Santa Cruz, California, July 26th, 2015. A Sunday evening, warm and quiet, the kind of night where nothing feels wrong. At 6:08 p.m. a 911 call comes in. A mother’s voice shaking. Her 8-year-old daughter went outside to ride her scooter. That was over an hour ago. Now she’s gone. The last confirmed sighting had been at 5:07 p.m.
Just a glimpse of a little girl coasting past the mailboxes on a white scooter. After that, nothing. Not a sound, not a trace. Like the ground just swallowed her whole. Police flood the apartment complex within minutes. Officers sweep every corner, garages, stairwells, storage areas, dumpsters. Neighbors join in.
Dozens of people combing through every inch of the property because there’s just no way. No way a child disappears this fast, this completely from a place this small. For nearly 24 hours the search turns up nothing. Then on the evening of July 27th, investigators circle back to a spot they had already checked. The recycling area.
An officer opens one of the bins. And just like that, a missing person’s case becomes something far more serious. Within hours police announce they have a suspect. He wasn’t a stranger. He lived right there in that same complex. He had actually been out there during the search, watching, asking questions, staying close to the investigation.
And when officers made their discovery, he ran. He bolted before anyone even told him what was found. He was 15 years old. This is the case of Madison Middleton, one of the most heartbreaking and legally controversial true crime cases in California history. And before we go any further, drop your city in the comments right now and tell me what time it is where you are.
I love seeing where you all are watching from. And if you’re into true crime documentaries like this one, make sure you subscribe so you never miss one. Now, let’s get into it. Because what this case revealed about the justice system left an entire country asking the same question. Is this really justice? To understand what was lost that day, you have to understand who Maddie was.
Madison Middleton, known to everyone as Maddie, was 8 years old and full of a life in a way that people don’t forget. She lived at the Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz with her mom, Laura Jordan. A unique kind of community built around affordable housing for artists and families where people shared space, shared creativity, and genuinely looked out for one another.
It was the kind of neighborhood where kids played outside until the street lights came on, and adults left their doors open. For a girl like Maddie, it was the perfect place to grow up. She was creative to her core. She painted little toy animal figures, made up stories for them, turned them into her own tiny productions.
She sang, she danced, she drew. Anything that let her put something of herself into the world. Her mom described her as deeply kind, the kind of kid who would walk across a room to sit next to someone who looked like they needed company. She was sharp, intuitive, and almost always smiling. Around the complex, she was known as the girl who could talk to anybody, make friends in minutes, and light up a conversation without even trying.
Her dad, Michael Middleton, was a steady presence in her life, and together the three of them were close in the way that really counts. Not just family by name, but genuinely tight. Maddie was their whole world. July 26th was a Sunday, and she was making the most of what was left of the weekend. A friend had come over, and while they finished up a board game with Laura, Maddie decided to take her new scooter outside.
She’d only gotten it a few days earlier and could not wait to ride it around the courtyard before it got dark. She was comfortable out there. She knew the complex like the back of her hand, and everyone in it knew her. A few neighbors spotted her riding around that afternoon, stopping here and there to talk to other kids, happy and completely at ease.
At 5:07 p.m. she rode past the mailboxes. That was the last time anyone saw her. When Maddie didn’t come home, Laura started knocking on doors. The Tannery had around 100 apartments spread across 8 acres and with every door that opened and every neighbor who said they hadn’t seen her, the fear grew heavier. Something was wrong.
Maddie was a confident kid, but she knew the rules. Don’t wander off. Don’t go far. Don’t talk to strangers. She wasn’t the type to just disappear. And everyone who knew her understood that immediately. Police arrived fast and took the situation seriously from the start. Despite that, an Amber Alert was not issued. Officials stated the case didn’t meet the specific criteria required to trigger one.
A decision that drew criticism later. in danger. My name is Kirby. I know Kirbyville. Just look there. Okay, what can you tell us about what she was doing out here? She was riding her brand new skitter. It’s a white razor. She had a black helmet on. She was wearing a purple dress and she was just as happy as could be riding around.
Now, did you check with friends to see if she was with them? Absolutely. We’ve searched the entire Tannery door-to-door. Officers have gone door-to-door. Every loft. We’ve looked at cameras. Um we’ve had search parties all night long. Is there anyone else? Is there another friend, an adult friend she might have befriended or anything like that? Not that I can think of at all.
