Marin County sheriff's Deputy Jim Mathiesen found his law-enforcement calling later in life, at 40, when he switched from building roads to keeping the peace.
Nine years later, the deputy was killed while off duty, unarmed and trying to help friends in Petaluma. Authorities said he was shot after confronting Thomas Edwin Halloran, a parolee with a history of stalking who had threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend and her family.
They said Halloran, 28, was then shot dead by the woman's brother early Tuesday at their rural property on Liberty Road.
That Mathiesen, 49, of Petaluma had dropped everything to offer his help while off the clock came as no surprise to his friends and co-workers. They remembered him Wednesday as a dedicated deputy and father of two who paid the ultimate price for his selflessness.
"He died just as he lived," said Marin County sheriff's Lt. Barry Heying. "He was just a very generous and outgoing kind of guy."
Mathiesen, who graduated from Petaluma High School in 1980, had worked in road construction for nearly three decades before going on a fateful waterskiing trip on Lake Berryessa. During the outing, he met a group of off-duty deputies, and the seed was planted, friends said.
He later worked as a court bailiff and custody officer at the Marin County Jail, which was closed to visitors Tuesday to allow colleagues in the 300-member sheriff's office to grieve.
"Helping someone in need was Jim's persona. I can't count the number of times Jim sacrificed his own money, sleep or time off to help someone who needed something," Hugh Baker, president of the Marin County Deputy Sheriffs' Association, wrote on its website. " 'Whatever it takes, we'll get 'er done,' he'd say. He had a heart of gold, solid gold."
Heying said he learned of an incident in which a friend of Mathiesen had asked if she could borrow his pickup to move gravel. "The next day, she woke up and all the gravel had been completely removed," Heying said. "He had come out there himself and taken care of the entire project without being asked."
John Taverna, a friend and former classmate, said, "He had a huge heart. He really enjoyed the little things in life. It didn't take a lot to make him happy. He could always take any kind of negative situation and spin it into something positive. He always saw the glass half full, not half empty."
Beki Long, 48, another friend, said she was touched when Mathiesen visited her husband at a San Francisco hospital after heart surgery. "It surprised me in a sense that he would drive to San Francisco to do that and, in a sense, it didn't surprise me because that's who he was," Long said.
Funeral services are pending for Mathiesen, who leaves behind his wife, Cynthia, and two sons, Garrett, 18, and Vincent, 21.
A clearer picture was also emerging Wednesday about Halloran, who broke up with his girlfriend on July 9. Three days later, he wrote to a friend on Facebook, "She was a nice girl loved her a lot, still do ... She is a nice girl and still in crazy love with her."
But on Friday, Halloran wrote on his page that it was "time to relax and enjoy the single life staying single forever."
As Halloran's moods shifted online, his ex-girlfriend was busy trying to get a temporary restraining order against him, said Sonoma County Assistant Sheriff Lorenzo Duenas.
An ex-wife and a previous girlfriend had each secured restraining orders against Halloran, Duenas said. And records show Halloran spent four months in prison last year for threatening to kill the previous girlfriend.
To donate Contributions can be made to the Mathiesen Family Trust, c/o Marin County Federal Credit Union, 30 N. San Pedro Road No. 115, San Rafael, CA 94903, account number 12439.
