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Stories by Leslie Ryland

100 Grateful San Diegans

Diane Jones30Marketing DirectorMarriedCollege AreaInterviewed at the Natural History Museum, Balboa Park I’m grateful that my father — he’s 63 — is healthy and happy. He had an accident last year; he had a flesh-eating bacteria ...

Tiffany and the Optionals

At 5:25 on an early summer afternoon, the sun still blazed outside the big metal roll-up doors at Stars and Stripes Gymnastics. Inside the San Marcos gym, coaches’ commands and the squeak of the parallel ...

What Made Them Kill

When Judge William Mudd sentenced David Westerfield to death on January 3 of this year, Westerfield joined a special subset of San Diegans. Of the 616 inmates on California’s death row, 31, including Westerfield, were ...

If I'd Been Born a Woman

“Don’t be such a girl.” I hear the boys taunt each other at the playground near my house. “Don’t be such a girl.” Nothing could be worse. Most men agree. Sitting on the couch with ...

Vote for Me I'm an Attorney

On a clear November morning, Judge Dick Murphy can see most of San Diego from the corner of his backyard. On a hillside in the saint-named streets behind St. Therese Catholic Church in San Carlos, ...

Soccer Parents Join Mayor's Race

On the day Judge Dick Murphy officially announced his candidacy for mayor of San Diego, a lazy Santa Ana wind meandered through Mission Gorge. In the main parking lot at Mission Trails Regional Park, a ...

Gallery of Friends

What do you do if you're a superior court judge and you want to be mayor of San Diego? You take an unpaid leave of absence and ask your friends for campaign money. On a ...