It has been weeks since a Manteca family found out that their daughter had been murdered in a grisly domestic violence episode in Arizona.
And on Saturday, the body of Breanne Ferguson (Wigginton) will finally be laid to rest in Manteca where she made her home for many years – graduating from Manteca High School, serving as a Manteca Police Department Explorer and holding the title of Miss Pumpkin Fair in the early days of Manteca Youth Focus – an organization that she championed.
According to the family, a memorial service will be held on Saturday at 4 p.m. at P.L. Fry and Son on N. Union Road. The burial will take place at the East Union Cemetery immediately following. The family advises that those wishing to attend the burial carpool because of the limited parking inside of the cemetery.
Last month, Breanne’s family discovered a chilling Facebook message posted by her husband who stated that he had killed her in order to protect his children – leaving detailed instructions for the police. By the time that the message got to her mother, Leanne Magincalda, she notified police in Bullhead, Ariz., and when officers arrived to conduct a welfare check, William (Bill) Ferguson was armed and waiting for them. A shootout ensued – the sound of which was captured on a cell phone video that was widely shown on Arizona news stations – and after exchanging hundreds of rounds with the officers, Ferguson got in his pickup truck and attempted to drive away before he died from a gunshot wound.
When officers went into the house they discovered Breanne’s body as well as the two young girls who had been left inside the home. Both were alive, and are currently in foster homes awaiting their future long-term placement.
Because of the delicate nature of the scenario in which she was killed, the family is requesting only that their immediate family and friends of Breanne attend the memorial service or the burial on Saturday.
She was two weeks shy of graduating from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Academy when she called up to active duty in the Air Force where she served in Security Services – long harboring a desire to be a peace officer.
While Magincalda and her husband Marshall flew to Arizona immediately to be with their daughter, it took weeks before her body was finally released and able to be transported back to Manteca for funeral preparations. The family had to wait until after the autopsy was completed, and information about what happened came slowly as officers were investigating her death, the use of force against her husband, and the discovery of the two children and their subsequent placement into a foster care system.
She was described as somebody who would “help anyone, any way she could” and built many friends during her time in Manteca, in the United States Air Force, and in Arizona where she moved several years ago.
And her artistic talents – she worked for Save Mart’s corporate headquarters in Modesto as a graphic designer – are also forever immortalized on several of the Downtown Manteca mural projects that grace the sides of businesses and buildings.
“She was stubborn to a fault sometimes, but she loved us, loved her family and loved her babies,” Magincalda said of her daughter. “She would help anyone, any way she could – she was just loved by everybody.”

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.