Update: Bergna murder investigation shocks residents
Patty
By Mike Henderson
Reno Gazette-Journal
Sunday December 17th, 2000
Peter Bergna and his wife Rinette Riella-Bergna were well-known and well-liked in Incline
Village.
Friends were astonished first by her death, then later when Peter Bergna was accused of
murdering his wife.
Take Tim Gravett, a former Incline Village real estate appraiser and his wife, Annette
Fleming. The two, who were friends of the Bergnas for 10 years or so, moved to Hawaii this
year.
"He's a really great, big-hearted guy," Gravett said. "I helped him coach soccer at the
high school and in the American Youth Soccer Association. One of his great loves was kids
and soccer. He was really generous in that regard. He's very gregarious. Loves people.
Loves kids. He was really fun to be around, pretty optimistic and positive."
Fleming, who said she was "a very close friend" of Rinette Bergna, describes her as "one
of the dearest, kindest, most thoughtful people I've ever known. She was always very
considerate. Very softspoken. She just cared about people. I think a lot of people loved
her dearly, Peter included."
Both were accomplished professionals, he as an auctioneer and appraiser for Butterfield &
Butterfield and she as a pharmacist. He'd been with Butterfield for perhaps a decade.
She had been director of pharmacy at Tahoe Forest Hopsital in Truckee and at Carson Tahoe
Hospital in Carson City. She was a member of the Nevada Society of Hospital Pharmacists.
She was president of the Nevada Pharmacists Association and received its 1994 Outstanding
Pharmacist Service Award.
"We both enjoyed gardening, so we took some trips together to go to garden shows," Fleming
said. "She had a flower garden. I think her specialties were her tulips and her
half-barrels.
"She was quiet, but there was a joyous quality about her."
Both scoff at the prosecution's notion that Peter Bergna killed his wife because he wanted
a wife who would stay home and he wanted children.
"That's a very weak statement," Fleming said. "It's almost laughable. Peter loved Rinette
dearly."
Gravett agrees.
"They're just grasping at straws," he said.
Fleming said they were a wonderful couple and they visited with them often, frequently in
each other's home.
"We would have them over to dinner," she said. "Rinette never said anything but good
things about Peter when we were talking."
Both of the Bergnas loved children, and Rinette Bergna once told her that before they
married, they had decided not to have children, Fleming said.
"Peter missed Rinette very much when she was gone and was really looking forward to her
return," Fleming said.
Both discount the notion the Bergnas might have been headed toward a divorce, and Fleming
said she believes Rinette Bergna would have confided that to her if that were the case.
But Washoe County Sheriff's Deputy James Beltron said Bergna told him that the couple had
discussed divorce the night his wife died.
About 12 hours after the incident, in a police interview, Bergna was asked:
"Did she discuss . divorcing you?"
"That was brought up as a possibility," Bergna replied.
Her brother, Rick Riella, told grand jurors he heard Bergna mention divorce about a year
and a half before her death.
"He was not happy with the way my sister kept track of her finances, wasn't happy exactly
with her travel habits," Riella said. "He wanted her to change them. He told my wife and I
directly that if she didn't change her ways, he wanted a divorce."
Fleming called Bergna "a kind, decent, caring man."
"He's who he seems to be," she said. "I want people to know that. He loved her. He told me
many times how much he loved her. They had a good relationship.
"We spent a lot of time with him after the accident, and he just wanted some close people
around him after such a horrid, horrible traffic accident. To see that kind of grief is
something I'll never forget. I am personally horrified at this accusation against him."
Fleming and Gravett aren't alone in their assessment.
"He basically adopted Incline Village," said Allan Walker, director of publications for a
health care consulting firm. "He adopted my children, and I have eight children. The
common bond was youth sports, that and a love of soccer."
Walker lived around the corner from the Bergnas' Geraldine Drive home and became "Uncle
Peter" to the Walker brood. An epitaph on her tombstone in Manteca calls Rinette Bergna
"Aunt Wally," a pet name she was called by her brothers and their children, on whom she
doted.
In the early 1990s he helped out with the high school basketball team, Walker said.
By Bergna's own account he "adopted" Walker's children and had been out with them the day
of the accident.
Rinette Bergna was a member of the American Association of University Women group at
Incline and would frequently go with her husband to athletic events at the high school.
