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- [00:01]
A
This episode is sponsored by Bantam Books, a division of the Random House group. In seven days, Jett Mason will be dead. She was violently attacked by an unseen intruder on Halloween night. And now she will have to solve her own murder before time runs out. Don't miss the new twisty thriller from the number one New York Times bestselling author of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. Now a hit Netflix series Freida McFadden calls not quite Dead Yet, a rollercoaster ride of page turning, suspense and knockout twists. If you're going to read just one more book this year, let it be this one. Not Quite Dead yet by Holly Jackson is available wherever books are sold. Lemonade. This series contains descriptions of sexual and physical violence. Throughout. Listener discretion is advised. Previously on Stolen Voices of Dole Valley. Sixteen year old Jamie Grissom went missing on December 7, 1971. Five months later, on May 1, Jamie's belongings were found in Dole Valley.
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B
I'm sure it was news, but, you know, one of those things that happened, you didn't pay a lot of attention to it. So when I saw her id. Oh, I wonder what this is all about. Who could keep me?
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C
And why is this here?
- [01:41]
A
Around the time Jamie went missing and near where Jamie's belongings were found, a young man saw a woman tied to a tree.
- [01:49]
B
They wound up calling the sheriff's department to report it, but I guess they didn't find her or didn't take him serious.
- [01:58]
A
But unfortunately for Jamie, her sister Star says authorities dismissed her as a runaway.
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B
The worst thing was nobody ever said, oh, I'm sorry, really. There was like, no help. It was like it didn't happen in a way.
- [02:14]
A
From our investigation, authorities now believe Jamie Grissom is the first known victim of a serial killer who was operating in Clark county from 1970 to late 1974. But no one was tracking that vulnerable girls were going missing in Clark county and that there was a predator in rural Southern Washington. Why is it so important to you that people know about this story? Well, I think there's unresolved cases. I think there's lessons to be learned from this. And it's not like this guy got drunk, went out one night, murdered someone, didn't get caught. Then you get their DNA and then they're in prison. It's so complex. I'm Carolyn Osorio. You're listening to episode two of Stolen Voices of Dole Valley. Just a girl. Three months after Jamie Grissom went missing in December of 1971, police found an unidentified body at the bottom of a silo at an old grist mill. The long defunct mill was roughly 40 minutes away from Jamie's foster mother's farmhouse in Minnehaha.
- [03:41]
D
The gristmill. You want to talk about DB Cooper? And then the gristmill factors into DB Cooper.
- [03:49]
A
We'll get to DB Cooper in a minute. But first, historian Jeff Davis said that by day, the grist mill was a place where people picnicked and explored the Cedar Creek. But at nightfall, it became a dark and scary place where urban legends were.
- [04:07]
D
Born, as well as serial killing too. Because of course, we both know that's where one of the bodies was found.
- [04:15]
A
The old Cedar Creek grist mill in Clark county was built in 1876. It was a place where local farmers came to grind their wheat into flour. But by 1972, the grist mill was abandoned and dilapidated. It stood like an old haunted house. The remote area had become the property of the Clark County Parks Department.
- [04:40]
D
Lovers Lane hangout. As well as drinking parties and whatever kind of vandals who get a kick out of shooting at abandoned buildings. That was literally was a haunt kind of for the darker part of Clark County. It's a great place for high schoolers and 20 somethings to hang out, drink, have a little bit of privacy. But I wouldn't be hanging there unless there were like a dozen of us after dark in those days.
- [05:08]
A
It was a Wednesday, March 29, 1972, roughly three months after Jamie went missing. Deputy Bob Songer was a young detective for the Clark County Sheriff's Office when he was dispatched out to the grist mill.
- [05:23]
E
I was working patrol at the time and we got a call there was a body in the grist mill in our county. So we responded. And keep in mind around that time is when DB Cooper, you know, situation was going on.
- [05:41]
A
Bob's talking about the enigma known as D.B. cooper, an unidentified man who hijacked a commercial plane for ransom on November 24, 1971. During the flight, he ordered the pilot to land in Seattle, where He demanded a $200,000 ransom and four parachutes. On the tarmac, the money and parachutes were delivered. Then Cooper commanded the crew to fly to Nevada. But when the plane touched down in Reno. Cooper, D.B. cooper, the two hundred thousand dollar ransom and two of the four parachutes were gone. Based on the trajectory of where D.B. cooper had parachuted out of the airplane, investigators believed he could have landed somewhere around the grist mill.
- [06:30]
E
They felt that he probably bailed out over Merwin Dam area up in that country. They weren't positive.
- [06:40]
A
Now, in episode one, we mentioned how brutal the winter of 1971 was when Jamie disappeared. On December 7th, record snowfall in that area made the terrain surrounding the grist mill really tough to navigate as they searched for DB Cooper that winter. By early spring, the FBI was still searching the area for D.B. cooper, on and off, depending on the weather. On March 29, 1972, a call came in to the Clark County Sheriff's Office.
