I was recently asked to look at this chart for a Facebook crime-solving group and it's been awhile since I posted a Saturday Night Mystery, so I thought we would look at it here, too.
This is an extremely sad case happening right now in California.
Orson and Orrin West, are adorable three and four year old brothers, adopted into the home of Trezol and Jacqueline West in 2019. The family had recently moved, along with their other four children, into a ranch home in California City, California. On the early evening of December 21, 2020 - this was the Winter Solstice/meeting of Jupiter and Saturn and you can see in this chart they are pretty much exactly as close as they got that day - Trezol West calls the police to report Orson and Orrin missing.
This chart is for the time of a video made from a neighbor's door camera which shows the father waiting outside for the police. The father had just called 911.
With a 29 degree Ascendant I might think this chart "too late to judge"/too far from what actually happened to be of use. But with both significators (astrological stand-ins) for the victim interacting strongly with the significator for the perpetrator, I decided to examine it anyway. I usually look at the chart through Saturn first (because if the story can't be told before we get past Saturn, we probably have the wrong story - remember we are always looking for repeating energies) and then I add in the outer planets and any asteroids/fixed stars that are very intimately interacting with either an important point or important planet.
Trezol, the adoptive father, tells the police, and reporters later (the parents' video is on multiple youtube sites), it was a cold evening. He was going in and out of the house gathering firewood from an empty lot next door. His wife was wrapping Christmas presents and they put the boys outside to color with chalk in the driveway, presumably so she could wrap presents. Their other four children were at their grandparent's house (I believe, this part is kind of fuzzy). At some point - and it is getting dark out now - and he has already said it is getting cold, Trezol realizes the boys are no longer playing in the driveway. The driveway is long and runs back toward the garage in the backyard. He says he checks around the house for them and talks to Jacqueline and she hasn't seen the boys either, so he looks outside again. He then gets in his car, drives around for six minutes (according to the neighbor's camera footage), returns to the house and calls the police. We see him on the neighbor's video camera footage standing still in the front yard waiting for the police (for more than 10 minutes, barely moving). What we don't see is the father or mother running around looking for the children. We don't see any urgency. We don't see the closest road or the lot next to their home searched at all.
Overhead views of the neighborhood on youtube show a lack of trees/woods. It's a very barren landscape. The video of the parents' interview is very strange/feels practiced. They seem more focused on getting their story straight and thanking searchers than finding the children (my opinion). The father speaks of "when it all went down" and describes the boys as "rambunctious". The police and volunteers search multiple times over the next couple weeks. There is no sign of the boys. At some point the birth mother comes to the house. She tells reporters she thinks the adoptive parents did something to the children. Neighbors tell reporters they've never even seen these boys at all and wonder if the brothers ever moved to California City with their family in the first place. That same neighbor's same video camera shows four children getting in and out of the van some days prior ... not six children.
So, what happened? Where are Orson and Orrin?
Can an astrology chart cast for the time of the 911 call/the video of the waiting father - tell us anything?
Let's unpack the chart.
The chart has a 29 degree Gemini rising - a late degree/possibly too late/something's already happened/already decided/already done. But this is in Gemini, the sign of fast movement, children, young people, pairs, siblings, so perfectly suited to represent (because the ascendant will represent the victim) these two boys. Gemini is ruled by Mercury, at 1 degree Capricorn in the 7th house - the perpetrator's house, so basically right where the perpetrator is (his house, territory, etc), closely conjunct the Sun (a male, could be a father), so under the Sun's beams - grave danger. Mercury in Capricorn is answering to Saturn at 0 degrees Aquarius conjunct Jupiter in the 8th house. The victim's final dispositor in the 8th house is not good news
(in this type of chart, this is a strong indicator the victim/victims are no longer alive).
The other significator for the victim is the Moon.
The Moon is in Aries (the sign of young men) in the 10th house - the father's house, authority's house, also telling us what is happening now can become known/public (the 911 call, the video tape/the boys' disappearance). Mars, ruler of Aries, is in Aries and exactly conjunct Eris and squaring Pluto. Volatile. Dangerous. So, we have a loop between the 1st house, the 7th house, the 8th house, the 10th house, the 11th house and the 6th house.
The perpetrator in this chart is represented by the Descendant (in astro, the open enemy). Planets in the 7th house can show us details of the crime. There are two planets here - the Sun (male/father/authority) and Mercury (the children/the pair). In Capricorn, this feels cold/calculated, maybe done with some kind of goal in mind. Or maybe this just shows the authority the perpetrator has over the victim. Also an older (older than the victim) perpetrator.
Here we have 29 degrees Sagittarius exactly conjunct dwarf planet Ixion (the first murderer in mythology) and closely conjunct the Sun (the father) and Mercury (our stand-in for the boys). The ruler of Sagittarius is Jupiter - a Jupiter/Sag appearance might represent our perpetrator and would be a person who is kind of larger than life, with a well-proportioned body, strong, brown hair or possibly
bald, brown complexion, oval face, high forehead, handsome, well-spoken. Maybe a big talker/restless/reckless. This seems to fit the adoptive father from the video.
Jupiter is in detached Aquarius conjunct Saturn (the final dispositor of the boys' stand-in Mercury) maybe showing 'wisdom blocked' in the 8th house of death. Saturn is the ruler of Aquarius and in Aquarius, but Aqua's co-ruler Uranus is in the 11th house in Taurus. This might speak, Uranus/11th house/Taurus, of a financial plan involving the public, maybe an idea to get money through the children's disappearance (kickstarter, etc) or it could just be speaking of the perpetrator's shaky finances or new resources (the new house). And keep in mind something is never just one thing. Uranus in Taurus is answering to Venus (ruler of Taurus) in the 6th house in Sagittarius.
