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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. Lemonada this series contains descriptions of sexual and physical violence. Throughout, listener discretion is advised Rope to look at it it's what something so simple that we probably hardly ever think about it in our daily lives. Strands of plant fiber braided together into a thicker, stronger string. But really, it's so much more. Now you might be thinking, why in a podcast series about a Washington State serial killer am I discussing rope? Because when that predator decided to bind 15 year old Norma Jean Countrymen, he failed to realize that one young girl's will to live was stronger than the individual fibers that made up his bindings. It was July of 1974, and teenage Norma was faced with a situation few among us will ever have to contend with. She had been abducted by a killer, tightly bound in an impossible web of coarse rope wrapped around her ankles and wrists, and she'd been strung up between two trees. And the question was then before her what was she willing to do to survive? Norma's day, before she was faced with this question, had started out just like any other summer day. It was the afternoon and she'd been killing time smoking a cigarette on the side of the road in Ridgefield, a rural town north of Portland just over the Washington border. You might be wondering why Norma was sitting on the side of the road smoking alone. Well, the truth is, she didn't have many friends. She was lonely and vulnerable. It was a little after five in the afternoon that day as Norma smoked and watched cars whiz past without even a hint towards acknowledging her existence. But then everything changed in an instant. With brake lights, a blue van made a U turn and doubled back and passed her. Driving slowly, the young man behind the wheel gave her a look that caused Norma's heart to beat faster, especially as he made another another U turn in his sky blue 1973 Ford Econoline van and rolled up right next To Norma, the stranger was handsome. He had light brown, shoulder length hair and a mustache. He offered her a ride home. At first Norma refused. But when he asked again in a split second decision, she accepted his offer and climbed up into the killer's van. But he never took her home. He kept driving, then pulled over, saying he had to go to the bathroom. When he returned to the van, he pulled a knife on Norma, then tightly bound her wrists and ankles with rope. He cut off her bra and shoved it in her mouth as a gag and wrapped rope across her mouth to muffle her screams. Then he carried her deep into the woods of Southern Washington state. Once arrived at his preferred location, he strung her between two trees in the wilderness like a human hammock. Here's 15 year old Norma describing her abduction. And he tied it around another tree and pulled it tight so I could hardly breathe. Then he, he hit me real hard. Swear I almost blacked out. And he told me that he was going to wait out there and I didn't know how long he was going to wait. And if I made any fuss that he'd come back from what he just gave me with a sample was being mild compared to what I would get. And then after threatening her not to move or make any noise, the man disappeared and left Norma dangling. And the question became, what was she willing to do to survive? What could she do? Here's Norma today describing what she had to do at 15 to get free of her bindings. Pushing with my heels to get closer to the tree and I could get close enough that I could turn my head and I would use my front teeth to saw on the rope in my mouth. And in doing it, I was scraping my face on the bark and I was chewing and sawing. She managed to chew through the rope, which was so tight against her skin that she had to chew through part of her own lip. And when it broke, I rolled down from the tree, my head rolled down onto the ground and I lay there for a few seconds. And the thing that went through my head was, if he comes back and finds me like this, he really welcomed me. She would escape her bonds and the serial killer that day, just barely. But Norma's nightmare was just beginning because when she went to police and told them what had happened to her, they didn't believe her story. As a result, she would forever be bound psychologically to this stranger because in her mind it got twisted somehow. It was her fault that she wasn't believed. It felt like her fault when the stranger went on killing and so that's what I lived my life with, was that guilt that I couldn't make him believe me. And so two women were dead and the other woman was a wreck. If only I had been able to make him believe me. Until I find out that he didn't even bother. He didn't even bother to do any kind of investigating after that. The pain and suffering caused by this serial killer is deep and relentless. And 50 years later, the killer has yet to be held fully accountable. There are still so many unanswered questions, so many threads that still need pulling, in part because the evidence proving the man who abducted Norma was a serial killer has only recently come to light. Unbelievably, even with the passage of so much time, there is hope in this case yet. I began the series talking about rope. How alone each of these fibers were weak and breakable. Thankfully, that's what allowed Norma to painstakingly gnaw through each individual strand. Conversely, natural rope, when braided together, forms something powerful. And so it is with this case. At the time these crimes were happening, there was Norma who wasn't believed, witnesses who weren't properly interviewed, and evidence that was lost or misplaced. In many ways, this is a bizarre and unbelievable story. But when you weave together the individual strands, stories of the victims, families, survivors and witnesses, the strength of these stories becomes undeniable. Retired Clark County Sheriff's Office Detective Doug Mass.
