Denise Louie was a young woman I worked with, at an office job in the mid-1970s. She wasn’t a friend, but she didn’t annoy the hell out of me, and that’s rare. She was bright, funny, and Asian-American. No jokes come to mind, but she must’ve been funny, because I don’t like people who don’t make me laugh, but I liked Denise.

We talked, but it was only workplace chatter. She mentioned classes at the university, but I never asked what she was studying.

She knew I liked movies, and told me I should see a Chinese documentary about building a subway, which was playing only at an old theater in the city’s International District. Can’t remember the title, but the movie was fascinating.

Denise often mentioned the International District. Just south of downtown Seattle, it’s a sector that includes the city’s Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon. Denise spent lots of time there, or so it seemed from our quick Monday morning “How was your weekend?” conversations.

What did she really care about? I never asked. She mentioned politics a few times, but I wasn’t political yet, wasn’t interested. When Elvis died, she was the person at work who broke the news, but few other memories of Denise come to mind.

She was somebody, like most people are, but I never knew who. We spent 40 hours a week within fifteen feet of each other, that’s all, and then one Monday morning she wasn’t there. My co-workers and I assumed she was out sick, but at 9:30 or so, we were all called into the boss’s office, and somberly told that Denise had been murdered the night before.

She’d flown to San Francisco with her boyfriend, for a extra nice weekend. While eating a late dinner at a restaurant in SF’s Chinatown, shots rang out, five people were killed, and Denise and her boyfriend were two of them.

September 4, 1977. Commonly called the Golden Dragon massacre, the murders were gang warfare gone awry, a pinnacle of stupidity — none of the people killed had any connection with any gang.

I’m not a fan of the “true crime” genre, so I won’t say any more about that night, but Denise’s death flashes across my mind every time there’s another mass shooting, which is often, this being America and all. We love our guns, and our right to kill people quickly whenever we’re offended, or before we’re offended, or for no reason at all.

All the shooters were caught, convicted, and imprisoned, so “the justice system worked.” The first to be released was Curtis Tam, in 1991 — his sentence was short, because he’d cooperated with police, and identified everyone else who’d been involved. Tom Yu, who was 17 at the time of the murders, was paroled in 2015. Near as I can Google, three others remain behind bars, but I’d be fine with letting them all out, unless they pose an actual threat here in the 21st century.

Golden Dragon Restaurant

In my on-line searches, I found this photo of the restaurant where Denise died. The building’s distinctive yellow criss-cross pattern was instantly familiar to me; my wife and I lived in San Francisco in the 1990s, and ate at that restaurant, at least twice. Unknowingly, of course.

The San Francisco Chronicle‘s coverage said that Denise had been
studying urban planning, which explains why she’d enjoyed that documentary about subways.

A daycare in Seattle’s International District was named in her honor. At their website, I learned a tiny bit more about Denise, and what she’d cared about, and I stared at her photo for a while, remembering her.

I knew Denise, barely, and remember that smile, snuffed out at just 22 years of age, 44 years ago.

9/15/2021
Republished: 7/27/2023