Jeannette McMahon dropped off Kim Winiecki at her home in Altadena on Monday, Jan. 6, after dinner at Los Gringos Locos in La Canada Flintridge. On Tuesday night, she texted Winiecki asking if she needed to pick her up.
Her longtime friend texted back a thank you and said she would be fine. That was the last time she heard from Winiecki.
McMahon later reported her friend missing. At the Pasadena Convention Center, where evacuees were gathered and people could report those who were missing, McMahon met a neighbor of Winiecki who last communicated with the 77-year-old about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Winiecki’s brother, Mark, who lives in New Mexico, said the medical examiner’s office notified their family Sunday night that she had died in the inferno that engulfed Altadena.
“It’s sad. She was at the house. She didn’t get out,” he said. “We love her and we will miss her wit and her humor.”
As of Monday, the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office had only identified two of the 24 people killed in the Eaton and Palisades fires.
Winiecki was the oldest of three children, her brother said.
She was a very private person and did not allow people inside her home in the 100 block of East Los Flores Drive, where she lived alone, according to McMahon.
Her home was her refuge, she said.
Winiecki even told them if she ended up sick and dying, no one should go to her home. She wanted it bulldozed, McMahon said.
She described her friend as unique and eccentric. Winiecki was also insightful, she added.
“If you were struggling with something, she could articulate it,” McMahon said. “Everybody needs a friend you could talk to. That was her gift.”
Winiecki was a night owl who like to write and enjoyed listening to music, according to McMahon. She had stopped going to Sovereign Grace Church in Pasadena, but still would attend events there, McMahon said.
Winiecki appreciated when McMahon would call and invite her to dinner parties at her home. The only way she dressed up was to put on sparkling earrings and a ring, McMahon said.
“She could dress herself but (it was) so out of her comfort zone,” she said.
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McMahon, 73, said she and her family had to evacuate from their Altadena home on Tuesday. They ended up in the parking lot of a Pasadena restaurant, where they slept in their car.
McMahon, her 81-year-old husband, Michael McMahon, and their 33-year-old son, Teddy, have been staying at a bed-and-breakfast in South Pasadena since Wednesday.
She managed to get in touch with Winiecki’s brother and a sister who also lives out of state.
“I plan to do a memorial for Kim once it’s settled,” she said.