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B
I love the strands on the rope story. I don't think we'd be here if you hadn't been doing this. I don't know whether just harping on the prosecutor and sheriff would have been enough. Everyone's feeling like this is the big deal that we say it is and it coming at them from multiple directions. So hang in there with us.
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A
Trust me, we're not going anywhere. I'm your host, Carolyn Osorio. You're listening to Stolen Voices of Dole Valley, Episode one, the Ties that Bind. I'm a Seattle journalist, and when I heard about Norma Jean's incredible story of survival, how she'd narrowly escaped a killer and yet was not believed, I got angry. And that prompted me to dig deeper. As I started to peel back the layers of Norma's story, it revealed victim after victim, multiple young women, and their ties to one man, a serial predator who made Dole Valley his hunting ground. As I kept digging through boxes of police files and court records, I kept getting angrier. These women and girls were not only discarded, but in many cases, forgotten. The police investigations bungled in some instances, if not for the work of dedicated women, a sister, a survivor and an investigator. These files would still be collecting dust. Because of their actions and others who would join them, a Cold Case unit is active again. I would learn that this story doesn't begin with Norma Jean Countryman. Trust me. We'll get to Norma later in the series. But to truly understand the weight of this story, we have to start at the beginning with a girl named Jamie Grissom. 16 year old Jamie disappeared three years before Norma was abducted.
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C
My first name is Starr with two Rs. My last name Lara L A R A Jamie was my sister. Jamie Griffin.
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A
Starr and her older sister Jamie were essentially Irish twins, 13 months apart. Starr was three and Jamie was four when they became wards of the state. Their father was in prison, their mother in the throes of mental illness.
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C
They found us living in a car with her and she had said that she was waiting for the FBI because there was a gang after her and she had schizophrenia was what it was.
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A
Over the years, the girls would move from foster home to foster home. There were some kindnesses punctuated by Dickensian style abuse.
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C
She primarily wanted us there for free labor.
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A
When they became eligible for adoption at the ages of 8 and 9, they made an oath to each other to stay together no matter what. But that wasn't in their control.
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C
And Jamie and I had a pact, you know, we would never be adopted separately. And they had sent us to one home and they decided girls cried too much was what they said. So we went to two different homes.
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A
In the summer of 1971, after being separated for a year, Starr and Jamie went to live with a woman named Grace at her farmhouse in Minnehaha, a rural neighborhood outside of Vancouver, Washington. The girls had lived with Grace twice before, but those had been temporary placements. Grace was older and had a weak heart. Even though Grace was a little gruff, she welcomed the girls into her home.
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C
She cooked fried chicken, mashed potatoes. Every night we would have cornbread with dinner.
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A
Grace's farmhouse was about two and a half miles from town, surrounded by nearby cattle and sheep farms. The girls loved walking to Oscar's convenience store to buy penny candy.
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C
We'd walk down to the little store and they had like these. We called them Moondrops. They were chocolate. Inside they'd be different colors, like one would be pink.
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A
The sisters began to feel hopeful. At long last, with Grace, they were together and they dared to envision a bright future. They had no way of knowing that a predator was lurking nearby. When you found that out, how far Away or how close was he to Grace's house?
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C
Less than two miles. And when you think of how remote it was, that's pretty close. You know, back then two miles was nothing, you know, just like Jamie walked to school and that was like two and a half miles and we walked past that a lot, you know, that home.