Venus in the 6th could represent a woman in their daily life (and both the victims and perpetrator are pulled into this 6th house Venus, so maybe a woman in both their day-to-day lives). Venus is often very soft in forensic charts - she doesn't always have to represent a she, although I believe she does here. And we can see although this loop takes some time to get us there, a woman is pulled into the perpetrator's story. Maybe after the fact since that 8th house is more immediate than the 6th or maybe into the "financial plan" after it is hatched, since the 6th follows the 11th. With both Venus and the Descendant in Sagittarius the perpetrator and this woman (we can assume she is the adoptive mother, since who else is in all their day-to-day lives and obviously the father can't get away with his 'children wandered off' story without her) seem similar in the chart so maybe the Sag strengths and weaknesses could apply to both of them - self-assured, idealistic, open-minded but also boastful, reckless, a preacher-type, quick tempers - or maybe she is pulled into his "big ideas". So, here we have a loop of 7th house (the perpetrator), 8th house (death), the 11th house (sometimes the mis-fit house, meaning a missed fit/the other/maybe public money through Taurus/new resources) and the 6th house (the people we see everyday).
Nothing is this chart looks like stranger abduction or kids wandering off and getting lost to me.
All roads lead to Aquarius (and note the 8th house holds Saturn - victim's dispositor, Jupiter - perpetrator's dispositor - and Pluto and we could just see him here as death itself, but also maybe indicating some financial part to this story) and through Aquarius we move to that 11th house co-ruler, erratic Uranus in his natural house (Aqua's natural house, too). This made me think of the kind of idealism/sense of humanity that makes it seem like a good idea to adopt so many children, but it is also a sign that is detached, so people are loved, in general, but maybe not the particular people right in front of us. It's not so warm and cuddly. Uranus/11th house also speaks of mis-fit situations and he is squaring the Sun (the father) and Mercury (the boys). And too much Aquarius, like we see in this chart, a kind of shadow that creates a repressed longing to be 'special'/need to be liked and admired/inability to see the paradox in its behavior, so things get squeezed out sideways in extreme/chaotic ways.
And Aqua/Sag is a tricky combination - you can start to believe outlandish things/your own bullsh*t and certainly you expect other people, who aren't nearly as smart as you think you are, to believe you, too. Which is how their story can sound ridiculous to everyone, but them.
When we add the dwarf planets/asteroids into the chart, the chart tells an even more complete and complex picture. We do have to keep in mind, we want to use these newer energies in support of the other energies since their characteristics are not as well-known/studied.
There is an asteroid named Orsin and an asteroid named West. Orsin is sandwiched between and conjunct the Moon (a significator for Orson and Orrin) and Chiron. Chiron is our wounded-healer centaur, abandoned by his mother and adopted by Apollo (the Sun, shown here in the perpetrator's house, can also be a stand-in for 'the father'/father-figure).
Asteroid West is conjunct that Ceres/Nessus conjunction on the midheaven.
So, we have the grieving mother Ceres EXACTLY at the top of the chart (a stand-in for the birth mother and in Pisces - the birth mother has said she lost custody of her sons due to drugs use, so this is likely her) conjunct Asteroid West and dwarf planet Nessus. Nessus was the centaur who rapes or attempts to rape Hercules's wife after she is handed over to Nessus by Hercules to carry across the river. Some astrologers link Nessus to rape themes, and that might be true sometimes, but more often I find him in prominent placements speaking of - the bad things that come of trusting precious cargo to untrustworthy people and third party situations that go bad, sometimes, as here, terribly, terribly bad.
With centaur Chiron ruling adoption and Nessus in play, I checked the chart for the other centaurs (there aren't many centaurs and I was surprised to find two on major points of the chart and one conjunct a major planet). Not much is known about many of the centaurs and so much of their known mythology is about the way they died.
Asteroid Pholus - of the 'cork out of the bottle' fame, when a small action causes a big event/something that starts and then can't be stopped is closely conjunct Mercury, a stand-in for the boys. Asteroid Echeclus, very closely conjunct the Ascendant - known for his death via a spear that had lost its point, so through numerous blows to his head. Something that should have been quick/almost painless becoming something else. Asteroid Aphidas, very closely conjunct the chart's IC - known for his death while he slept. So although asleep and not causing any trouble (as the myth goes), he was 'not spared'. His discovery chart (at the 27th degree of Cancer, is the sabian symbol for 'a violent storm in a canyon filled with expensive homes', sounds like what is happening now at the base of this matter/the neighborhood).
This might be too literal an interpretation of these centaurs/asteroids and I hope it is.
One thing to keep in mind is this isn't a 'last seen' chart. This is the 911 call chart. And it represents this, too. The ruler of the chart is Mercury (communication) - here in Cappy (serious communication) in the 7th conjunct the Sun. So the father (Sun) calling (Mercury) the police (Cappy). With Neptune in Pisces in Cappy's natural house (10th), the call could be a lie. Mercury rules the 4th (home) and 12th house in this chart (endings/lies/the past and with the North Node here, fate playing its hand, too). The zero and one degrees, seem to say the course is set with this call or as the father himself says, "this is when it all went down".
I wish we had a chart for the time the children were last seen - this always seems to me a more complete rendering than the 911 call chart. With that maybe we could get a clearer picture of how events proceeded and where the boys are now. Maybe a last seen time will come out.
Let's hope and pray for a better outcome for these beautiful boys than this chart appears to offer :(
xo all
