The bigger question: when and how can businesses begin to reopen?, B-4
LA28 kicks off journey to 2028 with platform of inclusion and limitless possibilies, C-1
A
Section
BONUS EDITION See the Anza Valley Outlook beginning on page AVO-1
Your Best Source for Local News & Advertising | $1.00
SERVING TEMECULA , MURRIETA , L AKE E LSINOR E , M ENIFEE , WILDOMAR , H EMET, SAN JACINTO September 18 – 24, 2020
Local Valley News announces new deadlines
VISI T
T HE NEW
AND THE SURROUNDING COMMUNITIES
myvalleynews.com
Volume 20, Issue 38
Today’s youths remember 9/11 with flag tribute
Due to the Valley News’ printer moving to Phoenix, Ariz., all deadlines for submissions have been moved. Press releases and letters to the editor, which should be emailed to valleyeditor@reedermedia.com, should be submitted by noon Thursdays for publication in the next week’s edition. Legal notices for Anza Valley Outlook are due by 4 p.m. Fridays (legals@reedermedia.com) for the following week’s paper. Obituaries should be submitted by noon Mondays, for the current week’s paper and should be emailed to valleyeditor@reedermedia.com.
Local Wildomar awards $6.8M construction contract Jeff Pack STAFF WRITER
During the Wednesday, Sept. 9, meeting of the Wildomar City Council, they unanimously approved awarding a contract of $6,883,950.30 for the construction of the Bundy Canyon Road Improvement Project to James McMinn Inc.
Puppy Blue takes a walk with his owner near a display of 2,977 American flags on display at the Temecula Duck Pond in honor of all the innocent lives lost during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The display of flags is organized by student members of the Great Oak High School Young Americans Foundation club. Valley News/Shane Gibson photo
Lexington Howe STAFF WRITER
In honor of the innocent lives who were lost during the Sept. 11 attack in 2001, 2,977 flags were
placed at the Temecula Duck Pond. Nathan Rheaume, 16, president of the Great Oak High School club chapter for Young America’s Foundation, said he feels it’s
important to remember that day, even though he wasn’t alive during that time. “Going through elementary school, all of my teachers all had their own recap on it,” Rheaume
said. “People just always knew where they were when it happened.” Rheaume’s uncle, Rick Reiss, see TRIBUTE, page A-3
see page A-2
Marine who killed Murrieta man in love triangle found guilty of murder
Local County officials urge residents to get tested for COVID-19 Jeff Pack STAFF WRITER
Riverside County health officials said only about half of the capacity the county has to conduct COVID-19 tests was being utilized by residents and urged people to get tested, whether they had symptoms or not. see page A-6
INDEX
City News Service SPECIAL TO VALLEY NEWS
A 32-year-old U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant and martial arts expert who fatally pummeled a Murrieta man for sleeping with his girlfriend was convicted Thursday, Sept. 10, of first-degree murder. Jurors deliberated over three days before finding Curtis Lee Krueger guilty of the 2018 killing of 54-year-old Henry Stange and also convicting him of assault resulting in great bodily injury. He is expected to be sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison. Riverside County Superior Court Judge Kelly Hansen scheduled the sentencing hearing for Friday, Oct. 16, at the Southwest
Justice Center in Murrieta. K r u e g e r ’s e x - g i r l f r i e n d , 29-year-old Ashlie Nicole Stapp, pleaded guilty in July 2019 to being an accessory after the fact and was sentenced to 10 months in jail and three years felony probation. According to deputy district attorney Dan DeLimon, Stange, who was divorced and addicted to prescription drugs, developed a relationship with Stapp after the two began using drugs together. At the time she was visiting and engaged in sexual relations with the victim, she was also Krueger’s girlfriend, according to the prosecution. Stange had been in a major car wreck that left him unable to work, resulting in financial hardships and dependence on painkillers, for
which Stapp had a strong preference, according to DeLimon. Krueger knew about the sexfor-drugs relationship and wanted it to end, but “Stapp wasn’t the committing type,” the prosecutor said in a trial brief in which he described Krueger as “highly distrusting, totally obsessive, extremely controlling, with a violent temper.” The martial arts instructor threatened Stange by text, warning him in January 2018 to stop seeing Stapp, and when the older man disregarded the threat, Krueger “broke into Stange’s house and attacked him with a hammer,” the see GUILTY, page A-4
Tony Ault STAFF WRITER
Business ............................... B-4 Business Directory............... C-8 Calendar of Events .............. B-2 Classifieds ............................ C-6 Education ............................ C-3 Entertainment ..................... B-2 Faith ..................................... C-8 Health .................................. C-4 Local .................................... A-1 National News ...................... B-7 Opinion................................. C-7 Pets ..................................... C-6
Sports ................................... C-1
Valley News/Courtesy photo
Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve raises signed steel beams for new outdoor pavilion
Anza Valley Outlook ......AVO-1
Regional News ..................... B-6
Curtis Lee Krueger is found guilty of the 2018 killing of 54-year-old Murrieta resident Henry Stange.
Jon Reuter, left, a major donor to the Santa Rosa Plateau Nature Education Foundation and contractor of Electric Work Inc., and Rob Hicks, park interpreter at the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve park, stand at the site of the new pavilion construction project one year after the Tenaja Fire destroyed the preserve’s original pavilion. Reuter has donated time management to the preserve’s pavilion construction. Valley News/Shane Gibson photo
It was a quiet, but much anticipated moment as the first steel beams were hoisted into place on the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve’s new outdoor pavilion at the visitor center, which will replace the first stage that was destroyed in the Tenaja Fire in September 2019. The heavy black beams installed by workers were even more meaningful to the more than 100 Forever Beam Builders, who each had their names painted in white on the beams. The Beam Builders raised more than $13,000 to rebuild the stage and pavilion from the ground up. The new outdoor pavilion will provide a place where visitors and students can learn about what nature has brought to the reserve and how they can protect the local see PAVILION, page A-8