Davis couple honored by Sacramento DA

SACRAMENTO — For more than eight years, Davis residents Jane and Dale Wierman attended every court hearing for Richard Hirschfield, the man convicted last fall of kidnapping and murdering UC Davis students John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves on Dec. 20, 1980.

With both the Riggins and Gonsalves families living far away from the Sacramento courthouse, Jane Wierman began taking copious notes at each hearing — more than 125 of them past year alone — then writing summaries of the proceedings and emailing them to family and friends of the victims around the world.

“They did an incredible job for us, just so much support,” said Dick Riggins, John’s father, who along with his wife Kate made a temporary home in Sacramento in order to attend Hirschfield’s three-month trial. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have known quite as much about what was going on.”

Sacramento County prosecutors agreed, honoring the Wiermans with an outstanding service commendation award last week at the District Attorney’s Office’s 14th annual Outstanding Citizen Awards.

In addition to dissemination information about the case over that eight-year period, the Wiermans mobilized letter-writing campaigns to oppose the defense’s repeated delay tactics, and offered ongoing emotional support to friends and relatives of the slain teenagers.

“Anyone who thinks that community and family and participation in a criminal trial doesn’t matter, Jane and Dale prove otherwise,” said Deputy District Attorney Dawn Bladet, who successfully obtained a death-penalty conviction against Hirschfield in December. ”They kept this case on track, they kept these families involved and informed. … I’ve never seen the kind of dedication that they showed.”

The Rigginses and several members of the Gonsalves family traveled to Sacramento for Friday’s awards ceremony, as did many of their longtime family friends who also had attended Hirschfield’s pretrial and trial proceedings over the years.

Jane Wierman said she and her husband were “amazed and very honored” by the award.

“We very much appreciate our recognition and are glad that we could share it with so many,” Wierman said. “Our involvement in this case has had such a profound impact upon us that it will be with us for the rest of our lives.”

In addition to the Wiermans, District Attorney Jan Scully and her office’s prosecutors paid tribute to 10 other crime victims and witnesses who “exhibited uncommon courage under extraordinary circumstances.”