He grew up in Saratoga, Calif., near San Jose. His mother Pat and his father, Lou Bergna,
longtime Santa Clara County District Attorney, adopted him when he was an infant,
according to Rick Martin of Mountain View.
At Saratoga High School, Bergna played football but wasn't a standout, Martin said. A San
Jose Mercury-News photographer, Martin has known Bergna since their college days, when in
1973 they were summer camp counselors.
Bergna graduated from Seattle Pacific College, a small, Christian school, with a degree in
education, Martin said. After college, both worked at Harker Academy, a private,
coeducational school in San Jose, where Bergna taught physical education and was a live-in
dormitory supervisor, Martin said.
Bergna apparently acquired an interest in antiques around that time when he and Martin
would go to flea markets and "We'd buy an old chest of drawers, we'd refurbish it and we'd
sell it," Martin said.
That gave them some spending money and "Pete loved to wheel and deal," Martin said.
Court records show Bergna had been visiting garage sales the morning of his wife's death.
At one point, about 20 years ago, Bergna had been married for about 1-1/2 years, he told
police. Longtime friends said they were unaware of that marriage.
Bergna moved to Incline Village and took a job as an appliance salesman just so he could
live near Lake Tahoe, Martin said.
It was at Incline that Bergna met the woman who would become his wife, Martin said.
After her death, he was lonely and alone, despite having many friends, said Adelaide Lee,
his assistant at Butterfield's.
She, like others, described him as a gregarious man who loved to talk and could converse
intelligently about many subjects. He had a great sense of humor, she and others said.
But after his wife's death, in the evenings, after a day's work, it was difficult to leave
him alone, Lee said.
"I think he dreaded it after his office staff would leave him," she said.
He had been in demand in the Reno, Incline and Carson City areas, frequently donating his
time and appraisal talents to help raise money for charities ranging from youth athletics
to opera, Lee said. He was auctioneer and sometimes donated goods at the Incline High
booster club's annual crab and pasta feed, Walker said.
Butterfield's was interested in establishing business in the Pacific Northwest so Bergna
gradually phased in Butterfield's presence there, then opened an office in Seattle about
six months ago, according to his fiancee, Robin Russell of Seattle.
She said she met him about five months after his wife's death and they began dating a few
months later. Russell said she was aware at the time she met him that his wife had died in
an auto accident while he was driving.
"He was really devastated by the accident and he just wanted to move somewhere else," she
said. He permanently moved to Seattle about six months ago, she said.
Rinette Bergna grew up on the family's dairy farm outside Manteca, Calif., and graduated
from Manteca High School in 1967.
She graduated with honors from the University of California at Davis four years later.
"She got some financial scholarships and then my folks helped her, too," said Jack Riella,
18 months younger than his sister.
"She was actually a pre-med student and wanted to be a pediatrician, then she changed her
mind and wanted to become a pharmacist."
She received her doctor of pharmacy degree from the University of the Pacific in Stockton
in 1974.
At Incline, she also worked for Keimach & Associates, which Riella said did compliance
work for pharmacies, including audits they would request.
"She always wanted to travel," Riella said. "Family was very important to her and she made
several trips over to Europe."
There, she'd visit cousins and maintain ties with the family's relatives who still lived
there, he said.
As a child on the dairy, which at most had about 120 Holstein cows, "She did her share,"
he said. "She wasn't one who thought she was too good to do anything."
Peter Bergna spoke freely with police about his wife's accomplishments in pharmacy and in
her budding career as a tour director.
At one point she'd been interested in going to law school and he told her he'd back her in
that effort, Bergna told police.
Together, they decided against having children, but it remained a "bone of contention"
between them, he said.
While she lived at Incline, she and Peter Bergna visited the Manteca arm of the family
often, and she'd visit with friends she had known since elementary school. Her brothers
said she often knew more about what was going on in the Manteca branch of the family than
they did.
"She was a good-hearted person," Jack Riella, another brother, said. "She was a good
listener but she didn't talk about her own problems. Maybe she should have talked a little
more."
Patty
http://www.rgj.com/news2/stories/news/977112943.html
Long so I'll just include the story of the night of the alledged murder. lots more at
above link
Bergna tells his story
Still, many things about Peter Bergna's story just don't make sense to authorities.
