The Many Veils of Pinto Lake

The history of Watsonville's Pinto Lake — from Portola Expedition’s “discovery” & naming of redwood trees to a mysterious image of the Virgin Mary — while reporting on a floating corpse

I am standing behind a dense veil of Tule reeds on the western shore of Pinto Lake in Watsonville.

The body of a 34-year-old woman named Elizabeth Todis is floating like an apparition in the water on the other side of the reeds—just a few feet away. Detectives have gathered on a nearby private dock beneath a grove of redwoods. Eventually they will determ…