Has she Has she ever done anything like that? Nothing. Never. Never. She’s never left Tannery property. She knows where she’s supposed to can and cannot be here. Uh she was, you know, in the courtyard where she was supposed to be. She came over here. And that was the last we saw of her on uh surveillance.
So, where do you go? I mean, like just got to ask what you know, how difficult is it knowing that you can’t really do any I mean, you’re doing what you can, but I I already fell apart. Now, I’m just in survival mode. I I can’t explain how difficult this is. Nobody should have to go through this.
A massive What did happen was a massive coordinated search operation. The Santa Cruz Police Department, the County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team, and K9 units all mobilized. But, night fell quickly, and by morning they still had nothing. By 11:00 a.m. on July 27th, roughly 50 FBI agents had joined the effort.
They went door-to-door, asked residents to check every shed, garage, and yard on the property. neighborhoods. Good afternoon. We’re glad you’ve joined us. We begin with the latest on the search for a missing 8-year-old Santa Cruz girl. At a news conference earlier this morning, Santa Cruz police say they’ve expanded their 4 and 1/2 square mile search area for the missing 8-year-old girl, and have called in the FBI, who have additional resources to help.
Search crews in orange jackets are fanning out through a large area of Santa Cruz, hoping to find any sign of Madison Middleton. The 8-year-old girl went missing Sunday afternoon. She was last seen by neighbors about 5:00 yesterday afternoon at the Tannery Arts Center. Neighbors have joined in on the search. Just wonderful kid.
We we would have heard her. She’s I don’t I don’t get this. Nobody gets this. We would have heard. She was just right here, right here. Parents heard about the missing child when they brought their children to a dance class at the Tannery Arts Center. I mean, it’s tragic. I feel terrible. Um like I was telling my son, I’m hoping that they’re going to find her.
We’re sending positive, happy thoughts that she’s going to come back happy and healthy. Neighbors immediately began to help look for her, and spent all night scouring the area with no luck. We’re all feeling a little helpless at this point. We’ve been checked all of the tents and homeless camps.
A lot of us have been up all night. We’ve gone as far as Paradise Park. Police say there’s no evidence Maddie was forcibly abducted, so they are treating this as a missing persons case. We’re not calling this a kidnapping. We’re still early on in our investigation. What we’re calling it this is we’re looking for a lost child.
Late this afternoon, police stopped vehicles entering the Tannery parking lot and looking for any information or signs of missing Madison Maddie Middleton. Hundreds of Hundreds of volunteers showed up. Police had already received over a thousand tips. The case was pulling people in from across the region because something about it hit different.
An 8-year-old girl, a tight community, no answers, no trace. As the search approached the 24-hour mark, investigators made a critical decision. Given how short the window was between when Maddie was last seen and when she was reported missing, they were increasingly convinced the answers were somewhere inside the complex itself.
So, they pulled the search back in and started going through everything again, more carefully, more thoroughly. It was just after the 8:00 p.m. on July 27th when they found her. Inside a recycling area within the complex, less than a day after she vanished. complex. A body believed to be that of 8-year-old Madison Middleton was found in a dumpster almost 24 hours after she disappeared near her home. At 8:00 p.m.
last night, police suddenly herded residents out and pushed everyone onto the street after Maddie’s remains were found below the complex. Forensic uh analysis that the autopsy will will determine those results. At this point, we don’t we don’t know. We just don’t know.
One investigator later said that everyone’s heart just dropped in that moment, but they had to push through it because now there was a work to do. This was no longer a search. It was a crime scene. And before the night was over, police had already made an arrest. arrest. Police in Santa Cruz, California have a 15-year-old boy under arrest in connection with the disappearance and apparent death of an 8-year-old girl.
What made it even community most was not just the age of the suspect, it was that he had been a right there the entire time. years old. Last night, our cameras were there when police took a neighbor into custody. We blurred his image. Yesterday evening, we saw a distraught woman stomping and screaming in the parking lot of the apartment complex where that arrest took place.
Neighbors tell us she’s the mother of that teen. At approximately 7:55 p.m., a Santa Cruz police detective conducted a secondary and more thorough canvas of the complex, which included the search of a recycle bin located in an enclosure on the first floor parking structure at the Tannery Arts Center complex. Maddy’s body was located within that recycle bin.
