Jacqueline Kotarac
Her hometown Bakersfield, CA newspaper reports:
The incident began Wednesday at about 10:15 p.m. — some two hours after Kotarac was driven to her home in the Tuscany neighborhood near Lake Ming — when she drove herself to Moodie’s home in the 4300 block of La Mirada, a few blocks east of the Four Points Sheraton Hotel . . . Kotarac apparently used a shovel to try to break into the back door . .
When that didn’t work police speculate that Kotarac, possibly in a drunken state, climbed a permanently fixed ladder to the roof, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first in a opening that was no bigger than 10 x 15 inches.
According to the boyfriend, he left the house through the back door to avoid her, spent the night somewhere else, returned home the next day and didn’t notice anything amiss. Her assistant contacted him the Thursday when Kotarac didn’t show up for work, came to his house, together they searched the house, found Kotarac’s purse and car keys by the back door, and her car parked “somewhere near.” Incredibly the assistant then decides to take Kotarac’s car, despite the fact she is missing, to Los Angeles to “update Kotarac’s passport” for the upcoming trip. They both report her missing to the police. Even though Kotarac doesn’t show up for the trip, he leaves anyway on Friday. It was a house sitter who noticed foul smells and dripping liquids in the fireplace and who called the police.
Police then discovered a body lodged in the chimney and flue. . . .Bakersfield firefighters dismantled the chimney Saturday night and Sunday morning, the day Kotarac would have turned 50 years old.
The autopsy report, released Tuesday, lists her death as “accidental asphyxiation.” The police while initially investigated the case as suspicious, now believes that it was an accident as well and never considered the boyfriend a suspect.
What does astrology have to say about this very strange case?
Kotarac’s Personality
In Jacqueline Kotarac’s chart we can not talk about the moon or house positions because we do not have the time of birth. However, we do have the other planetary positions on which to build a personality analysis.
Dr. Kotarac had many planets in the sign of Virgo, Mercury, the Sun, Pluto, the North Node and Venus. This potent collection of planets in one sign is called a stellium representing a life emphasis of one particular zodiac sign. Virgo especially is a sign that is often associated with the healing arts, so her profession is not a surprise. Here is a woman who is mentally agile, with a keen ability to analyze and organize. No sign cares more compassionately for the ill than Virgo. With Venus sitting in the stellium, she made money doing it.
However, combust, that is sitting exactly with, the Sun is Pluto, the powerful planet of transformation. Pluto/Sun individuals have a drive for perfection; to control everything and everyone in their immediate environment. With the planet of illusion, Neptune in friendly energetic connection with Pluto, she had a tendency to over romanticize the object of her desire, often so much that he would be without flaw. In terms of romantic relationships, Sun/Pluto people are often drawn to individuals much too intensely, mistaking their intense feelings for love. Often their intense feelings are not returned in the same manner. If they are frustrated in their desires, they can engage in obsessive behaviors such as jealous rages and stalking.
In opposition to this stellium is the Chiron, the wounded healer. All her brilliance, her compassion, her ability to care, the intensity of her emotions was to Dr. Kotarac a raw open wound of vulnerability. It is easy to speculate that in a drive for perfection, Dr. Kotarac found herself lacking in many respects. She was, most likely, very hard on herself.
Additionally, her Mars, the planet representing her sexual drive, her survival instincts and the lovers in her life was in the sign of Gemini. People with Mars in Gemini often have problems with fidelity in their relationships, either on their part or the part of their partners. With Dr. Kotarac’s emphasis on obtaining perfection, any infidelity on the part of her partner would be transformed erroneously into some fault of hers that prevented her lover from being faithful. With Jupiter opposite her Mars, all of this is intensified to gigantic proportions.
The Event Chart
So much of Moody’s story does not make sense that one wonders what he is hiding. While all of this is speculative, the Event Chart holds tantalizing clues of why the event of why the events of Wednesday night transpired.
Immediately obvious in the event chart is Kotarac’s stellium falls into the fifth house of romantic relationships conjunct the Event Chart Sun. Clearly she was focused on her lover. But something else is in that fifth house, Mercury, which often signifies a young person and considering Kotarac’s Mars in Gemini, one can conclude that Moody had a young woman in his house. Here is the reason he did not want to talk to Kotarac, and why she was so intent on getting into the house.
In the Event Chart, Jupiter and Uranus opposes Saturn, Mars and Venus, and all of that squares Pluto. Jupiter and Uranus together signify explosive situations, squaring Pluto, revealing dubious activities, opposing Saturn, Mars and Venus in the relationship oriented sign of Libra, of sexual nature.
The Sun in the fifth house signifies the boyfriend. Here Sun trines Pluto which is the planet of death. I don’t like it, and if I were the investigator on this case, I’d be looking at the boyfriend more closely. But hey, what do I know? I am only an astrologer and the police have stated he is not a suspect.