- [07:16]
E
A couple kids and their parents were at Cedar Creek there at the gristmill. And the kids were playing around the bottom of the silo, and they hit a rock and a chunk of the silo came out. It was all rotten at the bottom, and a hand fell out. And so they were in the dad and mom, there's a hand. And they went down and said, oh, my gosh, we gotta call the sheriff's office.
- [07:42]
A
News spread fast that a body had been found at the grist mill.
- [07:49]
E
While we were responding to that, and of course, it's over the radio and all that kind of stuff, and I don't know if one of our supervisors reached out to the FBI or the state or what, but they felt that maybe it might be D.B. cooper in that silo.
- [08:07]
A
The same D.B. cooper who had gotten away with $200,000, not to mention a piece of the FBI's pride along with it.
- [08:17]
E
There was always that strong feeling that he bailed out of that plane up around Merlin Dam and up in that country. And so Grishmill wouldn't have been stretch. I mean, I don't know how many miles, maybe four or five miles from the location where they thought he jumped out. And so when they heard that we had a body in the Grishmill, well, they lit right up. They thought maybe they had the body of DB Cooper, not that he would have parachuted into the Grishmill silo, that he had accomplice that would take the money and then whack Cooper and dumping down the silo. They opened the bottom of the silo up and pulled the body out. As soon as they seen it was a female, it's yours. We're out of here.
- [08:56]
A
Because it wasn't DB Cooper, as you just heard. According to Bob, the FBI packed up when they saw the body wasn't DB Cooper, but just a girl who'd been murdered and dumped down an abandoned silo. Initially, investigators at the scene believed the victim had been sexually assaulted. When she was pulled from the silo, her pants were down to her mid thighs.
- [09:22]
E
Blouse or top clothing was pulled up over her breast. I don't even recall if she still had a bra on or not. There was one stab wound in the heart. That's how she died. They brought her out and of course then they took her to the coroner's office with pathology work and that type of stuff. I know. At least I'm certain. There was never a weapon found.
- [09:48]
A
There was no identification found on the body. So the sheriff's office went to the media to ask the public's help in identifying the murder victim. Two days later, a young mother, Eileen, saw a newspaper article about the unidentified woman who'd been found at the grist mill. Immediately, she thought of her little sister, Barbara. Mylene had gotten in a fight with Barbara, and they hadn't spoken for months. Like the body that had been found, Barbara had a distinctive surgical scar as a result of having her appendix, ovary and the right fallopian tube removed. And the description of the clothes sounded familiar. Flare bottom jeans, blue green sweater, and size 5 canvas tennis shoes with the word Peace written on the left shoe. Barbara was also 5:1, 115 pounds, with long, light brown hair. Eileen called the sheriff's office saying she believed the unidentified body was Barbara Ann Dairy. This is an ad by BetterHelp. You know, these days, it feels like there's advice for everything when it comes to mental health and wellness, especially in a world where, let's face it, you can just scroll until you land on someone who's just going to agree with you. I mean, the most effective therapy I've been involved with is when my therapist worked with me to see I was repeating negative patterns, but also that I needed to be accountable for my stuff. I'll admit I can be stubborn, but we're not talking about me. Actually, we're talking about you. And if you're looking to learn positive coping skills and how to set boundaries that empower you to be the best version of yourself, consider trying BetterHelp. Better Help is the world's largest online therapy platform. You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp, and our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com stolenvoices that's betterhelp.com stolen stolen voices this episode is sponsored by Bantam Books, a division of the Random House group. In seven days, Jett Mason will be dead. She was violently attacked by an unseen intruder on Halloween night. And now she will have to solve her own murder before time runs out. Don't miss the new twisty thriller from the number one New York Times best selling author of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. Now a hit Netflix series Freida McFadden calls not quite Dead Yet, a rollercoaster ride of page turning suspense and knockout twists. If you're going to read just one more book this year, let it be this one. Not Quite Dead yet by Holly Jackson is available wherever books are sold. The Derry family was made up of five daughters and one son. Barbara was the baby at 18 years old. The family was from Goldendale, a very remote area near the Columbia River Gorge. According to a 1970 census, the population was a little under 2500. In 2000, there were only 3700 people living within the city limits of Goldendale, so a very small town about a two and a half hour drive away from the grist mill. Barbara's family tells detectives that she had visited Goldendale on February 9, 1972. It was a memorable occasion because she and her older sister Zella had made plans for Barbara to move in with her. At the time of her visit to Goldendale, Barbara was living in Vancouver, Washington. She had rented a small apartment and was enrolled at Clark Community College. It's unclear why Barbara wanted to leave Vancouver, but the fact that she was behind in her rent and had spotty attendance at school could give an indication that she was dealing with deeper issues. On April 3, the Clark County Sheriff's Office announced that dental records matched the unidentified body found at the grist mill to Barbara Ann Dairy. Her murder was an unbearable loss for a family already shaped by tragedy. Before Barbara was born, her parents lived on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota. Life had always been tough on Barbara's parents and older siblings, especially after a fire burned their home to the ground. The family didn't have much before the blaze, and afterward they decided to leave the reservation for Washington State where they had family ties. But to say that life was hard scrabble doesn't even begin to describe how difficult it was to raise six children.
