‘Say their name’: CSUF vigil honors victims of 1976 library shooting

Paul Paulsen quoted a poem he discovered several years back: “Someone I love has gone away and life is not the same. The greatest gift that you can give is just to say their name.”

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On Sunday, July 12, at a remembrance for the seven people killed and two other wounded when a janitor at Cal State Fullerton opened fire in the campus library 50 years ago, Paulsen led those gathered in a call-and-response recitation of the victims’ names, including his sister, Deborah Paulsen, who died at age 26.

The vigil marking the anniversary of the 1976 attack by Edward Allaway, which, until 2011, was the deadliest mass shooting in Orange County, was held in the university’s Memorial Grove, the ceremony blending grief with gratitude, as the promise that the dead will not be forgotten was renewed.

Also killed that day were Frank Teplansky, 51, Stephen L. Becker, 32, Seth Fessenden, 72, Paul F. Herzberg, 30, Bruce A. Jacobson, 32, and Donald E. Karges, 41. Maynard Hoffman, 64, and Donald W. Keran were wounded.

Allaway, who had a history of mental illness, was found not guilty by reason of insanity and remains secured in a hospital facility.

“After 50 years, the old black and white photographs may be fading, but our memory of who they were remains as clear as ever,” said Paulsen.

In attendance were several local officials, including CSUF President Ronald Rochon, Fullerton Police Chief Jon Radus and Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, who organized the event with CSUF.

CSUF officials also unveiled upgrades to the Memorial Grove, including new drought-resistant landscaping, solar lighting, signs and seven personalized benches, alongside five of the seven original stone pines planted after the shooting a half a century ago. In a rare tribute, the university also awarded honorary emeritus status to the seven slain and the two wounded.

The distinction is traditionally bestowed upon longtime faculty and staff, with CSUF officials honoring the campus careers that were cut short but remain woven into the institution’s history. Among those killed were janitors, a retired professor, a photographer, a library assistant, a graphic artist and an audio technician.

Pat Almazan, daughter of Frank Teplansky, praised her father as a WWII and Korean War veteran, as well as an artist, pianist and magician.

“You’re never fully over losing a loved one, much less to a senseless mass murder. There can never be complete closure,” Almazan said as she described the emotional pain she continues to carry, reliving a portion of it every time she hears of a school shooting in the news. She was 29 years old and on her way to work when she heard a radio report of the mass shooting, saying she knew instinctively her father had been among those shot.

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“I see my father lying on that stretcher, being on his last thread before he died in my arms at St. Jude’s Hospital,” she said. “That horrible scene has been etched in my mind forever, and it still hurts.”

Allaway has spent the last few decades in various locked mental health facilities across California, despite numerous attempts to argue that his sanity has been restored and that he should be allowed to leave the secure hospital facilities. After the attack in the library, he had told authorities that he blacked out during an episode induced by paranoid schizophrenia and didn’t remember the shootings.

Petitions for Allaway’s release were filed several times over the last few decades, but each effort was met with fierce resistance by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office — along with the survivors and families of his victims — and was ultimately unsuccessful.

In mid-June, a public defender filed the latest “restoration of sanity” motion on Allaway’s behalf in Orange County Superior Court. The motion requests that a judge allow Allaway to leave a geriatric unit at Napa State Hospital and instead take part in outpatient treatment. The defense attorney wrote that Allaway “no longer presents as a danger to himself or others in the community.”

On June 30, a judge ordered officials with the Conditional Release Program — part of the California Department of State Hospitals — to prepare a report about Allaway, court records show. A hearing to discuss the “restoration of sanity” motion is scheduled for late September.

Spitzer told those gathered Sunday that his office is fighting the new application for Allaway’s release.

“My definition of justice is that this person needs to die away from society,” he said. “Some people just should never have the privilege to come back and join us as a citizen in our free society.”

Paulsen said he didn’t want the remembrance to be about the crime.

“I’d rather use this opportunity to celebrate the sense of love and community that prevails here this evening, casting light over darkness, good over evil,” he said.

Paulsen closed the vigil with a quote from Helen Keller: “What we have once enjoyed, we could never lose. All that we love deeply becomes part of us forever.”

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Staff Writer Sean Emery contributed to this report.