The first time CSUN animation students Lindsay Poggio and Miguel Wilson went to Wizard World, the comic book and pop culture convention, two guys in one of the Japanese animation booths were surprised at how much Lindsay knew about the subject, asking questions they didn’t have the answers to.

‘She had the best of both worlds she was really beautiful and knew all about comic books and anime cartoons,’ Wilson said.

Lindsay, 22, and her brother Alan Poggio, 23, were driving back to Shafter, northwest of Bakersfield, on August 4.’ She had just left a deposit for the Northridge apartment she planned on moving into this fall. Alan had bought his 2002 Kawasaki that same day when, for reasons yet to be determined, it stopped on the I-5 north, causing him to get off his motorcycle.

Lindsay turned on her hazard lights and stopped her 2000 Dodge Neon directly behind him when a 1999 Ford F-350 struck the back of her Dodge causing her to crash into her brother launching him onto the freeway, said Cynthia Poggio, Alan’s widow and mother of his three-year-old son. Both siblings died minutes after the impact.

Wilson met Lindsay in their 3-D class, in the fall of 2006, where he forgot his syllabus. She shared hers with him and from then on, both of them became good friends. New to the area, they spent a lot of their free time together.

‘My favorite memories of her (was) the time we had in between all of the chaos, hanging out in the apartment watching movies or drawing together,’ Wilson said. ‘Lindsay was amazing, really easy going, but at the same time she had a lot of energy and was really outgoing.’

For Wilson she was an everyday part of his life.’ tThey would go to school, work and eat together.

‘All I know out here is Lindsay. I was so used to having her by my side, we shared three meals a day, we were inseparable,’ Wilson said. ‘Every little thing is a memory of her, where I live, the roads around the valley, everywhere I go.’

They both worked at Limerick Elementary in Canoga Park for an after school program.

‘Her main group was the first graders, they loved her to death,’ Wilson said. ‘They were always amazed by her abilities when she would draw.’

Lindsay had a huge interest in Japanese animation. Wilson described her style as somewhere between American cartoons and Japanese animation.

Elegant is how senior animation major Levi Ponce described Lindsay’s art.

‘She was a super talented person,’ he said.
Lindsay loved kids and wanted to use her animation skills to make them happy, just as animation had made her happy over the years, Ponce said.

‘She was the type of person who would laugh at your joke no matter how bad it was,’ Ponce said. ‘Lindsay didn’t deserve what happened to her, she deserved the best of life.’

Art department assistant professor Mary Ann Trujillo admired Lindsay’s creative character design as well as her storyboard skills.

‘She had a lot of potential and we’re really going to miss her a great deal,’ Trujillo said.

Lindsay and her brother Alan were always very close and spoke constantly over the phone, said Cynthia Poggio.

‘He could tell her anything and she could tell him anything,’ said Cynthia, Alan’s wife since 2003.

While the couple had a falling out in recent years, it never interfered with his role as a father.

‘Our arguments and disagreements never interfered with our son,’ Cynthia said. ‘This year we started doing things more as a family and I’m so happy that it happened.’

Alan loved mechanics and was really goofy, which is what attracted Cynthia to him in their freshman year in high school.

Both brother and sister shared a love for movies. Lindsay in particular was anticipating the Blu-ray release of ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ this week.

‘They would always watch out for each other,’ Cynthia said. ‘It’s funny because I think she protected him more than he protected her and she still protected him until the end.’

The siblings’ older sister, Angie Brandon, agreed.’ Even though Lindsay was the youngest of the three, she was always trying to watch out for both of them, she said. The sisters called each other ‘pretty geeks’ because of their sense of fashion and love of anime.

‘She was always very fashionable,’ Angie said. ‘She would come over and we would watch the last season of Avatar together.’

She liked to wear her Rainbow Brite shirt and loved her iPod, Brandon said.’ However, many of her possessions were destroyed after a drunk driver struck her car six months ago, flipping the vehicle over and causing it to catch on fire, she said.

Lindsay was always into drawing or sketching when she was growing up which led to her interest in graphic art and animation.

The last thing the three siblings did together was go to a late night viewing of ‘The Dark Knight’ on a whim at Alan’s urging.

To Angie, Lindsay was wise beyond her years and valued her sister’s advice.

‘She was so different you could talk to her about everything,’ she said. ‘I would talk to her about my marriage life and she would understand and give me advice. If you needed her, she would be there for you.’

The siblings’ parents are still coping with their loss and the fact that they were such a tight knit family only makes it harder, Brandon said.’ It still feels like a dream to the whole family, even a month later, she said.

Lindsay and Wilson had planned on graduating together this semester, and he half-expected her to start the semester with him last week.

‘The hardest thing right now is realizing she’s not here anymore, but I have to be strong and graduate for her,’ Wilson said.

They were best friends andnothing more, said Wilson, but he said he now realizes what it means when people say they’re heartbroken, because not only can he feel it emotionally, but physically as well.

‘Now that she’s gone I realize that she was the one for me, we never had to try, we never had a bad day, everything just fell into place,’ Wilson said. ‘She’s they type of person you want to look for and spend the rest of your life with.’