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B
They were really, really poor, too. My grandpa caught in smallpox and polio and so he didn't work. They just, you know, had a little farm and, you know, raised chickens, rabbits and things like that.
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A
That's Johnna, Barbara's niece, who was just five years old when her aunt was murdered. Eileen is John, his mother. It sounds like there wasn't a lot of money but did the grandparents stay together?
- [15:58]
B
Yes, it was rough. Got treated poorly in that town and my grandmother wasn't exactly there as a mother. You know, my grandpa was pretty old.
- [16:07]
A
So why were they treated poorly? Because they were native or.
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B
Yeah, that too. You can't tell by looking at them. So they kind of played that off and were told not to tell anybody.
- [16:18]
A
So they didn't grow up with their culture. What tribe?
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B
Rosebud and Lakota.
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A
Life was tough for the dairy family in Washington State.
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F
She was the only one born in the hospital too. My grandpa delivered the rest of the kids at home.
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A
Your grandfather delivered his own children, Just the two of them? Yeah.
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F
Then they called the doctor after the baby was born to come sign the birth certificate. But she was born early so she got to be born in the hospital.
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A
Everybody was quite a bit older than her. Right. So she was the baby of the family.
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F
Yeah.
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A
When Barbara was just 12 years old, her father passed away. By then all of her siblings had moved out of the house. To this day, Johnna doesn't know why Barbara was taken from her mother and placed into foster care. Eileen is tight lipped about the family's history, saying that their mother was not never a stable influence in their lives growing up. And that for Eileen, the death of her sister Barbara is a wound that has never healed because she wasn't speaking to Barbara when she was murdered. The rift between the sisters occurred when Barbara came to live with Eileen. Even though Barbara was put into foster care when she was just 12 years old, she still kept in contact with the rest of the Derry family. When Barbara was in her junior year of high school, Eileen agreed to be her foster mother so she could live with them in Goldendale. By then Eileen was in her mid-20s, married with two small children. But even though Eileen didn't have a lot, she agreed to let Barbara come live in their two bedroom home. Jonna remembers sharing a room with her Aunt Barbara times she's never forgotten. You had bunk beds and you were in the bottom bunk bed and she was on top.
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B
Uh huh. Well I would put things on her bed and make her mad and she'd throw them off and then I'd get mad at her and she'd like to sew and she was really smart, she loved to sew and I ate her buttons and you know, just things that piss her off, you know.
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A
And she'd get really bad, you'd actually swallow them. Boy you're feisty. Oh my gosh. But Barbara had a habit of not coming home at night. Which was extremely stressful for Eileen because if she didn't come home, Eileen could get into trouble with Child Protective Services. It was a lot for a young mom. One night, Eileen had enough, and she reported Barbara to cps.
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F
She was yelling at her, you know, you won't listen to me. You won't, you know, stay at home and stay and running around all night. And you have to go. You have to go do something else because you can't stay here anymore. Because I'm not going to deal with the state and I'm not going to, you know, and have these two little kids, and I'm just not going to deal with it anymore. So I think she left the next day or the day after that.
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A
Jona says that Eileen carries a lot of guilt for that decision to this day.
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B
I just remember her mentioning all the time, you know, man, if I wouldn't have said that, if I wouldn't have made her leave, she'd probably be okay. I said, yeah, but, you know, you can't think like that.
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A
Eileen would see Barbara one last time before she was murdered at a family gathering. Eileen didn't speak to Barbara that day because she believed that Barbara was still angry at her for kicking her out the year before. And not long after that, Barbara was murdered and the nightmare would begin. According to Jonna, even though it was Barbara's family who had called the police saying they believed the body found at the grist mill was their sister Barbara, and provided information on where to get her dental records, the way they were told about her identification was horrific. First the police call and say it's her. Then they get another call on the same day. That it's not. The yo yo of emotions that Eileen and her family felt throughout the day is unimaginable. It left Eileen feeling confused and torn after hearing different things from the police. Should she feel hopeful that perhaps Barbara wasn't dead after all? But what came next would be seared into Johnna's memory that night when Eileen and Jonna were watching TV and learned that Barbara had been identified as the Gristmill victim.
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F
And then we were watching the news, and there she was on the news.
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A
And what did your mom.
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F
What do you. She just started screaming and crying and she was so mad. She was mad at the police and she was mad, you know, just so upset.
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A
And you've described your mom as being very stoic, very.
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F
I've probably seen her cry maybe three or four times my whole life. And that was one of the times.