I will merely say that Maddy’s body was concealed in a recycle bin in a way that was not obvious or or readily apparent. There was a 15-year-old male juvenile who resides in an apartment on the property upstairs from the location where Maddy’s body was found, and he was nearby when when Maddy was located.
He was subsequently taken into custody, where he was brought back to the Santa Cruz Police Department and interviewed. Investigators from the Santa Cruz Police Department interviewed this individual into the early early morning hours this morning, and he was subsequently arrested for the murder of Madeline Soto. Additionally, investigators have located evidence that links the suspect to this horrific crime.
It appears that she was lured to the suspect’s apartment willingly. Additionally, we have determined that Maddy was murdered inside of the suspect’s apartment. We determined that the suspect acted alone and not in concert with anyone else. I would like to thank the members of my staff who worked relentlessly throughout this investigation.
Many of whom worked 36 hours straight driven by our desire and hope that we would find Maddie safe. I’m sure all of you can relate to this as a parent myself and many of you I’m sure are parents. This this has just been absolutely devastating for me personally and for my staff. Um You know, my staff was so hopeful that we were going to find her alive.
And when the news came last night that she was not alive, it was it was hard. It was horrible. On the evening of July 28th, the community gathered for a candlelight vigil. A lot of the people in town and all over have been walking around numb. You know, it’s like that’s how I feel. I feel like I’ve been walking around numb.
I couldn’t even imagine if it was somebody that I loved, somebody that I was close to. People stood together in the same courtyard where Maddie used to ride her scooter, trying to make sense of something that simply didn’t make sense. Because on top of the grief, there was a layer of confusion that made everything harder.
The suspect was a minor, which meant his identity was legally protected in those first few days. No name, no face, no details, just the knowledge that someone who lived among them had done this. And that person was a teenager. That silence created its own kind of tension. People were living in the same complex, passing the same doors, and not knowing who they were looking at.
Rumors moved fast. Anxiety moved faster. Then the Santa Cruz County District Attorney, Jeff Rosell, stepped forward with an official statement that shifted everything. He confirmed there was strong evidence connecting the teenager to the crime. He announced the suspect would be charged as an adult. And he made it clear this was not a single charge.
This was multiple serious counts that reflected the full weight of what had happened. His tone was direct and and unambiguous. This was not an accident. This was not something that could be minimized. and the legal system at least at that moment was going to treat it accordingly. That it happened.
The law allows under certain circumstances uh with certain types of offenses a determination as to whether or not you want to charge someone as an adult uh or whether or not they’re charged as a juvenile. Based on the information that we know at this point, uh there do appear to be uh charges uh that can be filed as an adult and they are absolutely considering that and these are the type of charges and the type of offenses that are and can be charged as an adult.
After that, the name was released. The suspect was Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, known around the complex as AJ. He was 15 years old and had lived in the same community with his mother for the past 6 years. For the people who knew him, that revelation was genuinely hard to process. AJ was not someone who gave off warning signs to the people around them, at least not ones they recognized at the time.
Neighbors described him as polite, easy to be around, always smiling. He spent time outside with the younger kids teaching them yo-yo tricks, showing them basic piano chords. He was the kind of older kid that parents felt comfortable seeing around their children, trusted, familiar, safe or so it seemed. That image made the truth even harder to absorb.
People found themselves going over every interaction, every moment they had seen him in the courtyard or on the stairs, trying to reconcile the person they thought they knew with what had now come to light. For many, that reconciliation never fully came. It shattered something in how the community understood itself and the people it had welcomed in.
Looking back though, there were things that painted a different picture. His social media presence revealed a side of him that people hadn’t noticed or hadn’t taken seriously enough. Posts that felt heavy, dark, conflicted. Things that in hindsight looked less like teenage angst and more like something unaddressed and serious.
There were also reports that he had been cruel to a pet and that at least one person close to him had encouraged him to seek help after he made comments about wanting to hurt himself. These were fragments that no one had connected at the time, but together they told a story of someone struggling with something much deeper than what was visible on the surface.
What drew police attention to him during the search was his behavior around the recycling area. While others searched and waited anxiously for any news, AJ watched the officers with a focused, almost fixed attention that stood out. It wasn’t the look of someone hoping for good news. There was something tense and calculated in it.
