Red Bluff in mourning

Residents of Red Bluff were dealt two tragedies involving three deaths last week.

On Thursday (Feb. 28) the body of missing 14-year-old Marysa Nichols was found near Red Bluff High School, two days after her disappearance. A school surveillance video from the day Nichols went missing showed Tehama County resident Quentin Ray Bealer, 39, walking along a nearby path. The teen was shown on the same path about a minute later. Bealer, who has a criminal history of burglary, battery and drug possession, turned himself in two days later and was charged with murder. An autopsy indicates the victim died of strangulation.

On March 2 James VanSickle, 27, of Red Bluff, and his 5-year-old son drowned in a pond. The elder VanSickle was attempting to save the boy, who’d fallen out of their boat on Murphy’s Pond near Cottonwood while fishing.