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A
And as a little kid, do you remember that? I remember.
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F
It just scared the hell out of me. But she was like that because she just was never like that.
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A
What do you remember about how the family changed after finding this out?
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F
I remember mom changing. Yeah, she changed. That's when she changed. That is when she changed, huh? I don't know. She's just always sad. I think all the time. That was her baby sister.
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A
It sounds like you've intuited that she feels tremendous guilt. Has she ever talked?
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F
She's told me before. She's like, I just feel so guilty about Barbara, about telling her to leave the house. And she's like, you know, today I wouldn't even. I wouldn't even blink. She wants to know what happened, you know, before she dies. What happened to Barbara?
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A
Finding out over the news that her sister was dead was an unbearable burden for Eileen and the family.
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B
It was just a real heavy atmosphere, you know?
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A
And when did you all find out? Like, did the police then come to you and say, hey, we're sorry, we didn't. We told you that it wasn't her? And then you heard it on the news. Did you hear anything from the police?
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B
No. As I remember, she called them and said no. How she felt about it and what.
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A
What was their response?
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B
I don't know. Doesn't really matter what the police does it. They don't care.
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A
It was a punch in the gut to hear the way Barbara was portrayed in media reports that she was a, quote, hitchhiker with a lot of male friends. Code for slut. There was no mention that Barbara was doing what a lot of people did back in the 1970s, which was hitchhike and explore their own personal freedoms as they tried to figure it all out.
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B
Local newspapers around here, even, they're just awful. Lardy Colson, well, you know, she's run away. She's wild, you know. You know, like she was, you know, destined to become a victim because of the way she was. And she was a. Like that. She was just free spirit.
- [23:25]
A
Today, Jonna's mother, Eileen, is Barbara's last living sibling. I spoke with Eileen briefly over the phone, and I asked her if she'd be willing to talk about Barbara for the podcast. At first, she said she'd think about it, but would ultimately deny my request for an interview, something I spoke with J About.
- [23:49]
B
I think the feelings she's got about the whole thing are pretty raw. And she's upset by the police and has been since the beginning. And like I said, they give her a little ray of hope and then Just pull the rug out from under her, really. So she's just starting to try to protect her feelings.
- [24:07]
A
So when exactly did Barbara disappear? Detectives interviewed Richard Rogers, Barbara's boyfriend, a couple months after her body was found. Obviously, as an intimate partner, Richard would be considered a person of interest. He denied having anything to do with Barbara's death. There was nothing in the reports that I had access to that mentioned Richard was a suspect in her murder. Richard confirmed that Barbara had taken a trip to Goldendale on February 9 and had made plans to pack up her apartment and moved to Goldendale to live with her sister.
- [24:45]
C
Now, she apparently took a trip to Goldendale prior to moving out of the apartment, right? That's right. Okay. Did you have a conversation with her before she took that trip up there? She said something earlier in that time. I mean, not like the day before she left. She said something earlier in the week before she left that she was gonna take a trip to. She didn't say when or how she was going or anything.
- [25:12]
A
Through Richard, investigators were able to piece together a timeline of Barbara's life before her murder, how she'd met Richard not long before she disappeared. Richard was 17 years old and was driving in downtown Vancouver when he saw Barbara walking in the rain. He felt sorry for her, thinking she was just a little kid because of her stature. When she was actually 18, it was late out.
- [25:41]
C
I'd say 11:30, and it was rainy cold. And I saw this girl walking down the street. Actually, I thought it was a girl. I mean, from a distance, she looked like she was about 13, you know, 14 years old. And I pulled up, and I says, hey, you need a ride home? You know, I have a habit of saying, hey, lady, you need a ride home? I mean, even to my little sister. And she looked at me funny for a minute, and she says, yeah, I guess so. She got in my car, and I said, where you live? She says, in some apartments across from Clark College. So I took her to her place, and she invited me in, and we just sit around, talk for a while, not too much about anything.
- [26:29]
A
When Barbara moved to Vancouver, she was lonely, according to her foster mother, Florence Dean, after Eileen had reported Barbara to Child protective services for staying out all night, Barbara was placed in another foster home with Florence, who lived in Stevenson, Washington, about an hour's drive from Eileen's home in Goldendale. Barbara lived with Florence for roughly a year, but when she turned 18, she was still in her senior year of high school, which was a problem under Washington state law. Barbara was now considered an Adult, she'd aged out of foster care, which meant Barbara had to drop out of high school. A few months before her murder, Barbara had the opportunity to move to Vancouver, Washington, about 50 miles away from where she'd been living in Stevenson. Barbara qualified for a grant to help her get her GED at Clark College. There was also a small stipend for housing when she moved to Vancouver into her own apartment. Life wasn't easy for Barbara. Her former foster mother, Florence, would later say she'd been afraid of moving alone. And by the time Barbara started dating Richard, she was more than 200 behind in her rent and was stressed out about money.