When officers finally made their discovery, he ran. Immediately, without a word, before anyone had said anything to him, before he could have even seen what was inside the bin. That reaction told investigators everything they needed to know. You don’t run from news you haven’t heard yet unless you already know what it is. What made it even more telling was that throughout the entire search, he had been actively involved, talking to people, asking what they knew, inserting himself into conversations, trying to stay close to the flow of
information. At first glance, it looked like concern. In hindsight, it looked like someone trying to monitor a situation they had created. When police brought him in for questioning, the inconsistencies came quickly. His story didn’t hold together, the details shifted. His behavior under questioning gave investigators enough to keep pushing.
The full contents of that interrogation were not made public, largely out of legal caution given his age, but what followed was a formal confession. AJ told investigators that he had lured Maddie into his apartment by offering her ice cream. She knew him. She had no reason to hesitate. Once she was inside, he overpowered her without warning.
What followed resulted in her death. He then carried her out of the apartment and concealed her in the recycling area where she was later found. Forensic evidence helped investigators confirm the timeline and the sequence of events, including the fact that she had passed away before the very first 911 call was even made at 6:08 p.m. on July 26th.
District Attorney Jeff Rossell made his position clear. AJ was facing the possibility of a life in prison. Trying this case in adult court, Rossell said, was not a question. It was the only appropriate path given the nature and severity of what had happened. He described AJ as a genuine danger to the public, and that assessment was not rhetorical.
It was the foundation of everything the prosecution would argue going forward. Judge Salazar reviewed the case, initially agreed with the prosecution. AJ would be tried as an adult. Given the charges, the evidence, and the confession, it seemed like the legal path forward was set. AJ entered a plea of not guilty, despite having already confessed, which added another layer of tension to a case that was already straining the community’s patience.
But that direction didn’t hold for long. His defense team moved aggressively to have the case transferred back to juvenile court, and their argument rested on a piece of legislation that had just taken effect, SB 1391. That law drew a hard line. It prohibited the prosecution of anyone who was 14 or 15 years old as an adult, regardless of the crime. No exceptions.
No judicial discretion. The law was the law. And under it, AJ’s age at the time of the offense made him legally untouchable by the adult system. The defense also argued that his environment had played a role. Difficulties at home, struggles at school, social isolation. They were trying to provide context, a framework for understanding how a 15-year-old ends up in a situation like this.
But people who knew the Gonzalez family pushed back on that framing directly. His mother, Reggie, had left an abusive relationship and had rebuilt her life. She had dealt with her own personal struggles, worked through them, and made her children her priority. Those who knew her said the picture the defense painted simply didn’t reflect reality.
And prosecutors made the point plainly. Countless people face hardship, face instability, face pain, and they do not do what AJ did. Circumstance explains nothing here. Thousands of people signed a petition demanding that SB 1391 not be applied to this widespread, but petitions don’t override statutes.
After a long series of legal battles and appeals, the California Supreme Court ruled that the case had to be moved to juvenile court. That ruling landed like a weight on the entire community. forward. Now to our top story tonight, the man accused in the brutal assault and killing of 8-year-old Maddy Middleton is back to being tried as a juvenile.
California Supreme Court rules to uphold a 2018 law preventing juveniles from being tried as adults if the crime happened when they were 14 or 15 years old. Adrian AJ Gonzales was 15 when he allegedly sexually assaulted and killed Middleton at his mother’s Santa Cruz apartment in 2015. For the last several years, Gonzales has been in the adult system in custody at the Santa Cruz County Jail.
Absolutely disappointing. The words from the family of Maddy Middleton. Thursday morning, California’s Supreme Court voted to uphold Senate Bill 1391 in the case of OG versus the Superior Court of Ventura County, which states 14 and 15-year-olds cannot be transferred to adult court. We are extremely disappointed.
Um and I’ve spoke to some of the family members and they are absolutely devastated. Not a person based on all the evidence we heard in 9 weeks from experts throughout the state. Uh that is not somebody who’s going to be safe to be released. In juvenile hall, he responded very well to the programming, the services, the support, um in the structure of the hall.