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A
On December 7, 1971, the girls awoke to a winter wonderland. A late autumn storm had left a blanket of snow covering the countryside. But this snow was the beginning of a bright, brutally cold winter that dug in and held fast. Frigid temperatures and a historic level of snowfall. That morning Jamie and her sister Star had woken up early to wrap Christmas presents before school while their foster mother Grace was still in bed.
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C
You know, it was around Christmas time so we've been wrapping presents that morning. She did the whole purling of the ribbons and stuff and we were sitting there talking and I remember what she was wearing.
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A
16 year old Jamie wore blue jeans, a red and white striped blouse with puffy sleeves and white canvas tennis shoes with the words Peace and love she'd written on the sides.
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C
I remember sitting across from her. Yeah, you know, it comes to mind her beautiful eyes, you know, she had the most beautiful brown eyes.
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A
Star was still in junior high, but Jamie was a freshman at Fort Vancouver High School which meant she had to leave for school first. But right after she left she came back.
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C
It was a very cold day. You know how when you breathe out you can see your breath was in the 20s. And after a few minutes she comes back in and, and I said, why are you back in? She said well it's so cold out there. And she said I came to check on Grace and she had a bad heart. So she went in and checked her as she left.
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A
Again, Jamie told Star to remind their foster mother she'd be home from school early.
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C
She says, star, be sure to tell Grace that I'm walking home from school. I'll be home between 1 and 1:30.
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A
Jamie made it to school that morning, but she never made it back home. When Star got back to the house and saw that Jamie wasn't there, she was immediately concerned. It wasn't like her sister not to come home, especially when she made an extra point for her to tell Grace that she'd be there at around 1 o'. Clock.
- [18:03]
C
I got back between 3:30 and 4 from junior high and I noticed Jamie wasn't there and I said where's Jamie? She told me she'd be home between 1 and 1:30. She wanted me to be sure and Tell you I said something's not right.
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A
That day, Star sat glued to a chair in front of Grace's big picture window with a direct view of the road, watching, waiting for Jamie to come down. She tried to ignore her thumping heart and the knots twisting in her stomach. Children who've experienced trauma know real trouble when it comes because they haven't had the luxury to be shielded from it. So Star knew down to the marrow of her bones sense that something horrible had happened or was happening to her sister right then, the person that she loved most in the world. Star didn't believe Grace when she told her it was going to be okay. She waited by the window, staring out at the growing snow as the sun set. That night at 10:45pm p.m. jamie and Star's social worker went to the Clark County Sheriff's Office to report Jamie missing. That night, the deputy on duty filed a, quote, complaint report. Under the nature of the complaint, he typed, quote, signed runaway. According to Starr, the social worker was told that evening Jamie couldn't be officially reported as a missing person until she'd been gone for 30 days. And that the social worker was very angry, insisting that Jamie was in danger, that she had not run away. I wrote an email to retired Clark County Detective Doug Mass. I asked him what the policy was back then when it came to reporting a missing person. Doug wrote back that the 30 day law relates to the waiting period before entering the person as officially missing into the national and state missing person system. He said there was no law that specified a waiting period for the local agency to take and file the report locally. Bottom line, no one from law enforcement went looking for Jamie that night or in the days or months following her disappearance. Star told police that her sister would never abandon her. She tried to tell them their theory that Jamie was a runaway didn't even make sense. Jamie had worked all summer to put $80 in her bank account, equivalent to more than $600 today. If she were running away, wouldn't she have withdrawn the money first? But Star couldn't get them to listen. 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. BetterHelp 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 that's better. H E-L-P.com 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. On May 1, 1972, five months after Jamie Grissom went missing, Ted Matson and his family were out on Dole Valley Road, about 25 miles from where Jamie had last been seen. Dole Valley is a beautiful, remote, mountainous area.
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B
When my mom and dad moved there, which is about the middle 1950s, there were three people in the whole valley until they got here because of the Yakult burn that burned the whole place out.
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A
Ted's referring here to a massive 1902 forest fire that raged for three days, leaving 38 dead. 148 families lost their homes, and 240,000 acres of forested land was reduced to ash. After that kind of cataclysm, many of the survivors didn't want to stick around. Dole Valley felt cursed, haunted, and it seemed to attract people who wanted to be left alone and were suspicious of strangers.