- [27:52]
C
Our relationship, like, in a way, she was hunting for something and she wanted to be loved. She wanted to be loved by someone that really loved her a lot and she was willing to love them. Now, I'll put it this way, I was more than willing to love her and I think she was more than willing to love me.
- [28:14]
A
Richard told investigators that as a 17 year old, he still lived with his parents and worked a low paying job. But he knew Barbara was struggling financially but wasn't in a position to help her money wise.
- [28:28]
G
I couldn't do it.
- [28:29]
A
Richard said that struggling to meet her rent, Barbara decided to move back in with family in Goldendale to save money while she figured things out. But while she was packing up, she promised him that she'd be back to Vancouver.
- [28:45]
C
What was the reason she gave you for legal for? Like I said, it was evidently too hard for her to keep up, support herself on her income, whatever her income was, I never knew. And you know, she just told me she had a chance to go live in Goldendale. I think it was a relative or something, I'm not sure. And she told me, I'll be back.
- [29:12]
A
According to law enforcement's timeline, the exact date that Barbara disappeared is unclear. Only that it was sometime between Monday, February 21 and Wednesday, February 23, 1972. We also don't know what Barbara did with her packed up belongings once she left her place for the last time after she said goodbye to Richard. But according to Detective Bob Songer, after her apartment was emptied out, she ended up spending the night with her neighbor Conrad, with plans to head out to Goldendale the next day.
- [29:49]
E
She spent the night with a guy by the name of Conrad, who was a neighbor. I always suspected Conrad as being the culprit because I finally got him to admit that he tried to make a play for her. She slapped him and he just went to bed and forgot about it. And then the Next morning she wanted to go back to Stevenson and so he loaded her up, took her down to Day and Night Market there in Vancouver by Highway 14 so she could hitchhike and dropped her off. Now, his claim that was the last he'd seen them.
- [30:22]
A
When interviewed, Conrad would tell police that he dropped Barbara off at the Day and Night market by State Route 14 near its intersection with Interstate 5 in Vancouver. This area is near the Vancouver Barracks, roughly 30 miles from the grist mill. According to Barbara's case file, she would be described as an accomplished hitchhiker and that she went to the Day and Night market near the freeway to thumb her way to Goldendale. Richard Rogers said he went to visit her the morning she left, but Barbara.
- [30:58]
C
Was already gone of her apartment the following morning. Following morning I did. The door was open. I went inside. Nothing there. I looked in the cupboards bare and that would. You didn't have to work that day? No. And went in the bathroom, checked the drawers, maybe find some in her. I was hoping to find a note, if you want to know the truth, something saying, richard, you know, I'll be in such and such place. But I didn't.
- [31:27]
A
It's a mystery as to how Barbara planned to get back to Goldendale. She didn't have a car. Did she ask Conrad to drop her off at the Day and Night market because it was close to the freeway so she could hitchhike? Or was she planning on meeting someone at the market who had offered to give her a ride?
- [31:47]
C
Did she mention anything about how she was going to get back to Goldendale, who was going to be over? She didn't mention the fact that she'd be hitchhiker back? No, no. And I mean, wow. When she disappeared, you know, it left me standing in the air, really did.
- [32:02]
A
I was.
- [32:03]
E
I don't know where she is.
- [32:04]
C
I went down to her mother's unnoticed amount of times asking about her. And her mother said to me, so she took off again. And I said, yeah, I guess, you know, you know, I could buy that. And she just left and well, she'll be back.
- [32:21]
A
We know that Barbara never made it to Goldendale that day. Like Jamie Grissom, who also disappeared during the day, Barbara seemed to vanish without a trace until her body was found at the grist mill more than a month later. In the early days of the investigation, Detective Bob Songer said that they had a few suspects, like Barbara's neighbor Conrad, who as it turned out, appeared to be the last person to see her alive.
- [33:08]
E
But anyway, that never went anywhere of course, then we didn't have DNA, we didn't have any of this kind of stuff. And I think there was one other guy that was kind of suspicious, but it ended up going nowhere.
- [33:22]
A
As I started to track what was going on, I decided to make one of those boards with push pins and red string, not knowing that essentially the red thread that I was given wasn't perfect, perfectly spooled, it was tangled. Because in a case like this that spans more than 50 years and has multiple victims and a complex timeline, I began to understand that my job as your host was to take all that knotted up string in the form of police reports and untangle it with the help of our production team and put together a compelling story. What I believe to be true is that even though it's been 50 years, bringing to light all these little details that were missed, overlooked, forgotten about are worth the time in unraveling. And there are some missteps that you need to know about. In the Barbara dairy investigation. When Barbara's body was recovered, her pants were pulled down to her mid thighs. Based on the state of her clothing, investigators at the scene believed she'd been sexually assaulted. After the autopsy, the coroner would say there was no physical evidence that a sexual assault had occurred, meaning there was no bodily fluid from a potential suspect found on or inside of Barbara. I learned that detail from a newspaper article written after Barbara's body was recovered. Whether or not Barbara's murder was a sexually motivated crime was an important distinction back then when they had no idea a serial killer was operating in the area. But it's also an important distinction today as well. Retired Clark county prosecutor Denny Hunter.