Kids can get treatment and aren’t just thrown away into an adult prison where they where they’re going to learn very bad habits. The idea that a case this serious involving a victim this young would be handled within a system designed for rehabilitation rather than accountability felt to many like a fundamental failure of justice. Judge Salazar himself acknowledged the frustration that openly.
He said his hands were tied. That within the boundaries the law had drawn, he had no room to move. He didn’t frame it as a defense of the outcome. He framed it as an honest assessment of a system with limits that even he found deeply uncomfortable in cases like this one. He went further stating that blanket protections for all 14 and 15-year-olds in serious cases do not automatically serve public safety and that not every individual in that age range is a candidate for successful rehabilitation.
It was a candid and sobering admission from the bench. Then in April 2021, more than 5 years after Maddie’s death, AJ changed his plea. Top story tonight, a major development in the murder case of 8-year-old Madison Maddie Middleton. Today in court, the suspect Adrian AJ Gonzales pleaded guilty to all charges.
He pleaded guilty to six serious charges connected to what he had done to her. The guilty plea brought a kind of legal closure, but for the family closure is not quite the right word. They had spent 5 years cycling through hearings, waiting rooms, legal delays, and the emotional weight of having to relive everything over and over again.
A guilty plea doesn’t give back what was taken. It just marks the end of one painful chapter. Before sentencing, AJ addressed the court. He spoke quietly acknowledging the pain he had caused and expressing hope that the family might one day be able to forgive him. For many people in that room, the words felt small against the scale of what had happened.
For the family, it was yet another extraordinarily difficult moment. Sitting across from the person who had destroyed their lives and hearing him ask for something as enormous as forgiveness. Maddy’s father, Michael, spoke about his own journey through that pain. He said that over time, through tremendous personal struggle, he had found his way to forgiveness, not for A.J.
‘s sake, but for his own. He described it as the only path that didn’t lead deeper into darkness. He said he believed Maddy herself would have understood that choice. It was not a moment of relief or resolution. It was something quieter and harder than that. A man choosing not to let grief consume what remained of his life.
Maddy’s mother, Laura, shared something different. She described living every day with depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress that didn’t fade with time. It shaped her mornings, her sleep, her ability to function. She could no longer work. The simplest task carried weight that most people will never understand.
Her loss was not something she moved through. It was something she carried permanently. Judge Salazar imposed the maximum sentence the law allowed. Under juvenile jurisdiction, that meant A.J.’s custody period was set to end when he turned 25 in October of the 2024. That number in 25 became a flash point for the family, for the community, for legal observers across the country.
Good evening. Our top story tonight, people gathering outside the Santa Cruz County Courthouse earlier today protesting the sentencing. Under California law, Gonzalez must be sentenced here as a juvenile. Gonzalez was 15, almost 16 years old when he killed Maddy Middleton. Because of that, because he was a child at the time of the murder, he will be released in just 4 years when he turns 25.
The idea that this sentence had a built-in expiration date felt impossible to reconcile with what had been done. In adult court, he would have been facing a sentence measured in lifetimes. In juvenile court, there was a ceiling and that ceiling had a date on it. There was, however, one remaining legal mechanism. Prosecutors could petition to extend his custody beyond 25 if they could demonstrate he still posed a danger to the public.
District Attorney Russ Elle made clear he intended to pursue that option, while also being honest that the outcome was far from guaranteed. He described the likely release of A.J. at 25 as a serious failure of the justice system and a genuine public safety concern. Words that reflected not just a legal argument, but a deep frustration with the limits of the framework he was operating within.
Bottom line is certain changes need to be made in juvenile justice, juvenile reform, of course. But one-size-fits-all legislation that takes no account at all for people like Adrian. We had experts who said they had never ever seen anybody present like him ever in a 30-year career as a child psychologist. Never.
Anybody who thinks that this person is going to be healthy and fixed and able to come out into society at the age of 25 is mistaken. A.J. Regardless of what came next, two things were certain. A.J. was required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, meaning his name would remain in official records permanently even after any release.
And the court ordered him to pay $22,000 in restitution. A figure that acknowledged the harm, even if no dollar amount could begin to address it. Maddy’s grandfather, Dan Middleton, did not hold back. He said the sentence ignored what the evidence made clear. That A.J. represented an ongoing danger. He warned that SB 1391, as written, created a precedent that would affect future cases and future families in ways the public was not fully prepared for.