About a half-day after the mountain accident, Bergna sat down with police and gave them
this account:
Rinette Bergna had been in Italy for about six weeks and Peter Bergna was excited about
picking her up at Reno/Tahoe International Airport the evening of May 31. During her
lengthy trip abroad, the couple had talked often by telephone.
Bergna left an Incline High School booster club function around 9 p.m. to give him plenty
of time to get to the airport. On the way, he stopped at an AM-PM store to fill the truck'
s gas tank and to fill a couple of plastic gas containers in anticipation of a trip to Las
Vegas a couple of days later.
He met Delta Flight 803 at the gate around 10:15 p.m., gave his wife a big hug, then drove
the pickup truck up Mount Rose Highway toward the couple's Incline Village home.
Before getting there, however, Bergna turned off on State Road 878, an access road that
dead ends into the parking lot of the Slide Mountain side of the Mount Rose-Ski Tahoe
resort. Skiers and hang-gliders often use the short, isolated and scenic road. Bergna said
it was "one of our favorite spots."
They had a lot to talk about, catching up, "chit-chatting," he said.
"We've been discussing the idea of . me having problems with her being gone because I'm
lonely," he told officers. "I like being with people and there's a real problem."
"I'm a lonely guy," he said he told her. "You know, you have a great time and it might be
part of your job, but I'm home and I'm alone and I don't like it."
He added: "The end of the conversation was pretty exciting for me 'cause she said that she
would cut back on her travel and that she'd be home with me."
Bergna said it was he who then suggested going down the road to a spot overlooking the
lights of Reno to the left. A parking bay was on the right side of the road, with a
guardrail separating the pullover from the mountain's steep slope.
"I started to brake and it wasn't braking," he told police. "It wasn't stopping.
"I couldn't figure out why it wasn't stopping and next thing I know I hit the guardrail
and the next thing I'd wake up, I'm on the dirt and I don't see the car and I'm yelling
for my wife. I don't know where she is. And that's all I remember what happened.
"I'm getting close, I start to brake and I start to brake and I'm not braking. It's .. not
stopping. I'm . I'm panicking. I'm braking. I'm braking. I'm braking. I'm pushing as hard
as I can and nothing's happening. Nothing was happening. I just kept going. It wouldn't
stop."
He found himself down the mountain.
"When I finally figured out where I was, it was on the sand, I was sliding down the hill,
I'm trying to the best I could, looked up and see if I could see the truck, see a fire,
see something, yelling for her."
"Find my wife"
Bergna called 911 on a cellular phone he had in his pocket. It took a while for police to
reach him.
Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Rick McLellan found Bergna with his head resting on his
telephone.
"I can't move my legs, but I am okay," McLellan quoted Bergna. "Find my wife."
With the aid of a light from a Care Flight helicopter, the trooper found the truck's
wreckage 795 feet below the road.
"It was laying on what had been its roof with the nose of the vehicle pointing back up the
hill," McLellan said. "And it was pretty crumpled up from the tumbles that it took down
the hill."
He reached the truck and found Rinette Bergna dead.
At the top, before he descended the mountain, McLellan noticed a white baseball cap lying
on the road. The white hat with the green bill with "Incline" written across the front
would become important in the police theory of the case. The cap was Bergna's, police
said.
Clifton, who is prosecuting the case, also presented several other witnesses to the grand
jury that indicted Bergna.
Care Flight nurse Phyllis Tejeda, who attended Bergna on the mountainside that night, told
grand jurors Bergna kept saying "My wife. My wife. My wife. I think she's dead."
"But he didn't have any tears," she said, adding that she thought that was unusual.
Though he told police he didn't remember what had happened, he told Tejeda a different
story.
"He said he was ejected," Tejeda testified.
When she asked him if he lost consciousness, he said "No."
Trooper John Schilling, also at the accident scene, said Bergna was concerned about not
being able to find his fanny pack.
"I found it kind of odd first of all somebody would (be) asking for a fanny pack when a
very short distance away his deceased wife is," Schilling testified. "He never - there was
no emotion. It was just like he was kind of like a blank stare."