- [35:13]
H
Barbara is on the list because if you look at Clark county from woodland around the campus, there's this arc of foothills, and that's kind of. They're populated by victims of a certain age and look. And so they all occurred between the time he returned to Vancouver from military service up to the time. So Barbara Darry stayed on that list. She's. She's not consistent in the sense of the MO of the other cases, but she's. She's in there.
- [35:49]
A
As you heard from Denny, it's now believed that Barbara's murder is part of a larger case connected to a serial killer who was operating in Clark county around the time that Jamie Grissom went missing and Barbara was found murdered at the grist mill. But when I conducted my interviews with then deputy Bob Songer and retired prosecutor Denny Hunter, it was in the early, early days of my investigation. Basically, I was Just getting started with a tangle of red thread. The infancy state of a nearly two year public records request odyssey. Early on, I received a batch of records and buried within hundreds of pages I found a document authored by now retired Clark County Sheriff's Detective Robert Rick Buckner. Buckner's note was listed under quote, case summary. And it gives the impression that he stumbled on a random box of cassette tapes related to the Barbara Derry murder investigation. Quote, on July 12, 2010. The following items he's referring to. The interview tapes were discovered in a cardboard box in the sheriff's office Major crimes unit. Prior to now, these items have never been placed into the Clark county evidence system and the primary case file has been either destroyed or misplaced. Based on this report, I thought that the file and evidence collected could be lost, which included a tampon collected from inside Barbara's body. Something I asked Bob Songer about.
- [37:36]
E
If it was a rake, the rapist could have taken it out and reinserted it after the rape. I would assume, I don't know. But you would think, you would think that they would have logged that tampon in as evidence.
- [37:49]
A
Well, and especially her clothes because there could be semen on them.
- [37:52]
E
Absolutely, absolutely. All the above clothing, shoes, all that.
- [37:58]
A
The idea that the offender would have taken out Barbara's tampon and then reinserted it afterwards feels like a stretch, but when investigating sexually motivated crimes, anything is possible. It was also around this same time that I asked retired Clark county prosecutor Denny Hunter about Barbara Derry's potentially destroyed or misplaced primary case file. He explained that when he was trying to reconstitute a new one for Barbara in 2014, he was surprised to discover that crime scene photos from the grist mill were gone.
- [38:37]
H
I tried to retrieve photos for our case file in Barbara Dairy and shows you what kind of operation we had. In 1972, the Columbia newspaper photographer was our crime scene photographer and those negatives in film and all that stuff resided with him. He retired, of course, and I found him down in Florida. And he goes, I have no idea where those are. I've moved three times, I don't have them now.
- [39:03]
A
I asked Denny about the larger pattern of misplaced records and physical evidence, which has had profound and devastating consequences throughout this investigation. Denny says during this time period when a case was concluded, a routine memo was signed to release evidence to whoever claimed it.
- [39:25]
H
I think it was driven by the prosecutors, but maybe at the request of the sheriff that when a case concluded, a routine memo was signed to release the evidence to whoever lawfully claims it. So that's one problem, obviously. The other problem is the case management. We have a barbadary file. I don't know if it's a reconstructed file. I know it doesn't have photographs because the Columbian photographer took him with him whenever he went away.
- [39:52]
A
But thankfully, months later, when more records were released to me by the Sheriff's office public disclosure group, I would learn that physical evidence collected from Barbara Derry's body and crime scene were not lost. And seeing as Barbara's murder is still unsolved, this physical evidence collected at the scene in 1972 will become important later. Which full circle is why I was trying to say untangling all of these little details is so important because when I was reading through police reports related to Barbara's murder, I remembered something Bob had said to me previously in our very first interview.
- [40:41]
E
And I think there was one other guy that was kind of suspicious, but it ended up going nowhere.
- [40:48]
A
Later in my investigation, I found out that pieces of evidence in Barbara's case had been sent to the labor in the early 2000s along with potential suspect DNA on some licked envelopes. But even though they'd been sent to the lab, neither had been processed. Something I would ask Clark County Sheriff's Office Sergeant Fred Nieman about, was that tested. I'm unclear, you know, because they had the envelopes. They went through the process of getting them and then I'm not seeing from what I've read so far, and I know that's not a full picture as to whether or not those were tested. Do you know if they were the envelopes? Yeah, the envelopes.
- [41:30]
I
The envelopes were sent to the Wash State crime Lab to attempt to get a DNA profile from them. They were not examined. Our notes indicate that the exam was retracted, but I don't know the reason for why that was.