His words carried the weight of someone who had watched the system process his granddaughter’s case and come up short. Then in 2024 and into early 2025, a Santa Cruz jury convened to decide whether A.J. should be released upon turning 25 or whether his custody should be extended. Prosecutors laid out their argument that he remained a risk.
The defense maintained that he had made meaningful progress and deserved the opportunity to re-enter society. In February 2025, the jury delivered their decision. AJ would not be released at 25. He would remain incarcerated for additional years beyond that threshold. For the family and the broader community, it was not a moment of celebration, but it was at minimum an acknowledgement that the risk was real.
It’s terrifying that most likely he will be released at 25. This law affects not only my family and our community here, but anyone else who suffered a crime at the hands of a juvenile. And I believe in reform in the system for juveniles and adults. This wasn’t a crime of robbery or drugs.
This wasn’t This was a sociopathic murder. All the experts have testified that AJ is unlike any they’ve seen before and he’s the next Edmund Kemper. So, all of us should be terrified. How do you want the public to remember your daughter? Well, Madison was the love of my life. She brought joy to everyone she met.
She was charming. She was brilliant. She was creative, artistic, loving. She loved animals, especially dogs and wolves. Very playful. She could hold her own with adults. She wasn’t afraid of anything. She was beautiful, um, loving. Um, and she’s gone. But, um, at least I’ll know she’ll always be, a perfect little 8-year-old.
And uh I miss her. In the middle of all of this legal back and forth, something deeply human unfolded between two women who had no road map for what they were experiencing. Laura Jordan and Reggie Gonzales, Maddie’s mother and AJ’s mother, found themselves bound together by a tragedy that had destroyed both of their lives in completely different ways.
Reggie was devastated. Neighbors would see her standing at Maddie’s memorial silently, unable to look away, returning again and again as if searching for something she couldn’t name. And Laura, carrying her own immeasurable grief, found it in herself to walk over to her, to hold her, to tell her that what happened was not her fault.
Two mothers standing on opposite sides of the same unbearable moment, finding something that looked quietly and impossibly like grace. But the pain did not stop there. Sometime later, Michael Middleton’s car was broken into. He had kept Maddie’s ashes with him, a private, deeply personal way of staying close to her. They were stolen.
The people responsible were never found. The ashes were never recovered. It is the kind of loss that sits on top of loss in a way that defies description. The Tannery Arts Center community responded to Maddie’s death the way it had always responded to everything, through art, through togetherness, through the act of making something lasting out of something painful.
Near the beach not far from her home, a sound sculpture in the shape of a wolf was installed in her memory. Maddie had loved wolves, their strength, their freedom, the way they move through the world. When the wind passes through the sculpture, it produces a long, low tone, something between a hum and a howl.
It sounds like a voice carried from somewhere far away. The Rio Theatre put her name on its marquee so that anyone walking by on any ordinary day would see it and remember. Artists from the Tannery created paintings in her honor. Color and memory and emotion pressed into canvas. Hundreds gathered for a celebration of her life.
The city’s mayor officially declared October 5th, 2015, her birthday, as Madison Middleton Day in Santa Cruz. Her name was written into the city’s calendar permanently because some people leave a mark that a community simply refuses to let fade. Her family created an organization called Maddie Child Angel of Santa Cruz, built around a message that is simple and serious at the same time.
Before you go, tell someone. It is a safety initiative aimed at children and parents, designed to start conversations about awareness and risk in language that kids can actually understand. It was their way of refusing to let her story end only in tragedy. The Tannery Arts Center was a never quite the same after July 2015.
The community stayed. People still created, still looked out for one another, still built lives within those walls. But something shifted permanently. A quiet awareness that safety is never something you can fully take for granted, even in the places that feel most like home. Laura said Maddie was the best thing she ever created.
The light and love of her life. A girl who was bright and open and kind in ways that left a mark on everyone she met. She was 8 years old and she had already figured out something that takes most people a lifetime. How to make people feel seen and how to fill a room just by being in it. That light went out far too soon, but it did not disappear.
It just changed shape. Into a wolf that howls in the wind, into a name on a marquee, into a birthday that belongs to a whole city now, into the quiet radical act of two mothers holding each other in the middle of something no one should ever have to survive. Maddie was here. And Santa Cruz made sure the world would not forget it.