- [24:38]
B
People didn't come back that fast. Everything was burned out, so it grew back and my dad bought his place from an old man who had retired out here and built the place out of the trees that were killed by the fire. He lit the lumber by hand and built the barn and the house out, building fences and everything.
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A
Scratch that May Day in 1971, Ted Matson was out with his family picking up litter along Dole Valley Road. Keeping Washington clean and green wasn't just a slogan Ted's mother had on her station wagon. It was a creed she lived by.
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B
Fifty years ago, people were in the habit of throwing all their garbage out the window instead of picking it up or putting it in the garbage can. So my mother decided to take the matter into her own hands and she made her own little chain gang.
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A
She'd collect her nine children and any other kids in the area to help pick up trash along Dole Valley Road. And ted, who was 12 years old, was doing his part.
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B
And we started down at the Dole Valley Bridge and went from the Dole Valley Bridge clear to the Rock Creek Bridge, which is about three, four miles, and we cleaned up the garbage.
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A
And that day, as Ted walked down into a ravine by the Rock Creek Bridge, something caught his eye. A Ford Vancouver High school identification card. The girl in the picture was smiling. The ID on the card said Jamie Grissom.
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B
Where I found Jamie's stuff, there was a ravine off to the west and it was heavily wooded, but it was downhill, so garbage went down in there really nice. When I saw her id, we said, oh, I wonder what this is all about. Who could keep me and why is this here?
- [26:32]
A
Even though Jamie's disappearance had never made the news, if you'll recall, at this point, the police still considered her a runaway. But Ted believed what he found was important and he immediately went to show his mother. That day, the family would also find a wallet sized picture of a male student. It would turn out to be Jamie's boyfriend. And another card with Jamie's name and address on it. Ted's mother would call the Clark County Sheriff's office after they returned home. A police report would note the time that she called was 8:10pm saying they'd found the identification of a girl named Jamie Grissom and what appeared to be some of her belongings on the side of Dollar Valley Road. Ted's family had no idea that she was missing.
- [27:27]
B
We all gathered around and looked at it. When we got home, my mother called the police. So they were quite interested.
- [27:34]
A
You know, I mean, that's pretty amazing that she called the police based on that because it's not like it was a driver's license. It was a young girl's high school ASB card, right? Was she worried about like, oh, I don't want to Waste the police officer's time. You know how that conversation kind of rolls in your mind?
- [27:51]
B
Yeah, I can't remember. I suppose there was a little bit of that, but we decided that, well, there's nothing lost, just a little bit of time if it was nothing to it. But. So anyway, it went from there. It was out of our hands after that.
- [28:06]
A
Did your mom say, like, when she found out Jamie Grissom and that she was missing, do you remember what the family's conversation was?
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B
Well, I remember it was. Yeah, that was kind of a little horrifying, you know, and you just wonder, well, what happened to her?
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A
Finding Jamie's belongings in Dole Valley five months after she disappeared suggested she was a victim of foul play. However, none of the reports I've had access to chronicle whether law enforcement spoke to neighbors and in Dole Valley around the time that Jamie's belongings were found by the Matson family. If they had, they might have connected some dots after hearing a disturbing story from the McClure family who lived near the Rock Creek bridge where Jamie's items were found. Now, I've described the vibe of Dole Valley, a beautiful but remote wilderness where people are suspicious of strangers.
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D
Everybody up here keeps to themselves. Police don't like to come up here. They, you know, people up here, you don't trespass unless you are invited. I mean, you could get shot.
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A
That's Deborah McClure.
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D
It's just a fact. Glenn's son went off the mountain and wrecked his truck, and we tried to get a tow truck to come help him. They won't come up here after dark. It's too dangerous, they said.
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A
Why?
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E
I don't know.
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A
Her husband's family, the McClures, have deep roots in the Dole Valley.
