Hawkins was a child, her mother, Anita Andrews, took her to Disneyland.
Hawkins was so excited that by the time she arrived at the amusement park, she was sick to her stomach. That evening, Hawkins sat on a bench with her head in her mother’s lap, the fairy-tale lights blinking around them.
This is how Hawkins remembers Andrews — a loving single mother who worked hard to provide for Donna and her sister, Diana.
This was before.
Before July 10, 1974, when Andrews was brutally murdered at the Napa bar she co-owned with her sister Muriel Fagiani.
Before Hawkins lived with the nagging fear that her mother’s killer was still out there.
Upbringing
The Fagianis were “100 percent Italian,” Hawkins said.
They were staunchly Catholic. They didn’t share personal details. The girls always wore dresses.
Andrews’ father, Nichola Fagiani, came from Italy and acquired a vineyard and winery Upvalley.
Eventually he sold the operation and bought the building on Main Street in Napa, where he opened Fagiani’s Cocktail Lounge.
He cooked in a kitchen in the back of the bar.
“He was there all the time, and that was like his home,” Hawkins said.
Muriel Fagiani and Andrews called the place “papa’s bar,” As children, the two would often linger there with their father.
It wasn’t like bars are now, Hawkins said. It was a family place, where people knew each other and children were welcome.
Crowned a queen
Andrews was crowned queen of the Napa County Fair in 1940, when she was 17.
“I’m more than happy to have the honor, but a little sorry that Joan didn’t win,” she told the Register at the time, referring to contest runner-up Joan Hofacre.
Andrews graduated from Armstrong’s Business School in Berkeley that same year.
She married Clarence “Mike” Andrews Jr. in a formal white wedding in St. Helena in June of 1942, according to her wedding announcement in the Register.
They moved to Berkeley and had two daughters, Diana Brown and Hawkins, eight years apart.
In 1951, the year Hawkins was born, the couple divorced. Around 1956, Andrews moved with her daughters back to Napa.
Single parenthood
Anita Andrews was a single mother when single mothers were rare, Hawkins said.
She worked as a secretary at Napa State Hospital. After her father died, she co-owned Fagiani’s with her sister Muriel.
Hawkins described her as a hard-worker who prized her family and held education in high regard.
“Education was extremely important to her, and she was very strict about it,” she said.
The two girls went to St. John the Baptist Catholic School for eight years.
Through the years, Andrews remained close with her father. They would go to boxing matches or watch football together, Hawkins said.
In order to maintain the liquor license after their father died, Anita and Muriel had to keep the bar open for at least 24 hours a week. The two women couldn’t afford to have anyone else work there, so they manned the bar themselves, Hawkins said.
Holding two jobs didn’t leave much room for hobbies or vacations, but Andrews remained a big football fan.
Hawkins recalled being in the hospital after she gave birth to her first son on New Year’s Eve. She was craving a little attention, yet her mother was immersed in the football game.
“She watches every game,” she said. “She’s jumping (at) the TV, telling them how play.”
The Neighbor
From about 1969 to 1972, Napa resident Joseph Silva, now 84, lived next door to Andrews on Main Street in Napa, in an old Victorian home converted to apartments.
He saw her nearly ever day, and the two sometimes went to breakfast together. On other days, they would hang out on the front porch, talking.
“She was a very nice person, outgoing and warm and nice to talk to,” he said.
They both had tan Cadillacs — his a 1952 and hers a 1967. People would often confuse who owned which car.
She would work at Napa State Hospital until about 4 p.m., then go to Fagiani’s until closing time.
He remembers getting a call from her one evening.
“She said, ‘I got some creep in here, would you call me back and pretend you’re my boyfriend so I can get rid of him?’” Silva recounted. He complied.
Silva bought a house in 1973, and Andrews moved to a place on Soscol Avenue.
Andrews and Silva had dinner plans July 9, 1974, but she called to ask for a rain check. That was the last time he spoke with her.
She was killed the next night. After she died, he and a friend went to the Oakland and San Francisco airport parking lots looking for her car, which had gone missing.
Andrews, 51, was the type who would have fought her attacker, Silva said. The evidence shows that she did, according to police, but it wasn’t enough.
“I thought to myself, ‘I wonder what would have happened if I had been out and I had walked in there,’” Silva said.
Reliving the crime
Hawkins said that when she was growing up, she gave her mother a hard time.
“We had our moments, mostly because I was a brat and really didn’t understand why her and my dad had to be divorced,” Hawkins said.
The week before her mother died, Hawkins, then 22, was supposed to come for dinner from Walnut Creek, where she lived at the time. But she canceled for an activity insignificant enough to have escaped her memory today.