In any case, Saturn, representing the body is in the sign of Capricorn which indicates closed and confined spaces, so descriptive of the place Dr. Kotarac died in such a bizarre way.
I strongly believe that the boyfriend, Moodie, had something to do with her death. How can someone go on a trip that they were suppose to go with with another person; yet have their “assistant” drive Dr. Kotarac’s car to L.A. to supposedly renew Kotarac’s passport. It doesn’t make sense, and why would the missing person’s report be made after the car was driven to L.A. and not when the purse and keys were found? What if the boyfriend and someone else found her passed out and carried her to the top of the chimney and placed her there? Why didn’t anyone hear her? Makes no sense! Where did Moodie go and spend the night?
I agree a lot of the story doesn’t make sense. However, I was unable to locate a timeline of the events, so I do not know when the report was made to police (before or after the trip to LA). I also question that a woman who supposedly had gotten drunk before she went to Moodie’s house could climb that skinny metal ladder and navigate a pitched roof, pull up a fireplace cap and get her legs inside a 10 x 15 opening. Now code in my state is that a flue has to be three feet higher than the roof, and pictures show something similar, so she would have to be some sort of athlete to pull herself up and center her feet so she would slide feet first down that flue. She would literally have to climb to the top of the flu, and somehow kneel, grip the edges of the flue, pull her legs up balancing on her arms and then stick her legs directly into the flue. All under the influence of alcohol. It all seems wonky to me, but I guess stranger things have happened.
What a bizarrely fascinating story. It does seem fishy though. Why in the world would she try to get in through the chimney? Didn’t she see Gremlins?
I am Jacques sister. You are so right about her.
I just want you to know that I thought Jackie was probably the best GP to be found. I used to work at Cedars Sinai and when I knew I was going to be living in Bakersfield, I asked the Chief of Medicine at the time (I was working for a doctor in Cedars) to recommend to me a doctor I could use as as GP, because I was moving to Bakersfield to be near my son who was living there. Without hesitation, he said Jacqueline Kotarac and he proved to be soooo right! Under her care, I was so taken care of; and I can’t begin to tell you how bad I feel at the loss for so many people, that has occured, with the loss of such a great doctor! I am sorry it has taken me so long to let you know how I feel, she also had an excellent staff at the time too! Mary Ann was great and I think, Jackie and she interacted beautifully. I miss Dr. Kotarac so much, that I just could not react at all. She was such a smashing person and so kind and helpful as a doctor. I still can’t believe she is not with us. We are all the losers at this moment in time.
The reason I know this, is becuase I have now moved to Pacific Palisades, and it is impossible to find a doctor of the class and standard of Dr. Kotarac. She was kind, sympathetic (without being whimpy) understanding and probably one of the best GP’s one could wish for. I totally loved her. Actually, I think one of the times I came to the office, you(?) where helping out and gave me an injection?
I just want you to know that Dr. Kotarac was Super/Smashing and I really miss her. There is no one like her, that I can find.
Jean Bluestone
Dr. Jackie Kotarac was a wonderful doctor to my parents for several years. She seemed like a nice woman, but no one really knows what a person is like behind closed, locked doors. My mother had the unfortunate luck of being one of the last patients seen by Jackie. My parents were traumatized by their last visit with Jackie, and the events after she went missing. They were interviewed by the police also. The events leading up to this tragic death are as follows; Jackie underwent some serious personality changes the last 6 months of her life. I believe she was losing her mind. Her entire person changed. My parents, and myself, were shocked that no one, NOT ONE PERSON tried to intervene. Not her family. Not her staff, who definitely saw her change. Not her friends, who drank with her that last night, THE night she found out her estranged boyfriend had not only replaced her with a younger model, but was moving on with his life. Jackie wanted something from her ex-boyfriend he could not provide. The taxi-cab driver who drove her over to his house told the police how angry she was. She made a long list of threats against him on the ride over to his house. Distraught, drunk, and displaced, she went off the deep end and no one did anything. The ex-boyfriend completely cooperated with the local law enforcement. He took multiple lie-detector tests to confirm he had not hurt her in any way. He allowed the police to search his house, land, offices, cars, and other places to help find her. He did not hate her nor did he want her dead. His house, his reputation, and his life are ruined. And that is what she told the taxi-cab driver she wanted. A lot of people suffered from Jackie’s death. She was unreplaceable, and the great void she left is still felt. But I warn people not to follow the same path, and to keep on eye on their friends and family. Pain & suffering manifest in mysterious ways in people. No one can predict how a broken heart can derail a person, but this is a story I tell others for a reason. If this kind of downward spiral could happen to Jackie, who was smart, talented, witty, beautiful, successful, and accomplished, it can happen to anyone.
P. J. Nolan,
Thank you for your lengthy comment. There are many people grieving for Jacqueline Kotorac, and considering the in depth care she gave her patients, I am sure that many of them are her patients.
Blessings,
Beth