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D
My husband grew up up here and his father lived with us for years. I learned a lot of the history from him. And my father in law told me stories about there's a hanging tree that's still up here where apparently a sheriff was hung. And there's stories about bootleggers and shootouts, and the area is just steeped in history of tragedy, honestly.
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A
Although Deborah loves the beauty of the valley, she grew up outside of the subculture of this distrust of law enforcement and code of silence, Especially when it came to a story about a young girl found tied to a tree in Dole Valley. Now, you should know there is no police report corroborating the story I'm about to tell you. Trust me, I've looked for it and it doesn't appear to Exist. Whether it ever existed is a more complicated question. Normally I might not tell this story at all alone. It's hard to know how much weight to give it. This is a story Debra heard from her husband Khan about something his 19 year old brother Matt. Matt saw around the time that Jamie went missing and near where Jamie's belongings would later be found.
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D
They had a family cabin less than half a mile up the road that they would all stay at.
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A
It was around the holiday season in 1971 when Matt got in a fight with his dad, stormed out of the cabin and began walking along Dole Valley Road when he heard terrifying screams near the Rock Creek bridge. He followed the high pitched cries into the woods and saw a young woman bloodied, tied to a tree. Matt ran back to the cabin panic stricken.
- [31:40]
D
Matt came back to the cabin terrified, saying there was a girl hurt in the woods and screaming and just on and on. And they did call the sheriff and they did report it, but this sheriff couldn't find him.
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A
If there had been a police report, it might have detailed the date and time Matt allegedly saw the woman tied to a tree. Would the timing have lined up to when Jamie went missing? The report might also have detailed the extent to which the deputy searched those woods that night, if at all. And why Matt hadn't gone up to speak to the woman before running away. Why didn't he go over and talk to her? Did he ever say anything?
- [32:24]
F
He said he was so scared. He said she was alive, she was screaming. He said she was screaming and he said he just took off running for help and ran back up to the cabin to his dad and his brother and called the authorities to come out.
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A
And so then by the time they went back, did he say how far she was away from the trapper's cabin or where she was in the woods?
- [32:49]
F
I don't know where it would be. The only other thing they talked about was they talked about it being by the mint fields, that even years later they would talk when the police would come up. The cold case unit comes up here and sochis still that they're in the wrong spot, that it's by the mint.
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A
Fields and that's where he saw her tied up to the tree was by the mint fields?
- [33:11]
F
I think.
- [33:12]
A
So again, based on the reports I've had access to, it doesn't appear that the Clark County Sheriff's office took this report seriously.
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D
Nothing was done. The police kind of thought maybe his brother was a nut I guess because he was pretty much hysterical about. But to me that Story lasted all these years. There had to be some truth to it. My husband talked about it, his dad talked about it, the brother in law talked about it. There had to be an element of truth for something like that to last.
- [33:46]
A
After the McClure family called the Clark County Sheriff's office and the deputy came out and didn't see the woman tied to the tree, according to Debra, the family in all these years never spoke to law enforcement about it again. Something that's always bothered Debra, especially when she learned about Jamie Grissom and found out that the McClure family's call to the police that day doesn't exist. If it was ever written up at all.
- [34:17]
F
They've lost the report that was given. And I think up here, if the story dies, nobody's going to be on the lookout. Khan's father had passed away, so that left my husband and his brother Matt. And my husband had a brain injury. So the story was going to die. No one was ever going to tell it. And I just felt it needed to be told while there were people, you know, that could maybe do something.
- [34:47]
A
Matt is still alive, but according to Debra, he is not in contact with the McClure family.
- [34:54]
D
I have not seen him since my husband was injured in 2011. My kids have seen him like wandering downtown Vancouver. One daughter's even talked to him.
- [35:05]
A
Even though Debra doesn't know where Matt is, when she saw a post on Star's Facebook page, finding Jamie Grissom Around 2015, she plucked up the courage to reach out.