The guilt of that choice lingers in her voice 36 years later.
“I was supposed to go see her,” she said. “I was supposed to go have dinner with her, and I didn’t.”
She was horrified when she found out what happened in Napa, which was “a really safe town. Those things just don’t happen,” she said.
The family didn’t talk about it. It was a trauma they tried to box up and shelve.
Hawkins suspected the killer was someone her mother knew. She shaped her life around that possibility, living as hidden as possible.
She moved to Hawaii at one point. She had her mail delivered to a post office box. Her name isn’t listed in online people searches.
“Because of this incident, I spent my whole life making sure people can’t find me,” she said.
Then, in January 2010, Napa Police announced they had matched DNA from the crime scene to a man named Roy Melanson, who was serving a life sentence in Colorado for killing a 25-year-old named Michele Wallace.
Hawkins said she doubts investigators will be able to piece a case together strong enough to prosecute Melanson. It’s been too long. Most of the witnesses and people who knew her mother are dead.
Hawkins has mixed feelings about a solid suspect emerging after all these years.
Previously, “sometimes I’d wish for it and other times I’d think maybe it’s best this way,” she said.
The news means revising her portrait of the event that changed her life. On one hand, it’s a relief to know it was a stranger, she said. On the other, it’s hard to understand why a stranger would take an innocent life.
“It’s hard because it makes you relive it, and it took a long time to not relive it anymore,” she said.
Roy Melanson WAS finally convicted of Anita's murder case.
Mother's Maiden Name: Rossi
---------------------
Anita Andrews was a Napa type of girl
When Donna Hawkins was a child, her mother, Anita Andrews, took her to Disneyland.
Hawkins was so excited that by the time she arrived at the amusement park, she was sick to her stomach. That evening, Hawkins sat on a bench with her head in her mother’s lap, the fairy-tale lights blinking around them.
This is how Hawkins remembers Andrews — a loving single mother who worked hard to provide for Donna and her sister, Diana.
This was before.
Before July 10, 1974, when Andrews was brutally murdered at the Napa bar she co-owned with her sister Muriel Fagiani.
Before Hawkins lived with the nagging fear that her mother’s killer was still out there.
Upbringing
The Fagianis were “100 percent Italian,” Hawkins said.
They were staunchly Catholic. They didn’t share personal details. The girls always wore dresses.
Andrews’ father, Nichola Fagiani, came from Italy and acquired a vineyard and winery Upvalley.
Eventually he sold the operation and bought the building on Main Street in Napa, where he opened Fagiani’s Cocktail Lounge.
He cooked in a kitchen in the back of the bar.
“He was there all the time, and that was like his home,” Hawkins said.
Muriel Fagiani and Andrews called the place “papa’s bar,” As children, the two would often linger there with their father.
It wasn’t like bars are now, Hawkins said. It was a family place, where people knew each other and children were welcome.
Crowned a queen
Andrews was crowned queen of the Napa County Fair in 1940, when she was 17.
“I’m more than happy to have the honor, but a little sorry that Joan didn’t win,” she told the Register at the time, referring to contest runner-up Joan Hofacre.
Andrews graduated from Armstrong’s Business School in Berkeley that same year.
She married Clarence “Mike” Andrews Jr. in a formal white wedding in St. Helena in June of 1942, according to her wedding announcement in the Register.
They moved to Berkeley and had two daughters, Diana Brown and Hawkins, eight years apart.
In 1951, the year Hawkins was born, the couple divorced. Around 1956, Andrews moved with her daughters back to Napa.
Single parenthood
Anita Andrews was a single mother when single mothers were rare, Hawkins said.
She worked as a secretary at Napa State Hospital. After her father died, she co-owned Fagiani’s with her sister Muriel.
Hawkins described her as a hard-worker who prized her family and held education in high regard.
“Education was extremely important to her, and she was very strict about it,” she said.
The two girls went to St. John the Baptist Catholic School for eight years.
Through the years, Andrews remained close with her father. They would go to boxing matches or watch football together, Hawkins said.
In order to maintain the liquor license after their father died, Anita and Muriel had to keep the bar open for at least 24 hours a week. The two women couldn’t afford to have anyone else work there, so they manned the bar themselves, Hawkins said.
Holding two jobs didn’t leave much room for hobbies or vacations, but Andrews remained a big football fan.
Hawkins recalled being in the hospital after she gave birth to her first son on New Year’s Eve. She was craving a little attention, yet her mother was immersed in the football game.
“She watches every game,” she said. “She’s jumping (at) the TV, telling them how play.”
