THE TRAGIC FLIGHT OF JESSICA DUBROFF

1996-04-14 04:00:00 PDT PESCADERO; WYOMING -- Jessica Dubroff, the precocious 7-year-old who died Thursday while trying to set a new cross-country flying record, was growing up in a family that only recently emerged from serious financial hardship.

Three years ago, Jessica, then 4, was a squatter with her mother, Lisa Blair Hathaway, in an abandoned house in Falmouth, Mass., according to police there, and the family was getting handouts from a local health food store.

At about the same time, Jessica's father, Lloyd Dubroff, who never married Hathaway but was the sole support of their three children, filed for bankruptcy in California, citing debts of more than $150,000.

Hathaway "claimed she was a homesteader," said Falmouth police Officer Ronald Savioli. He said Jessica, her older brother Joshua, younger sister, Jasmine (then an infant), and Hathaway lived in an abandoned house located behind the police station.

Town officials, Savioli said, had a hard time getting the family to move out.

Dubroff at that time was living in Palo Alto with his current wife, Melinda, and their young daughter. His computer consulting business, according to court records, was foundering and he was facing eviction. In a 1993 bankruptcy petition, he listed debts of $157,000 and assets of $3,754.

By late last year, however, Dubroff had apparently recovered enough from his financial problems that he was paying for Jessica's flying lessons and footing the $15,000 bill for her cross-country venture.

"I don't understand how he could come up with the money to pay for a flight like this, unless he was planning to write a book and sell it or something like that," said Suzanne Cahn, who evicted Dubroff in 1993 and said she is still owed several thousand dollars in back rent.

Cahn said Dubroff took good care of the Palo Alto home he leased from her for two years, but fell behind on rent after suffering business setbacks. She said he had not complied with a court order, issued in late 1993, to pay her.

Dubroff told The Examiner last month that he was paying for Jessica's twice-weekly flying lessons, which cost $50 an hour, and the cost of the cross-country flight.

"That's less than I'd pay for a private school," he said, adding that the trip would help his daughter - who didn't attend school - learn about math, weather forecasting, geography and physics.

The cross-country flight, he said, "was my idea, but presented to Jessica for her choice. Out of the blue it occurred to me that Jessica could do this."

Dubroff helped Jessica contact the White House, inviting President Clinton on a plane ride when they got to Washington. He also contacted the Guinness Book of Records and arranged with ABC News to install a camera in the plane.

The family had baseball caps and T-shirts made - "From Sea to Shining Sea, April 1996" - to distribute as souvenirs along the route.

In a separate interview, Hathaway solicited contributions to help underwrite the flight and gave out a post office box number where donors could send money. She also talked of holding a "Meet the Pilot" day at Half Moon Bay Airport the Saturday before the flight.

Hathaway asked The Examiner to report that the family was seeking financial contributions, and also would like people to bring health food to Jessica's stops along the route because she was a vegetarian.

"She's not going to want to go around for an hour looking for a health food store," Hathaway said.

Hathaway told The Examiner that the family had been on welfare for about six months two to three years ago. She had taken her children to Massachusetts when her father was sick, and returned to the Bay Area so that the children could be close to their father.

Describing herself as a writer, artist and healing consultant, Hathaway said she had once considered writing a book on parenting.

"People tend to be very parental with children," she said. "(Children's) natural state is a state of nonfear. There's no fear. Fear is not a reality to them. That's taught. Emotion is what they're taught, and thinking is taught, and neither of those is a restful natural state."

In Falmouth, however, life was not so idyllic. Emily Derbyshire, an employee at Abundant Harvest health food store, said the family was befriended by the owners, who would sometimes give them food.

"It was just snacks and things for the kids," Derbyshire said. "They were having financial troubles."

Dave Dubroff, Lloyd Dubroff's 36-year-old son from his first marriage, acknowledged in an interview that his father had suffered financial problems. But he said things had turned around.

"My dad had a difficult period business-wise," said Dubroff. But after that, "he was a very, very successful business consultant" who did work for both Visa Corporation and Pacific Bell.

For the past three years, according to Gerald Spotts, an administrative assistant for the San Francisco-based PSW3 Financial Services Corporation, Dubroff worked nearly full-time as a consultant for the firm. He declined to reveal Dubroff's salary.

Dave Dubroff said his father was doing well enough to support a wife and their daughter Kendall, 4, at their home in San Mateo, as well as Hathaway and their children, Joshua, 9, Jessica, 7, and Jasmine, 3, in Pescadero. Dubroff's two children from his first marriage are both grown.

"This was a man with enough love to start three families, including one when he was in his 50s," his son said.

Thony Staenger, a friend of Hathaway who has a cable television show in Palo Alto, said he initially planned to go along on the trip and make a feature film of Jessica's exploits.

But about two weeks before Wednesday's departure, Hathaway told him she had a better offer for publicizing the trip.

"She said (she was) having a discussion now with National Geographic," Staenger said. "She said she felt if (the family) was going to offer somebody the story, she wanted to make sure it was someone who could get it out into the public."

The magazine could not be reached for comment.

Hathaway, he said, was not receiving any money for coverage of the trip. "She said this is not being backed in any way," said Staenger.<