- [35:17]
F
Over the years, the story kept coming up. So there has to be something there for all these people to keep telling this story. So I reached out to Starr and told her and she wrote back and asked if the cold case detective could contact me. Lindsay. Then Lindsay emailed me and then she came out and she talked to my husband. But that was after he'd had the brain injury. I don't really think the brain injury affected those memories. It affected more current short term memory than it did long term. Long term seemed to still be there. She just asked him to tell her what had happened and tell her where she could find Matt. She was going to go looking for him. The thing with Matt, though is whenever he sees anybody looking for him, he just disappears.
- [36:12]
A
So we know that Jamie disappeared on December 7, 1971, but there's no police report to verify Debra's story. And Deborah isn't sure sure about the exact date, but she's certain from the family lore that it happened around Christmas time. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to interview Deborah's husband, Khan, Matt McClure's brother, to verify the story as he passed away. But I was able to confirm with the former cold case detective that Deborah mentioned earlier, Lindsay Arnold, that she had spoken to Khan and that he had confirmed his brother. Matt's story of his brother running back to the cabin, claiming to have seen a screaming woman tied to a tree out in the woods near the Rock Creek bridge around the time Jamie went missing. Lindsay also confirmed that she placed a BOLO or be on the lookout to find Matt after she heard the the story, but nothing ever came of it. To this day, law enforcement has not been able to track down or interview Matt McClure about what he saw in those woods that day. But our team has started looking for him, too. So the producer of Stolen Voices, Brandon Morgan, and I were going over the first draft of this episode, and he was extremely troubled by Matt's story.
- [37:50]
G
It's such an interesting story that I don't believe at all. And I need to be convinced that this kid would see a woman tied up screaming and bloody to a tree and not go help her. Like that casts a lot of doubt over there. That story that he would actually see someone tied up to a tree and not say, oh, my God, what happened? Let me untie you. Let me be a human here and get you help.
- [38:16]
A
Totally hear you. But then again, I also think that when you're 19 years old and you're. You see somebody in these dark woods, you're terrified. Are they still here? Can't. Am I going to get involved in this if I'm trying to help her? Are they coming back? And you're like, I'm gonna go get help.
- [38:33]
G
Hey, what's your name?
- [38:35]
A
I know. I totally. I know, but I'll call. Does that make you doubt the story? Is that what you're saying?
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B
It does.
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A
That's why we need to find the guy. I understand.
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G
I get it. I totally get it. Maybe that's why he doesn't want to be found.
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A
For me, I was intrigued by Brandon's take on Matt's story. I believe most people want to do the right thing, but what would any of us do in a real life situation of coming across a woman screaming for help in the woods in the early 1970s without a cell phone to call for help, knowing that presumably the dangerous person who tied her to the tree was still around? And what if he had a gun? I posed the question to retired Clark County Sheriff's Detective John Dush about the profile of a witness in his long career in law enforcement. What would he expect a 19 year old to do in this situation?
- [39:38]
B
Who knows? You don't have depends on their mental states. And you know, if they're just scared to death, you know what I'm saying?
- [39:45]
A
But in your experience is it's one of those things where we just don't know what we'll do. And you can't really judge a person.
- [39:52]
B
Because I don't think you can. Because I mean she may have just been so discombobled. It's kind of like I just want the hell out of here. But who knows? We can't delve into what is in a person's mind if they see something like that. I don't know. I don't have a. That's a damn good question. But I don't have an answer for it.
- [40:10]
A
So in all of your experience, you, you never really can tell what a person will do.
- [40:15]
B
I agree.
- [40:16]
A
Without a police report, we can't confirm the day and time this event allegedly took place. And according to Debra, after the deputy came out and there was no woman tied to a tree, he left. There wasn't any kind of search and rescue effort in the area after Matt called the police. But Debra doesn't know the whole story. There are many questions only Matt would be able to answer. That's why we need to find this guy.
- [40:45]
D
Right?
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G
I mean look at it either way. There isn't a good outcome. If he's lying, then he gives false hope to victims families that maybe it was Jamie Grissom. If he's telling the truth, he's a coward who cost a girl her life.
- [40:59]
A
You're right. That's why he could not want to talk. And also like I think about it from the perspective of the cops, like why didn't they do more when this kid said this? But you know what? Both are complicit.