The Neighbor
From about 1969 to 1972, Napa resident Joseph Silva, now 84, lived next door to Andrews on Main Street in Napa, in an old Victorian home converted to apartments.
He saw her nearly ever day, and the two sometimes went to breakfast together. On other days, they would hang out on the front porch, talking.
“She was a very nice person, outgoing and warm and nice to talk to,” he said.
They both had tan Cadillacs — his a 1952 and hers a 1967. People would often confuse who owned which car.
She would work at Napa State Hospital until about 4 p.m., then go to Fagiani’s until closing time.
He remembers getting a call from her one evening.
“She said, ‘I got some creep in here, would you call me back and pretend you’re my boyfriend so I can get rid of him?’” Silva recounted. He complied.
Silva bought a house in 1973, and Andrews moved to a place on Soscol Avenue.
Andrews and Silva had dinner plans July 9, 1974, but she called to ask for a rain check. That was the last time he spoke with her.
She was killed the next night. After she died, he and a friend went to the Oakland and San Francisco airport parking lots looking for her car, which had gone missing.
Andrews, 51, was the type who would have fought her attacker, Silva said. The evidence shows that she did, according to police, but it wasn’t enough.
“I thought to myself, ‘I wonder what would have happened if I had been out and I had walked in there,’” Silva said.
Reliving the crime
Hawkins said that when she was growing up, she gave her mother a hard time.
“We had our moments, mostly because I was a brat and really didn’t understand why her and my dad had to be divorced,” Hawkins said.
The week before her mother died, Hawkins, then 22, was supposed to come for dinner from Walnut Creek, where she lived at the time. But she canceled for an activity insignificant enough to have escaped her memory today.
The guilt of that choice lingers in her voice 36 years later.
“I was supposed to go see her,” she said. “I was supposed to go have dinner with her, and I didn’t.”
She was horrified when she found out what happened in Napa, which was “a really safe town. Those things just don’t happen,” she said.
The family didn’t talk about it. It was a trauma they tried to box up and shelve.
Hawkins suspected the killer was someone her mother knew. She shaped her life around that possibility, living as hidden as possible.
She moved to Hawaii at one point. She had her mail delivered to a post office box. Her name isn’t listed in online people searches.
“Because of this incident, I spent my whole life making sure people can’t find me,” she said.
Then, in January 2010, Napa Police announced they had matched DNA from the crime scene to a man named Roy Melanson, who was serving a life sentence in Colorado for killing a 25-year-old named Michele Wallace.
Hawkins said she doubts investigators will be able to piece a case together strong enough to prosecute Melanson. It’s been too long. Most of the witnesses and people who knew her mother are dead.
Hawkins has mixed feelings about a solid suspect emerging after all these years.
Previously, “sometimes I’d wish for it and other times I’d think maybe it’s best this way,” she said.
The news means revising her portrait of the event that changed her life. On one hand, it’s a relief to know it was a stranger, she said. On the other, it’s hard to understand why a stranger would take an innocent life.
“It’s hard because it makes you relive it, and it took a long time to not relive it anymore,” she said.
Roy Melanson WAS finally convicted of Anita's murder case.
---------------------
Anita Andrews was a Napa type of girl
When Donna Hawkins was a child, her mother, Anita Andrews, took her to Disneyland.
Hawkins was so excited that by the time she arrived at the amusement park, she was sick to her stomach. That evening, Hawkins sat on a bench with her head in her mother’s lap, the fairy-tale lights blinking around them.
This is how Hawkins remembers Andrews — a loving single mother who worked hard to provide for Donna and her sister, Diana.
This was before.
Before July 10, 1974, when Andrews was brutally murdered at the Napa bar she co-owned with her sister Muriel Fagiani.
Before Hawkins lived with the nagging fear that her mother’s killer was still out there.
Upbringing
The Fagianis were “100 percent Italian,” Hawkins said.
They were staunchly Catholic. They didn’t share personal details. The girls always wore dresses.
Andrews’ father, Nichola Fagiani, came from Italy and acquired a vineyard and winery Upvalley.
Eventually he sold the operation and bought the building on Main Street in Napa, where he opened Fagiani’s Cocktail Lounge.
He cooked in a kitchen in the back of the bar.
“He was there all the time, and that was like his home,” Hawkins said.
Muriel Fagiani and Andrews called the place “papa’s bar,” As children, the two would often linger there with their father.
It wasn’t like bars are now, Hawkins said. It was a family place, where people knew each other and children were welcome.
Crowned a queen
Andrews was crowned queen of the Napa County Fair in 1940, when she was 17.
“I’m more than happy to have the honor, but a little sorry that Joan didn’t win,” she told the Register at the time, referring to contest runner-up Joan Hofacre.
