David Dale had a wad of cash in his pocket when he arrived at Eternal Valley Memorial Park & Mortuary in Newhall on Wednesday morning. He walked into the cemetery office and ordered a gravestone, and was asked what inscription he wanted etched into the granite
"Too soon," said Dale.
He wanted to keep the inscription simple, he told me. He wanted to express what he's been thinking about, and haunted by, for 45 years.
The story begins in 1970, a few days before Thanksgiving. Dale and Christie Lynn Galbraith, Chatsworth High students, had broken up a week earlier, but she thought they should reconsider.