Tim Steller's opinion: Killing of woman beloved on the streets shocks Tucson barrios

At the Waffle House, at Casa Maria soup kitchen, in Barrio Kroeger Lane and Barrio Santa Rosa, people are shaken by the news.

“They killed Linda?!”

For decades, Linda Mendibles struck a recognizable figure in the neighborhoods around the freeway just southwest of downtown Tucson. She pushed a cart, she slept on the street, but she was someone people knew or at least recognized, even if they didn’t know her name. She was a friend, a customer, a mother.

She was 70 years old and known by nicknames like Mama Linda and Mother Mary. For most of her life, the streets were home for Mendibles, even though some people offered her help through the years.

On the morning of Oct. 20, somebody called 911 to ask authorities to check the welfare of a person down at the corner of West 18th Street and South Frontage Road.

That’s the corner, marked by a concrete bench, where Mendibles often sat and slept. She had been shot to death. By chance, she was the record-high 79th victim of a homicide in Tucson this year.

Police have not arrested a suspect and ask that anyone with information call 911 or 88-CRIME.

Her killing was shocking to the many people who knew her, for various reasons. For one, it’s not that common for street people to carry a gun, so it feels unlikely to the people I talked with that this resulted from some sort of personal beef.

It’s especially puzzling because this was Mama Linda, Mother Mary, a woman who had rough edges, who drank, but who most of all treated the people she met with notable kindness and respect.

“She had, like, a motherly persona,” said Crystal Welz, who works at the Waffle House on the corner of West 22nd Street and South Frontage Road, a site Mendibles frequented for many years. “She would ask me how I’m doing, call me ‘mija.’ “

Her colleague, Waffle House manager Jose Duran, recalled, “She’s been around here since I was little. She always had her radio going on her little cart, playing music on the jukebox (in Waffle House). This was her stomping grounds.”

For decades, you could find her here, from “A” Mountain across Barrio Kroeger Lane and the freeway, over to Casa Maria in South Tucson. Brian Flagg, who runs the soup kitchen, said he referred to her as “Linda Chaparrita,” after the song by the same name.

“She’s like a fixture among street people, beloved even,” Flagg said. “She drank and was fiery and rude at times. But you know, she lives on the street.”

“She would sing and dance and provide humor and soulfulness to situations,” he added. “One of the last times I dealt with her, someone was being a real jerk, and she jumped in and told the woman to get the hell out.”

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Of course living on the streets is hard. And it usually stems from hard problems.

Her son, who is now named Benijeh Navati Anasazi, told me his mother’s childhood was marked by abuse, rape and trauma.

“She was traumatized by a great evil,” he said Friday at his house in the heart of the area his mother called home. “She only survived. That isn’t called living.”

He believes she is a descendant of the Cocopah Tribe, along the Colorado River near Yuma, and suffered in part because of that, too.

“She was disadvantaged as a child,” he said. “They beat out of her her native tongue.”

Dealing with racism was also part of her being on the streets, he said. She not only was Native American herself but also had African American/Native children. Every group had a reason to reject them, he said.

Still, as her life on the streets played out, Mendibles didn’t like to trouble other people with her troubles.

Josefina Cardenas, a Barrio Kroeger Lane resident, worried about Mendibles staying in the dark area near “A” Mountain years ago, she told me. But when Cardenas offered to let Mendibles stay on her property, she declined. Cardenas recalled she said: “Oh no, mija, I’m OK. Estoy loca.”

So that’s how she ended up many nights and mornings at the corner of West 18th Street and South Frontage Road, often sleeping on top of the concrete bench there, neighbors said. At night, bright pinkish street lights shed a constant glow as the traffic roars by on the interstate across the street.

It’s not what most people would call comfortable, but the light at least offers the possibility of reducing the risk.

After the sun rose, she would sit on that bench, neighbors recalled. Now it’s adorned with a memorial cross, flowers, and messages written on the cardboard that she used as a sleeping pad.

“I’ve known you since I was a kid,” one message says. “I would see you every day with your cart around Menlo Park. You were always kind and had a very kind soul. Never bother anyone. I’m going to miss seeing you around now. Tucson Westside isn’t going to be the same. Thank you. You will forever be in my heart.”

It’s signed, “Westside kid.”

In a way, the death of a 70-year-old street person is no surprise, but, as her son said, “we don’t accept what happened to her.” No, even in a year when the killings won’t stop, we can’t.