Andrews graduated from Armstrong’s Business School in Berkeley that same year.
She married Clarence “Mike” Andrews Jr. in a formal white wedding in St. Helena in June of 1942, according to her wedding announcement in the Register.
They moved to Berkeley and had two daughters, Diana Brown and Hawkins, eight years apart.
In 1951, the year Hawkins was born, the couple divorced. Around 1956, Andrews moved with her daughters back to Napa.
Single parenthood
Anita Andrews was a single mother when single mothers were rare, Hawkins said.
She worked as a secretary at Napa State Hospital. After her father died, she co-owned Fagiani’s with her sister Muriel.
Hawkins described her as a hard-worker who prized her family and held education in high regard.
“Education was extremely important to her, and she was very strict about it,” she said.
The two girls went to St. John the Baptist Catholic School for eight years.
Through the years, Andrews remained close with her father. They would go to boxing matches or watch football together, Hawkins said.
In order to maintain the liquor license after their father died, Anita and Muriel had to keep the bar open for at least 24 hours a week. The two women couldn’t afford to have anyone else work there, so they manned the bar themselves, Hawkins said.
Holding two jobs didn’t leave much room for hobbies or vacations, but Andrews remained a big football fan.
Hawkins recalled being in the hospital after she gave birth to her first son on New Year’s Eve. She was craving a little attention, yet her mother was immersed in the football game.
“She watches every game,” she said. “She’s jumping (at) the TV, telling them how play.”
The Neighbor
From about 1969 to 1972, Napa resident Joseph Silva, now 84, lived next door to Andrews on Main Street in Napa, in an old Victorian home converted to apartments.
He saw her nearly ever day, and the two sometimes went to breakfast together. On other days, they would hang out on the front porch, talking.
“She was a very nice person, outgoing and warm and nice to talk to,” he said.
They both had tan Cadillacs — his a 1952 and hers a 1967. People would often confuse who owned which car.
She would work at Napa State Hospital until about 4 p.m., then go to Fagiani’s until closing time.
He remembers getting a call from her one evening.
“She said, ‘I got some creep in here, would you call me back and pretend you’re my boyfriend so I can get rid of him?’” Silva recounted. He complied.
Silva bought a house in 1973, and Andrews moved to a place on Soscol Avenue.
Andrews and Silva had dinner plans July 9, 1974, but she called to ask for a rain check. That was the last time he spoke with her.
She was killed the next night. After she died, he and a friend went to the Oakland and San Francisco airport parking lots looking for her car, which had gone missing.
Andrews, 51, was the type who would have fought her attacker, Silva said. The evidence shows that she did, according to police, but it wasn’t enough.
“I thought to myself, ‘I wonder what would have happened if I had been out and I had walked in there,’” Silva said.
Reliving the crime
Hawkins said that when she was growing up, she gave her mother a hard time.
“We had our moments, mostly because I was a brat and really didn’t understand why her and my dad had to be divorced,” Hawkins said.
The week before her mother died, Hawkins, then 22, was supposed to come for dinner from Walnut Creek, where she lived at the time. But she canceled for an activity insignificant enough to have escaped her memory today.
The guilt of that choice lingers in her voice 36 years later.
“I was supposed to go see her,” she said. “I was supposed to go have dinner with her, and I didn’t.”
She was horrified when she found out what happened in Napa, which was “a really safe town. Those things just don’t happen,” she said.
The family didn’t talk about it. It was a trauma they tried to box up and shelve.
Hawkins suspected the killer was someone her mother knew. She shaped her life around that possibility, living as hidden as possible.
She moved to Hawaii at one point. She had her mail delivered to a post office box. Her name isn’t listed in online people searches.
“Because of this incident, I spent my whole life making sure people can’t find me,” she said.
Then, in January 2010, Napa Police announced they had matched DNA from the crime scene to a man named Roy Melanson, who was serving a life sentence in Colorado for killing a 25-year-old named Michele Wallace.
Hawkins said she doubts investigators will be able to piece a case together strong enough to prosecute Melanson. It’s been too long. Most of the witnesses and people who knew her mother are dead.
Hawkins has mixed feelings about a solid suspect emerging after all these years.
Previously, “sometimes I’d wish for it and other times I’d think maybe it’s best this way,” she said.
The news means revising her portrait of the event that changed her life. On one hand, it’s a relief to know it was a stranger, she said. On the other, it’s hard to understand why a stranger would take an innocent life.
“It’s hard because it makes you relive it, and it took a long time to not relive it anymore,” she said.
Roy Melanson WAS finally convicted of Anita's murder case.
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