- [41:11]
G
Yeah, like what's his history? Has he cried wolf before? Did the cops not believe him because he's that kind of kid or that kind of family?
- [41:17]
A
Like they would have interviewed them back in the day, we would know. But they didn't. For many months we've been actively searching for Matt McClure. But I have to be honest with you, even if we find him, who knows if he'll be willing or able to speak with us about what did or didn't happen that day. But in either case, he could have important information on the investigation. Which is all to say we need to run this down no matter the outcome. And we will keep you posted. Now if we were going on the McClure's story alone without any supporting information, it would be hard to know how seriously to take would be just. Just a single dangling thread. But another set of neighbors, the Highfill family, has an eerily similar story. They heard screams coming from the woods.
- [42:17]
E
To me it sounded like the scream could have been just across the street. It was that loud and distinct.
- [42:28]
A
Jeannie Highfill lived 400ft from the rock Creek Bridge when Jamie Grissom disappeared in December of 1971. She doesn't remember the exact date she heard blood curdling screams but does remember very clearly it was the afternoon and that snow was piled unusually high in the valley the way it had been in the winter of 1971. On that afternoon Jeannie's husband Phil, who has since passed away, came running into the house terrified.
- [43:06]
E
I was in the house and my husband was working out in the the open garage that we have. He comes running in the house and he says genie jeie, come listen, come here, come outside. So, so I did and we both heard a scream, a woman's scream at that time. He says I'm gonna go over there, you know, in the area where he could hear the the scream come from. Not that we knew exactly where, but we knew there was a woman scream. He jumps in the vehicle and goes out onto the main road and then turns left to go over the Rock Creek bridge. And he was gone a few minutes and then he came back.
- [43:59]
A
Jeannie says her husband came across a vehicle. It was strange for someone to be out driving through the narrow mountain roads in this much snow. So he grew suspicious and got got into his car to follow it.
- [44:14]
E
He said he was behind a vehicle and he didn't tell me or at least I don't remember what type of vehicle. But he said it was going up the road and the snow was getting too deep for him to follow. And so that's when he came back to the house. And as at that time we did call the Battleground Police Department but no one showed up. They did not come out and ask us anything about it. Nothing.
- [44:51]
A
The Clark County Sheriff's Office is the primary agency in Dole Valley. However, the Battleground Police Department serves the nearby city of battleground, about 20 minutes away. I reached out to both agencies and through an email response was told that neither have a police report or 911 records related to the Highfell's call to the Battleground Police. Jeannie says when the police didn't show up. They just kind of hoped for the best.
- [45:23]
E
We figured once we called the police, that was going to be it. They were going to be coming out and at least come into our house and maybe even follow the track supper or something.
- [45:36]
A
Sure that that he called the battleground police.
- [45:39]
E
I am sure of it because we knew somebody was in distress. Otherwise he wouldn't have jumped in the vehicle and followed it as far as he could before the snow got too deep.
- [45:51]
A
Jeannie says her husband tried really hard to follow the vehicle that day because based on the terror screams they heard, he knew someone's life was in danger. But she can't remember the exact date.
- [46:07]
E
It was a winter later afternoon. I would say it wasn't the morning.
- [46:13]
A
I know that when she later learned of Jamie's story, she was haunted not only about Jamie, but the remains of other young women that would later be found in the rugged wilderness of Dole Valley.
- [46:28]
E
I mean, if he had dumped two, you would have thought maybe there's another one in that area.
- [46:36]
A
Next time on Stolen Voices of Dole Valley. A body is found at the nearby grist mill.
- [46:43]
B
A couple kids and their parents were at Cedar Creek there at the grist mill and and the kids were playing.
- [46:48]
E
Around the bottom of the silo and they hit a rock and chunk of the silo came out.
- [46:54]
B
It was all rotten at the bottom.
- [46:55]
E
And a hand fell out.
- [47:02]
A
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@stolen voicespod or visit our website stolenvoicespod.com and if you like the show, please give us a 5 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 Colley, 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 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 Podcast Podcasts and Lemonada Media.