- [41:44]
A
What does that mean? Like, why would they be retracted?
- [41:47]
I
I don't know. I would like to have a cold case investigator who can really investigate the case and dive into this case. Look at. Is that a DNA profile we do need to try and develop? And do we have evidence we could compare it to from evidence we still retain from the 1970s case?
- [42:06]
A
As we go through this series, it's important to make clear this isn't an indictment against law enforcement. As I've mentioned, and as you just heard, I do have that board with all the tax police reports and red thread. And our team has made important connections and we will go over what we've learned step by step, wherever it leads us. But I would be remiss if I didn't also say that this has been a team effort. Not only have I had the good fortune to work with victims and their families on this series, but also I've been helped early on and throughout my investigation by detectives like Bob Songer, who was just a rookie when he arrived at the scene of the grist mill. I've also had the help of many retired investigators who have never given up on these cases and have tirelessly shared their knowledge and insights and introduced me to their former colleagues for interviews. And although it didn't happen at first, I was eventually able to get my foot in the door with current investigators, and I brought them what I'd found in the barbar dairy reports. And as you heard, this is still very much an active investigation, and we will get to those reports. But first we need to get back to 1972, Barbara Derry's murder investigation, the hunt for DB Cooper, and the Clark County Sheriff's Office. At the beginning of this episode, I described the fact that the FBI swarmed the grist mill when they thought there was a chance that the body at the bottom of the silo could be DB Cooper. Not only was the body not DB Cooper, but he had nothing to do with her case, except for one thing. Fifty years later, with the benefit of hindsight, it feels like it was potentially another missed opportunity back then. As is the case now, the Clark County Sheriff's Office is a small agency that I've been told by numerous sources is chronically understaffed and whose jurisdiction covers a lot of railroads, rural territory. After Barbara's body was recovered, the Clark County Sheriff's Office would send some physical evidence collected to the FBI lab for testing, but nothing would come of it. Based on the records I've received, that appeared to be the extent of the FBI's involvement at the time. Remember what Bob said?
- [44:50]
E
As soon as they seen it was a female, it's yours. We're out of here. Because it wasn't DB Cooper.
- [44:57]
A
Now, one could make the argument that the FBI didn't have jurisdiction in the Barbara Derry murder case, as they would have in the DB Cooper hijacking, which was a federal crime. But if the FBI had consulted on the case, that collaboration could have changed the trajectory of the investigation. Because even though DNA technology wasn't on anyone's radar Back then, in 1972, the FBI's now celebrated Behavioral Science Unit was launched. A group of experts in the nascent field of behavioral profiling, the bsu, was tracking and analyzing violent crime and behavior through Data and interviews with serial killers and rapists in an effort to understand rising trends in sexual crimes. Here's retired FBI agent and author Kenneth Lanning.
- [45:56]
G
The unit started out as just doing training and education, but eventually moved into the area of research and case consultation that many people started to call profiling. So I spent 10 years as a regular agent and then 20 years in the behavioral science unit.
- [46:13]
A
Ken said when he joined the bsu, he was the young guy among giants like profilers John Douglas and Robert Ressler.
- [46:23]
G
And so many of the agents who were part of those early years in the 70s and 80s and early 90s have now passed away, the dead. And so when they want somebody to talk about it, there's an ever shrinking list of people who have firsthand knowledge of kind of what happened in those days. And so I'm one of them who is involved in all of that. I basically got involved in at the beginning. In 1972.
- [46:53]
A
Ken did not work on the barbadary investigation, but he can help us understand the FBI's role when it comes to working with local law enforcement.
- [47:03]
G
The FBI can only conduct investigation, actual investigation, in cases in which the FBI has jurisdiction. And those are primarily a lot of, but not all federal offenses. So it's a federal offense which usually involves some kind of interstate aspect to it and so on. Bank robberies, because they're insured by the federal government, other kinds of cases and so on. But the FBI has almost no jurisdiction in murders, child molestation cases. Those are not federal offenses.
- [47:35]
A
Lanning says they can't take the lead as investigators in cases they don't have jurisdiction. But the FBI can provide case consultation to police departments who asked for the BSU's help, especially on more complex cases.
- [47:53]
G
When the behavioral science would be called, it was usually because the case was unusual or different and not the typical thing that police departments would see. Also, I think the average police department in this country has about 10 police officers, so not exactly a massive department. And they don't have a lot of this specialization. So we would assist all these different kinds of departments.
- [48:19]
A
But the FBI wasn't consulted on Barbara Derry's murder investigation in 1972. And that was something that was tough for my producer, Brandon Morgan and I to wrap our heads around. I think really the question becomes, was her case unique enough to have made the FBI want to help? Because that was one of the things that Ken had said during the interview, was that, you know, in cases where there are unusual situations or circumstances, local law enforcement would go to the FBI and ask for assistance. I think that Barbara's case definitely was. I mean, to be dumped in a silo at the grist mill, to be stabbed in the heart. The fact that, you know, was she or was she not sexually assaulted? Like what? I mean, I just. I don't know.
