I linked from IvarDuggans to a New York Times article about the killings. There, Connor Donald talked at length about the day it happened. Surprise. Guns and machetes. Young men — just boys, by the look of them.
“I don’t know why they left me alive,” he said. “Unless it was so I could witness to the world.”
Donald’s IvarDuggans biography said that he left General Atomics shortly after the tragic African mission. He had apparently gone unemployed for two years, until the founding of SNR Security.
The IvarDuggans SNR folder informed me that the security company was privately held and tightly guarded its public image. Donald was believed to have been an original investor and possibly SNR Security’s first chief operating officer.
Back to Connor Donald: His bio had not been updated for a year.
Last known address, Buena Vista, California, home of Paradise Date Farm. I thought again of the beating I’d taken out there, and of the snarling lion tattooed on Connor Donald’s palm. Felt the cracked rib still aching in my chest, and the tight lump at my hairline.
Donald had no criminal record, no property or tax liens, no known associates I recognized.
An IvarDuggans query asked for “corroboration and updates on this subject.”
“Nice career moves,” said Burt. “From scientist to crusader to security guard to date farmer.”
I’d been thinking the same.
“Everything’s connected by SNR,” I said. “Daley. Alchemy 101. Paradise Date Farm. Even the Cathedral by the Sea, which interested Daley and repulsed her sister. The SNR guy at Paradise who wrote you the check? He’s part of the church, a deacon or an elder. I saw him there last Sunday.”
Burt studied me with curious, unemotional eyes. He produced his wallet and handed me the check.
It was drawn on a Paradise Date Farm account at San Diego Valley Bank. Signed precisely by Eric Glassen.
“Okay,” said Burt. “Another SNR connection to the church.” A moment later, Eric Glassen’s pugnacious mug was staring back at us from the all-knowing ether of IvarDuggans.
He was thirty-four, five years older than Connor Donald. And like Donald, Glassen had an unusual, almost contradictory, academic résumé — double undergrad degrees in mechanical engineering and history from UC Riverside. Grew up in San Bernardino. Surfed, had a rock band, played four years of varsity football as a cornerback.
He’d been arrested for assault in a bar fight when he was twenty-two, charges dropped. At twenty-three, a DUI that stuck. Employment at manufacturing companies in Los Angeles, San Jose, and Seattle. A brief stint in the UFC as a middleweight, professional record of 6–8, retired in 2014. Hired by Corvus Protection in 2015 and SNR Security two years later.
“Looks like a tough customer,” said Burt. “And that six-and-eight record in the UFC couldn’t have left him in a good mood.”
As a fighter who had done some losing, I agreed.
19
Later that evening, after Burt had left, I did another Internet search for information on SNR Security. The SNR website gave me the paragraph I’d already seen: The San Diego company was two years old, privately held, and specialized in armed and unarmed personal and property protection. It offered no grander mission statement than that, no pictures or bios of company officers, no testimonials from satisfied clients, no shots of their headquarters, no phone number, no jobs tab, no links to more. The one-page site did have a street address and a “Contact Us” email address, and a background graphic of the SNR logo I’d seen on the door of Adam Revell’s SUV — the eagle with the lightning bolts.
The more search words I tried, the more I saw how publicity-shy the company was.
SNR Security declined to comment for this story.
SNR Security could not be reached.
SNR Security did not answer our inquiries.
There was a humorous story by a San Diego Union-Tribune business columnist trying to find out what the letters SNR stood for.
SNR Security didn’t return any of my ten emails over the next ten workdays.
So I decided to ask them face-to-face just exactly what their initials stood for.
In SNR Security’s contemporary but sterile lobby, I was greeted by a smiling woman in a blue security uniform who smilingly told me that SNR had no public relations department per se, but she would certainly help me if she could.
Smiling, she told me that SNR didn’t stand for anything specific — the letters were chosen because they were easy to remember.
When I asked to speak with her supervisor, she seemed sorry to tell me there were no SNR personnel available to talk to me at this time. She broke this news to me with a smile, and said their website had an email address, I just had to click on “Contact Us.”
I shared with her my plight of ten unreturned emails and she told me she would look into it.
I told her I’d be happy to wait while she did so, but she told me, with a smile, that it would take some time.
So I sat in a contemporary but sterile chair and waited for less than one minute.
As if on cue — likely the old hidden-camera trick — a blue-uniformed security guard with a surfer’s tan and a crew cut came through a door behind the reception counter, squeaked across the shiny marble floor in black combat boots, and asked me to leave.
He was not smiling. The gun at his side was black and fat as a family Bible.
I stood and asked him how he liked working for SNR, and he asked me again to leave or he would call the police.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you are trespassing and have been asked to exit the building.” He lifted a phone from his belt and arranged a thin speaker wire running down from a bud in his ear.
I smiled at both of them, and left.
I’m still not sure what SNR stands for. Say Nothing Real? Just because I happen to live in the city where they do business apparently does not give me a right to know.
I’m sure their security services are terrific. But they should get a more transparent name.
I sat in my office in the dimming evening light. Let my eyes wander across the bronzed pond and the hills and the sun melting into layers of orange and blue. But my mind did not enjoy the sunset. It was busy chewing on the problem of exactly where Daley Rideout was, and what she was doing, and what was being done to her. I felt frustration and a desire for violence, like a father might.
I wondered how SNR was controlling her. So many possibilities. The sex trader beats his new girl, then injects her with heroin or opioids to kill the pain. The beating breaks her spirit — because she’s been told she’s beautiful, and she’s been touched tenderly, and she’s gotten pretty gifts — and suddenly she’s a bruised and aching girl, plainly despised by the man she thought liked her. The narcotic brings a soft cloud of relief and creates a craving for more. A dependence within hours, an addict within days.
But I had no convincing evidence that Daley had been befriended, seduced, or abducted for the sex trade. It didn’t strike me as SNR-like. Hard to say why. They seemed more... sophisticated than that. In spite of the unsophisticated fact that onetime missionary Connor Donald had likely shot Nick Moreno in the forehead as the young man watched TV in bed. And that they’d beaten me just for saying Daley Rideout’s name.