Flowers for a Dying Season

Colette was a founding member of the Conservation Committee and a passionate advocate for the coastal sanctuary. She had cultivated the relationship with Halverson for years, and his support for the measure was something she considered settled. When she learned in late September 2021 that Halverson was wavering — she was one of the two people he privately told — she described herself as 'gutted.' She was at the September 30th session from start to finish and spent time in the kitchen during the afternoon, helping prepare the late tea service. Her garden at Widow's Point includes monkshood, which she grows for ornamental purposes. She delivered a gift tin of dried herbs to Halverson's house on September 27th, describing it as 'a house blend, for the meeting.' The tin was later inventoried by state police and found empty.

Marcus was not a formal committee member but attended the September 30th session as an invited observer, representing the grounds staff's concerns about converting the back nine. He was the most vocal opponent of the sanctuary proposal, telling anyone who would listen that the conversion would end Pinecrest's viability as a championship course. When Halverson privately told him — in a separate conversation from the one with Colette — that he intended to block the sanctuary measure, Marcus did not react with relief. According to a committee member who overheard part of the exchange, Marcus said: 'You should have told me before I went to the trouble of arranging things.' He was in and out of the kitchen throughout the day. He left the session at approximately 4:15 PM, about forty minutes before Halverson brewed the tea.

Pearl was not a committee member, but she had a long personal friendship with Warren Halverson dating to their high school years, and she stopped by Copperhead Lane on the morning of September 30th to drop off a casserole for Diane — not knowing Diane was away. Halverson invited her in for coffee and she stayed for nearly an hour before the committee session began in earnest. She has confirmed she was in the kitchen during that period, and that she saw the tin of herbs on the pantry shelf. She left before the formal session started at ten. She has admitted she suspected foul play from the night of preparation but chose not to go to police, citing her certainty that Dr. Cray would dismiss her without a toxicology basis. She quietly retained tissue samples, and her critics have noted that her silence for five years enabled the cover-up to hold — though she maintains she was waiting until she had something they couldn't ignore.

As committee chair, Judge Castellano organized the September 30th session at Halverson's home and was present all day. She and Halverson had been close allies — she considered the coastal sanctuary measure the defining work of her post-bench years. Halverson did not privately tell her of his reversal before the session; she learned of it only when he announced it to the full group during the afternoon, presenting it as final. Multiple committee members recall her sitting very still for a long moment before responding quietly that she 'needed some air.' She stepped outside for approximately twenty minutes and then returned and resumed the meeting. She has said she spent those twenty minutes walking the marsh path behind the property. She was in the kitchen during the afternoon tea preparation and has confirmed handling the herb tin while looking for the loose-leaf strainer.

Nina served as the committee's volunteer note-taker and administrator and was present at the September 30th session in that capacity. She was in and out of the kitchen throughout the day and helped Colette with the afternoon tea setup. Her connection to the case has a pharmaceutical dimension: she managed the drug inventory at Bayview Veterinary Clinic, and the clinic's controlled substance log shows a quantity of aconitine-adjacent botanical extract — part of Dr. Bowen's toxicology reference kit — went unaccounted for between September 14th and September 30th, 2021. Nina reported the discrepancy to Dr. Bowen, who logged it as a training-exercise spill. Nina told state police in 2026 that she did not believe it was a spill — the container showed no residue consistent with spillage. She has a documented personal grievance against Halverson: he had blocked her grant application for a coastal wildlife survey in 2020 by failing to countersign the municipal sponsorship paperwork, effectively killing her two-year research project.