{"id":179460,"date":"2026-02-15T22:07:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T22:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/179460\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T22:07:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T22:07:18","slug":"mental-health-advocate-for-california-tribes-dies-victim-in-murder-suicide-the-mendocino-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/179460\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental health advocate for California tribes dies; victim in murder-suicide \u2022 The Mendocino Voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is part of a partnership between the Mendocino Voice and nonprofit newsroom CalMatters to bring relevant nonpartisan news to Mendocino County readers. Learn more about CalMatters here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A member of the Yurok tribe who advocated for better mental health treatment and suicide intervention in rural Northern California has died in\u00a0an apparent\u00a0murder-suicide.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Celinda Gonzales was 59.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2020,\u00a0CalMatters\u00a0wrote about her<\/a>\u00a0work in Humboldt County, where\u00a0about 2 and a half times<\/a>\u00a0as many residents die by suicide per capita as the rest of the state.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Humboldt County Sheriff\u2019s Office said deputies\u00a0found two bodies<\/a>\u00a0in a home in the Yurok reservation village of Weitchpec on Feb. 3.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the preliminary investigation, the incident appears to be consistent with a murder-suicide,\u201d the sheriff\u2019s office said in a press release.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Feb. 12, a spokesperson for the sheriff\u2019s office said, \u201cit is believed Celinda was killed by her husband, Arthur Gonzales, who then took his own life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Yurok tribe confirmed<\/a>\u00a0Gonzales\u2019s identity\u00a0in\u00a0a memorial last week.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a beloved friend to many Tribal Councilmembers, staff and community members,\u201d the tribe said in the memorial. \u201cThis is a tremendous tragedy for the Tribe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gonzales once had a grant-funded role as a suicide intervention specialist, working with local police and fire departments to recognize potential signs of an intent to self-harm.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2019, the federal funds that\u00a0paid for\u00a0her grant position ran out, so she started working on her own.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gonzales lost her son, Paul, to\u00a0suicide, when\u00a0he was 19. Her 43-year-old brother, Gaylord Lewis Jr., died by suicide five years later, in 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the pandemic swept through California and rates of anxiety and suicidal ideation skyrocketed, Gonzales was motivated by her own losses to help in Humboldt County, where access to mental health services is already difficult, compounded by the dearth of psychiatrists willing to\u00a0relocate\u00a0to rural California.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A 2016 Humboldt County\u00a0grand jury investigation<\/a>\u00a0found that the county behavioral health board did not adequately serve the county\u2019s residents.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gonzales believed that, despite the challenges of the pandemic, her community was resilient.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve survived wars, floods, fires and landslides,\u201d she told a\u00a0CalMatters\u00a0reporter in 2020.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Yurok tribe is offering grief counseling at the village clinic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This article first appeared in CalMatters\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article is part of a partnership between the Mendocino Voice and nonprofit newsroom CalMatters to bring relevant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,6752,3154,85253,2093,1331,85254],"class_list":{"0":"post-179460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-calmatters","12":"tag-humboldt-county","13":"tag-humboldt-county-sheriffs-office","14":"tag-mental-health","15":"tag-murder","16":"tag-yurok-tribe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}