An American werewolf in Altadena? How a local 'monster' sparked community tensions

After the Eaton Fire burned across Altadena a year and half ago, an unusual sight reappeared up amid the ashes and debris: a giant werewolf wearing a large T-shirt, with a big rainbow-colored heart that said, “I love Altadena.”

“Where he sits on that hill, the sun behind him when we were there in the evening, the sun was setting and the clouds were perfect. It was just such a weirdly hopeful thing,” said Taylor Jennings, who was visiting from Fresno last summer when he saw Norman standing over the fire-torn intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Mariposa Street.

“All around there’s devastation, and there’s an 8-foot [tall] werewolf. At that point, I realized how Altadena is feral, and he just seemed like the perfect mascot,” Jennings said.

Norman Jr., as the werewolf is affectionately known, appeared on this burned-out corner lot in West Altadena just days after the fire, replacing a previous werewolf that popped up on the property a few years earlier.

Both belong to Jubilee House, a large sober living home for men operated by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. One of the residents bought the original werewolf just in time for Halloween a few years ago and named him Norman — a nod to the home’s eerie resemblance to Norman Bates’ house in the 1960 classic slasher film Psycho.

Courage Escamilla hams it up with Norman Jr. on a recent weekday afternoon.

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House manager Brian Woodruff said trick-or-treaters would never stop by the house.

“Every year I bought candy, every year,” Woodruff said, laughing, as he stood on the cleared lot near Norman Jr. “And I always ended up being the one eating all the candy!”

That changed after Norman appeared on the front lawn. The trick-or-treaters came in droves, lured by the werewolf’s grinning fangs and gnarled outstretched arms. They’d stop and take pictures with Norman and leave gifts and thank you notes. So, the guys at the house decided to keep him up year-round and started creating new outfits for Norman to mark the changing of the seasons.

“Summer was coming up, we can get the Big-and-Tall catalog, we can order him a tank top,” Woodruff recalled. “And then I went online, and I found some oversized sunglasses,” he said, chuckling at the memory.

Then came the fire. All ten residents of Jubilee House got out safely, but the place burned to the ground. Among the debris lay the mangled pieces of Norman’s metal limbs.

“The first time I came up, I didn’t expect to be so disoriented, you probably experienced this, too,” said Pastor Tim Hartley, the director of the Jubilee House program. “I didn’t know where I was.”

A few weeks later, hoping to boost morale, Hartley started shopping for and found a replacement: Norman Jr.

“Once we put up that werewolf, it became this landmark [after the fire] that people could use for where they were in Altadena, as well as this source of hope for people,” Hartley said.

That’s what Norman Jr. came to symbolize for longtime Altadena resident Courage Escamilla.

“He’s kind of a symbol for people in town who for their whole life have struggled to ever feel like they fit in because they’re eccentric or different or stand out,” Escamilla said.

Rigoberto Gonzales runs through the extensive menu of his Mexican food truck.

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After the fire, he became an advocate and community booster, helping to organize rallies and fundraisers. Escamilla’s hard to miss, usually pulling up to community events on his motorcycle, sporting a red durag, with a raccoon tail dangling from the back of his waistband.

“You feel like you’re now in a community that embraces the weird, the unusual, and so for me, Norman represents the message that we embrace and appreciate the strange and unusual in this town,” Escamilla said.

After all, he said, fictional “monsters” are often just misunderstood.

“They’re often unfairly targeted, and I always felt like I related to that on some subconscious level and have always loved monsters for the fact that they can be loved,” Escamilla said.

“Symbols of things that were previously seen as repugnant are now seen as something that represents love and acceptance, and I find that rather special.”

Norman Jr.’s main character was another Altadena resident who lost her home. She stepped up to the task, creating new seasonal outfits and making sure he stayed upright when it was stormy.

On a spring day, she draped the werewolf’s plastic and metal body and articulated limbs in a form-fitting fake fur suit with a big red heart on its chest, hand-stitched for his frame.

With everyone from the sober living home scattered to new locations, Hartley welcomed her help.

“She honored this space in a way that I just appreciated,” Hartley said. “And then she’d say, he’s a little rickety, so I’m going to put out the word to have people come help me secure him, and these strangers would all gather to help, which I just loved.”

Norman Jr.’s caretaker declined to be interviewed and asked that we not use her name. But she did explain how Norman’s corner became a refuge for her after losing her home in the fire.

Pastor Tim Hartley shows off a Norman Jr. T-shirt, hand-screened by a local artist, to commemorate the Eaton Fire.

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Photos of the wolfman wearing the outfits she created started blowing up on social media, and life started returning to the neighborhood, with the pace of rebuilding picking up speed.

That’s when the little green taco truck from the San Fernando Valley appeared.

Behind the wheel was Rigoberto Gonzales. Also, a plumber who moonlights doing work on home rebuilds around town, Gonzales saw a need for food options that could appeal to the growing army of construction workers.

Knowing nothing about Norman’s story, he parked his lime green truck beneath the giant oak tree that shares the same corner. Norman’s caretaker was not happy. She asked Gonzales to move, even though his vehicle didn’t disturb or block access to the werewolf.

“Every time I see her, she was so mad, for no reason,” Gonzales said, as he took a break from the truck on a recent afternoon.

“Then she later tells me what’s the reason. She just doesn’t want me to be here.”

The conflict simmered for weeks. Gonzales said he felt unfairly targeted. He said he asked her why he needed to move.

“I mean, give me the reason [why] I have to move? And she only walked away,” he said.

The caretaker quit caring for Norman, claiming she felt unsafe. Gonzales insisted that not he, nor any of his staff or customers, ever harassed the caretaker in any way.

Then, a group of fire survivors, who never bothered talking to Gonzales or the property managers, rallied behind the caretaker. They accused Gonzales of exploiting a vulnerable, traumatized community and ruining the sacredness of Norman Jr.’s corner.

Then, it escalated. A disgruntled resident posted Gonzales’ license plate on social media.

Others threatened to call the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department or LA County Public Health. In a community forum on Facebook, one person “joked” about putting nails under his tires. Another person suggested setting off “stink bombs.”

Local therapist and activist Melissa Lopez said a few people tied to that same Facebook group later showed up to hassle Gonzales in person. After that confrontation, they appeared to have backed off.

“That hurts, to see some of these violent reactions, to say they were going to bring a truck and wall off the area to him,” Lopez said. “People are gathering up pitchforks, and [it’s] scary.”

Things eventually cooled down, but not without some sore feelings. Norman’s caretaker still hasn’t returned.

But Norman Jr. continues to be looked after by his community of admirers — including Lopez, who just got a colorful Norman Jr. tattoo on her calf.

Lopez said she found some similarity between the friction over Norman Jr. and a recent monster movie, director Guillermo del Toro’s 2025 Frankenstein film. In the adaptation, she said, the scientist gives Frankenstein’s creature a voice, and the creature tells his story.

“It’s so beautiful because of that, because you get to see that he’s been dehumanized, that we created a monster,” Lopez said.” And I think that’s so true of society. We create the monsters, and how quickly we go to ostracize, to condemn people.”