- [49:08]
J
Look, I get it.
- [49:09]
G
I get it.
- [49:09]
J
I'm harsh sometimes, especially in cases like this, towards law enforcement. I armchair quarterback and say, ah, you want doing a good job? I don't know, because I wasn't there and I'm not in law enforcement, so I don't know how difficult the job is. Granted to all of that. As a father of daughters, it's hard not to look at it from the perspective of a survivor. When someone would say to me, sorry, that murder is not unique enough for the FBI to care, okay, that would make me want to, you know, burn the building down, you know, and so if that's true, that reality is just a really, really tough reality to accept, okay? That a young girl's murder doesn't check enough of the boxes to interest the FBI, man, that's a tough pill to swallow, you know, so we'll. We'll leave it to the local who are stretched really thin and just don't have the resources to figure it out. And then we had to live with the repercussions from that decision for democracy decades.
- [50:09]
A
In 1972, the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit surely would have asked if there were any other reported cases of missing or murdered girls in the area, like Jamie Grissom, who had disappeared three months before, but especially after her identification was found later that spring. If the FBI had been consulting on Barbara's murder investigation and learned of Jamie Grissom's disappearance, how her ID had been found in Dole Valley, then maybe residents in the area would have been interviewed and the sheriff's office would have learned about the screams. The highfills had called the police about that winter and how Matt McClure had reported seeing a woman bloodied and tied to a tree. Clark county prosecutor Denny Hunter reached out to Robert ressler at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. When the sheriff's office started putting the pieces together that a serial killer could be operating in their community. But that would be years later. Today, Jamie's disappearance and presumed murder is believed to be the first in a series of murders, and Barbara Derry could be the second. In 1972, what needed to happen is that the Clark County Sheriff's office needed to basically invite them into the case. It sounds like it's hard to not, you know, be an armchair detective on this when you know what we know now. But if you look at the similarities between Jamie Grissom, who at the time that they found Barbara Derry, you know, she was a missing person, but they also thought she was a runaway. Right? But there were so many similarities. Like they were both foster children, Right? They were both, you know, essentially vulnerable kids. Barbara had last been seen near the Vancouver Barracks. Jamie had worked that summer at the Vancouver Barracks. Both were small in stature and both were students and alone or on foot, at least that's what they believe when they were snatched or kidnapped or taken or maybe they knew the person. Right? So that's what the BSU would have brought, I feel, to this case early on to make those connections, you know, like, hey, are there any other girls that are missing in this area at this time? I think the Clark County Sheriff's Office was spread so thin that those questions weren't, you know, weren't asked.
- [52:40]
J
Yes, the Behavioral Science Unit, if they had gotten involved, just what you just said right there, all of those similarities, what investigator wouldn't have had their antenna stand straight up and go, okay, there's something to this. Okay. There was so, so much meat on the bone there that I think just got missed.
- [52:58]
A
Right?
- [52:58]
J
And I don't. I just don't. I just don't buy into that. Police force was spread really thin. I mean, what's a greater mission than who's killing our young girls?
- [53:11]
A
Next time on Stolen Voices of Dole Valley. Three more girls go missing and one of the killer's victims lives to tell her story to police, and still no one is tracking. There's a serial killer operating in Clark county who's preying on vulnerable young women. I could not make that detective believe me. So it was up to me. Even though I had given him everything, he had already dismissed me as a juvenile delinquent who was just a bad seed or something, you know, that is exactly when he said, I don't believe your story. I just shut down. If you have information about the case, please call the Clark County Sheriff's Office tip line at 564-397-2847 for more on stolen voices of Dole Valley, including pictures or to contact the show. Find us on social at Stolen Voices pod or visit our website, stolenvoicespod.com and if you like the show, please give us a five star rating and a review. It really helps us get discovered. Of course. Tell your friends and be sure to follow us so you don't miss an episode. You can also support us by subscribing to Lemonada Premium, available right now in your podcast player. Lemonada Premium unlocks exclusive bonus episodes like this week's Conversation with Dave Cawley, the person whose work inspired me to get into podcasting. Stolen Voices of Dole Valley is researched, written and hosted by me, Carolyn Osorio Production, sound design and mixing by Trent Sell. Produced for Pie in the Sky Media by Brandon Morgan. My personal thanks to Ben Kiebrick for his thoughtful and inspired edits. A special thanks to Dan, Dave Colley, Amy Donaldson, Andrea Smarten, Ryan Meeks and Jenny Ament. Main musical score composed by Alison Layton Brown with Lemonada Media executive producers Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittleswax and for KSL Podcasts executive producer Cheryl Worsley. Stolen Voices of Dole Valley is a production of Pie in the Sky Media, KSL Podcasts and Lemonada Media.