Investigator: "It doesn't add up"
There were other things that didn't add up, Schilling, an accident reconstructionist,
testified:
* Damage to Bergna's clothing was minimal, not what Schilling would expect for someone who
tumbled 80 feet down a mountainside after being thrown from a truck.
* Bergna's injuries were minimal, apparently no more than a sprained ankle and a scuff on
his head - again, inconsistent with someone who had been in this kind of accident. His air
bag deployed, but there were no signs of air bag impact on his face. Also, there were no
bruises or scrapes indicating he had been thrown through the driver's side window.
Police did, however, find scrapes on the top and side of a canvas shoe he had been
wearing. That could indicate it scraped across the asphalt road, Schilling said.
* The road, at that point, curves and is steeply banked, much as a turn at an auto
racetrack is elevated on one side. A vehicle traveling on that road would turn in toward
the mountain, not outward through the guardrail and down the side, Schilling testified.
* Schilling said he believes that for the truck to have followed the path it did, it would
have to have been steered toward the guardrail.
* Wreckage of the year-old truck with 23,452 miles on it was airlifted out by helicopter
and examined by NHP mechanic Dewey Dean Willie. He testified he found no reason for the
brakes to go out. It had dual brake systems, meaning that if the front brakes failed, the
rear brakes should hold, and vice versa, Willie said. There was no evidence of brake
tampering, he said.
* Bergna's driver's side window was in the down position because he had been smoking a
cigar, by his own account. He told police he did not wear a seat belt. A switch in the
truck allowed him to shut off the air bag on the passenger side. Because his wife was
short, about five feet, he was concerned about an air bag injuring her, Bergna told
officers.
* Schilling said that when a vehicle strikes an object, the occupant would be thrown
toward that object. At the angle the truck hit the guardrail, Schilling would have
expected Bergna to be thrown toward the passenger side windshield, not out the window of
the driver's door.
* Bergna told police he was looking for "a fire" after the accident. But rarely does a
vehicle explode and burn on impact, Schilling testified. That's something that's seen in
screen versions of accidents but rarely occurs in reality, he said.
* Perhaps three months after the accident, Bergna told Rick Riella, one of Rinette
Riella-Bergna's brothers, that perhaps he hadn't been hitting the brakes after all, that
perhaps he had hit the accelerator.
Maggie
***Thanks for the story, patty. I am beginning to think that the cops don't
have much on this guy and he may even be innocent--it just seems like an
unlikely way to try to kill someone (suppose she had lived?). And many of the
so-called suspicious things listed above can be readily explained--lots of
people *do* accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake, why
*wouldn't* he be looking for a fire when the truck crashed down a mountain?, if
I was 5 feet tall, I'd probably make sure the air bag was turned off when I
rode in a front seat, too, his cap could have easily flown out his open window
as he was frantically "braking," it should have been easy to tell if his
"scuffed" shoe had been rubbed against asphalt--since they don't say, I assume
they couldn't make that connection.
I'm just not sure that this adds up to murder. At all.
Maggie
"Pretty smart campaign for a dumb guy."--Newsweek on George W.
Patty
: ***Thanks for the story, patty. I am beginning to think that the cops don't
: have much on this guy and he may even be innocent--it just seems like an
: unlikely way to try to kill someone (suppose she had lived?). And many of the
: so-called suspicious things listed above can be readily explained--lots of
: people *do* accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake, why
: *wouldn't* he be looking for a fire when the truck crashed down a mountain?, if
: I was 5 feet tall, I'd probably make sure the air bag was turned off when I
: rode in a front seat, too, his cap could have easily flown out his open window
: as he was frantically "braking," it should have been easy to tell if his
: "scuffed" shoe had been rubbed against asphalt--since they don't say, I assume
: they couldn't make that connection.
:
: I'm just not sure that this adds up to murder. At all.
:
:
I think an earlier article implied that she was already dead when the truck
went off the road and down the mountain. Also earlier circumstantial evidence
included the fact that he usually kept his cell phone *in* the truck and that
night he had it on his body, saying he had used it earlier at the airport while
waiting for his wife and did not replace it to its normal location.
Can understand he might be angry that she was away much of the time
but I can't understand one motive might be wanting her to have children
when she was what 47 and they had been married 14 years. Seems like
he would be the one seeking the divorce to marry someone a little
younger.
Patty