Mystery

Nine people sat on stools around a wooden table inside the Apple store on Wednesday to learn how to operate their new iPads — including Janice Serote, who got hers for her 70th birthday. The La Crescenta resident taught keyboarding at Glendale Community College for 38 years before retiring. But the iPad was Serote’s first foray into Macintosh and tablet computers. After buying an “iPad for Dummies” book, she enrolled in Wednesday’s free class at the Apple store in the Galleria.

Re: “Mystery Sierra hiker found,” Oct. 9. What a great story. A story with mystery and a happy ending. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Sierra peak was named Taylor Peak? Benla Bennet Glendale

Glendale Community College's Community Services Education Department will offer a seminar Saturday called "How to Become a Mystery Shopper." The seminar will be from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday in Room 120 at the college's Adult Training Center, 1122 E. Garfield Ave. The seminar is open to the public. Business evaluation companies hire mystery shoppers to visit restaurants, retail stores, theaters and other locations and report on their visit. The seminar will teach participants how mystery shopping works, how to get into the shoppers' network and how companies compensate shoppers for their efforts.

Tim Willert DOWNTOWN -- The Friends of the Glendale Library will present "Patchwork of Words" with mystery writer Earlene Fowler at 2 p.m. Sunday inside the Central Library auditorium, 222 E Harvard St. The program is co-sponsored by the Glendale Quilt Guild, which will display quilts made by members. Fowler, whose books are named after quilt patterns, will use quilts to illustrate her creative process. Admission is free. Library patrons receive three hours of free parking at The Marketplace parking structure on Harvard Street with validation at the library circulation desk.

Mystery & Imagination bookstore in Glendale will be staging its annual Halloween costume party from 8 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29. The store is located at 238 N. Brand Blvd. Bob Burns, a horror films special effects veteran, will be bring the original mask and other props from the original "The Fly.” Charles Pogue, screenwriter for the Jeff Goldblum version of the same story will be signing DVDs. A dozen authors will be reading weird, scary, suspenseful, and horror fiction pieces from their published books for the party.

Paul M. Anderson GLENDALE -- Nearly three months have passed since fire roared across 524-acres of brush in the San Rafael Hills, and arson investigators still have no cause. That's got Glendale fire officials nervous a cause may never be established. "The colder the trail gets the more difficult it is to determine the actual cause," said Asst. Fire Chief Chris Gray. Los Angeles County fire officials are in charge of the investigation because the Dec. 21 fire started just outside Glendale borders at Starland and Sugarloaf drives.

It’s unlikely to have grown up in the Crescenta Valley and not know at least a little about former sanitarium Rockhaven, said Bob McFall, Glendale’s assistant city manager, and La Crescenta resident. The ivy-covered, wrought iron gates and brick walls lend an aura of mystery to its little section of Honolulu Boulevard in Montrose. Which is why, when the city of Glendale recently purchased the property, many city employees wanted to get inside and get a glimpse at what lay behind those walls, McFall said.

As part of the Glendale Public Library citywide reading program, One Book/One Glendale, a series of events sponsored by Glendale Community College are being held on campus throughout the month highlighted by a keynote address and book signing from author and Glendale resident Denise Hamilton on Oct. 27. The book selected for One Book/One Glendale is "Los Angeles Noir," edited by Hamilton and published by Akashic Books in 2007. It features stories by Michael Connelly, Janet Fitch, Susan Straight, Hector Tobar, Patt Morrison, Robert Ferrigno, Gary Phillips, Christopher Rice, Naomi Hirahara, Jim Pascoe, Scott Phillips, Diana Wagman, Lienna Silver, Brian Ascalon Roley and Denise Hamilton.

In 2010, two women cleaning the basement of a MacArthur Park area apartment building found a 1930s steamer trunk. In it, two leather doctor's bags were discovered, each containing the mummified remains of an infant wrapped in newspaper. A police investigation was launched and soon the trunk along with its human remains were identified as belonging to Janet M. Barrie, a Scottish-born nurse who cared for Mary Knapp, the wife of dentist George Knapp. After Mary died from breast cancer, Barrie married him. Four years later, George passed away, too. And so Barrie lived in the apartment for decades, ultimately leaving L.A and the trunk behind for Canada.

A La Crescenta Elementary School student who has suffered a lifetime of enigmatic health problems has finally started to get some answers following extensive testing at a federal research center. Reece LoCicero, 5, has been diagnosed with cutaneous mastocytosis, a reactive skin disease that typically improves as a patient ages, said Gretchen Golas, a pediatric nurse practitioner at the Undiagnosed Diseases Program at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. That the disease appears to be confined to his skin, and not throughout his body, should bring some hope, she added.