POINT ARENA, CA., 12/15/25 — A month after vandalism defaced a mural honoring Nicole Smith, a murdered Pomo woman whose case remains unsolved, her family says the incident has brought renewed visibility, healing and community support.
The mural, located on Main Street in Point Arena, was still in its early stages when it was vandalized in November. According to the city, the damage included paper signs with written messages and a splash of green paint across the wall, and appeared to be directed at the muralist rather than the subject of the artwork. The vandalism occurred in broad daylight on a Sunday morning, and was removed before work on the mural resumed.
Point Arena City Manager Molly Haviland said that messages in the signs clearly pointed at and named the muralist, Nicole Ponsler, in what appeared to be a misunderstanding about her motives for doing the mural. Haviland said one message included wording that suggested Ponsler, who is white, is doing the mural without regard for Smith’s family, but Haviland said that’s a misunderstanding.
“Nicole Ponsler has been working very closely with Nicole Smith’s family and the tribal community in this mural to assure that it is fully depicting important cultural elements of the tribe and the spirit of Nicole Smith,” Haviland said.
She added that Smith’s family held a blessing ceremony, which took place after the vandalism had been cleaned up, at the mural site, where Ponsler said fifty people were in attendance.
Smith’s sister, Bernadette Smith, who led the blessing ceremony, said that if the vandalism had been aimed at stopping the mural, it had the opposite effect, drawing more attention to both the mural and the broader Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement.
Bernadette said the mural also reflects the life Nicole lived and the legacy she left behind.
Bernadette said her sister Nicole was a preschool teacher at Pinoleville Pomo Nation Headstart, a traditional dancer who participated in ceremonies, a dedicated mother who loved to go all out for her kids’ celebrations and someone who loved to laugh.
“She was just an all-around, happy, beautiful person,” Bernadette said, adding that Nicole’s life’s calling was to be around kids – and that at Nicole’s funeral a group of her preschool students attended to share their memories of her.
In 2017, Nicole Smith was shot and killed in Bernadette’s home in Manchester in the early morning hours. Several family members were present, including five children, one of whom was 15 at the time and was also shot but survived. Bernadette said that the child had lost her own mother, Bernadette and Nicole’s sister Delia, several years prior. Nicole Smith’s young son was also present.
No one has been charged with the crime, although Bernadette said someone was arrested in relation to the crime but was later released. She said after that, the case went cold.
“They’ve switched to different investigators every year, it was a new investigator, and then it went cold,” she said.
Mendocino County home to active Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s group
Nicole Smith’s story has become part of the larger Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s movement in Mendocino County.
According to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource center, the MMIW movement draws attention to the disproportionately high rates of violence experienced by Indigenous women and girls in the United States and beyond. On some tribal lands, homicide rates for Indigenous women are reported to be more than 10 times higher than the overall U.S. average. Many Indigenous women go missing or are killed and their cases are never fully investigated or resolved, in part due to underreporting, misclassification in law enforcement databases, and jurisdictional challenges across tribal, state and federal systems.
Advocacy around the movement focuses on raising awareness, supporting families, improving data collection and law enforcement responses and honoring the lives of those affected.
Some groups have variations on the title to include relatives of victims or crimes against Indigenous male victims, which are also disproportionately high compared to national averages.
Ponsler, who is volunteering her time for the mural, said her idea began as soon as she heard about Nicole Smith’s death. Ponsler said she knew the family, and that her stepdaughter was in class with one of the Smith children, so the story struck a chord with her. When she’s not doing paid murals, she volunteers her time to honoring women’s deaths, and as a Point Arena resident, this piece felt natural to her.
“This was how I wanted to lend voice to ‘No Justice for Nicole,’” Ponsler said.
It was the mural’s focus on honoring the life of Nicole Smith that brought Bernadette joy when Ponsler first approached her about creating it.
“The mural is really going to bring our family some long overdue visibility and healing that we’ve been waiting for for a long time,” Bernadette said. “Khadijah Britton has a mural, and I know her family feels a sense of pride when they see that, a sense of hope. We’ve always been patient.”
Britton is another missing Indigenous woman whose case remains unsolved. She was last seen in Covelo in 2018 after witnesses reported her being forced into a car at gunpoint by her former boyfriend.
The Point Arena mural, which will cover a large section of the Main Street wall, is designed to honor Nicole Smith’s life and legacy with an image of her with flowing hair. The mural incorporates Pomo cultural elements with vibrant colors and traditional symbols. Members of the local Native community have been helping Ponsler with the design and painting to ensure it authentically reflects tribal traditions.
A QR code will be included on the mural, linking viewers to more information about Nicole Smith, the MMIW movement, and ways to support the cause. The artwork will also feature a protective, vandal-resistant coating, and community members have contributed donations to help cover materials and supplies.
“I am white and I am very mindful that a lot of the imagery in the mural pertains to Nicole’s culture,” Ponsler said. “I worked very closely with the family, and we developed a list of imagery. My sole contribution to that was to get things started, the way that I always saw her image with her hair flowing the length of the wall.”
As for the vandalism, Haviland said that security footage was captured and shared with police — but ultimately, whether or not criminal charges are pursued against the vandal is up to the owner of the building. Either way, the city supports the project and the community healing that it represents.
“I strongly believe that the opportunity here is for Point Arena to be a more active neighbor with our tribal community. It’s already happening,” she said.
Haviland said she’s looking into organizations that provide cultural humility training so the city can be better equipped to engage with the local tribes.
“It really is a blessing to be part of this community, and I think a lot will come from this,” Haviland said.
The Smith family is offering a $20,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction in Nicole’s case.
I’m sad that this case has not been resolved with an arrest and conviction. It’s seem it could be if the witnesses had cooperated.