Help Solve the Murders of Teenage Girls in Oregon

April 27, 2009

Kelly Disney, 17, was the first girl in a presumed series of five teenage girls to disappear under suspicious and similar circumstances.  She apparently vanished on March 9, 1984, and was last seen alive on U.S. Highway 20, east of Newport along Oregon's scenic coast.  Her skull was found 10 years later, in 1994, inside an abandoned vehicle near Big Creek Reservoir, a popular fishing area east of Newport. Kelly's cause of death has never been determined.
 
On May 3, 1992, Melissa Sanders, 17, and Sheila Swanson, 19, disappeared from the area of Beverly Beach State Park, where they had been camping.  They had last been seen making a call from a pay telephone booth.  Their bodies were found five months later, on October 10, 1992, by hunters in a wooded area near Eddyville, Oregon.  As in the case of Kelly Disney, a cause of death for the two girls has not been determined.

Jennifer Esson and Kara Leas, both 16, were last seen at approximately 1 a.m. on January 28, 1995, walking along NW 56th Street toward Highway 101, also known as the Coast Highway, in an area near Moolack Beach.  They had left from a friend's home on the north side of Newport, where they had spent much of the evening just hanging out and watching movies.  They were believed to have been hitchhiking to another residence located near downtown Newport when they disappeared.  According to Esson's father, the girls were initially planning to have a relative drive them to their next destination, but they decided to walk instead.  Never seen alive again, their bodies were found by loggers weeks later in a wooded area, covered up with brush.  Oregon authorities later determined that both girls had been strangled.

The most common elements in the cases appear to be the fact that they all involved young girls who disappeared while either walking alone or in pairs in the vicinity of the Central Oregon coast, either in or near Newport.  Earlier this year, Lincoln County District Attorney Rob Bovett decided that the cases needed to be looked at again, and he called the past and present members of the Lincoln County Major Crime Team together to review the cases again.

"They haven't been looked at for a long time," Bovett said.  "It was time to do a new, fresh look.  We brought together the old major crime team from the mid-nineties, together with the current major crime team.  There were about thirty people in the room."

Among the many things that investigators looked at during the review was the current state of DNA technology.

"Some of the crime lab technology has been massively upgraded," Bovett said.  "We were doing DNA testing twenty years ago, but the advanced DNA technology that we have today eclipses what we had even a decade ago."

Bovett said that as a result of such advancements in DNA and crime lab technology, some of the evidence that had been collected during the original investigations had been resubmitted to the Oregon State Police crime lab for another look.

"That was the first exciting piece," Bovett said.  "We can analyze some things now that we couldn't analyze back then, at a microscopic level.  There are additional crime lab tests that can be run now that couldn't be run then."

Bovett also said that the passage of time was another reason to take a fresh look at these cold cases.

"Time passed, and relationships among and between people change," he said.  "Some people might be willing to say things now that they weren't willing to say back then.  And there's always the possibility that over time, guilt and conscience has caught up with people that know something they didn't (initially) disclose."

Support from the victims' families over the years has helped investigators, and the fact that the Oregon State Police (OSP) has taken a more active job in the case has also helped.  OSP has recently assigned two detectives to the case from their Springfield office.

"OSP has been incredibly helpful in stepping up to the plate and working with us," Bovett said.  "I think because they see a possibility of resolving it."

According to Bovett, the similarities between the cases have, in part, caused investigators to consider the possibility that a single killer may be responsible for the five murders.  One Oregon reader, a relative of victim Shiela Swanson's, suggested that authorities check out the DNA of serial killer Darren Dee O'Neall.  O'Neall, the subject of my 1995 book Blind Rage, was recently transferred from the Washington State Penitentiary, where he was serving a sentence for the murder of Robin Smith, to Oregon to serve time for crimes for which he was convicted of committing in that state.  Although admittedly a long shot, hopefully it is one that Oregon law enforcement will follow up on.

"I don't know that we can say that we even think it's the work of a serial killer," Bovett said.  "We don't have any direct evidence of a connection yet.  The only thing that connects them is the basic facts - we've got teenage girls disappearing in the middle of the night."

Bovett indicated that investigators were focusing on the cases of Esson and Leas, which were the most recent murders and which, he says, have the best physical evidence with which to work.

In the meantime, relatives of the murdered girls are still suffering and looking for answers to what happened to their loved ones.

"I just want to know what happened," said Floyd Esson, father of victim Jennifer Esson.  "And see the guy who did it get punished."

Esson, however, does not believe his daughter was killed by a serial killer.

"She was terribly naïve," he said.  "The thought that somebody would want to hurt her wouldn't even cross her mind...I think she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...it was like a kick in the gut.  I fell to pieces.  I lost it…what haunted me most is did she have to sit there and have to watch her girlfriend get strangled first, knowing it was going to happen to her?"

How much time do investigators plan to spend looking into these cold cases?

"It really depends on the tips and the leads and probably, most importantly, the DNA analysis when we get it back," Bovett said.  "It's not like CSI, where things get resolved in a day.  If one thing leads to another...it could take awhile, or, things could pop up almost immediately.  So that's very unpredictable."

In the meantime, a toll-free tip line has been activated and anyone with any information about these crimes, no matter how trivial that information might seem, is urged to call 1-800-452-7888 to report it.

Photo Credit: iStock

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Comments

[Linda Cook]

ID is my absolute favorite channel! I don't know if this is the place to ask my question but I'm wondering if Darlie Routier's case is going to be explored on Dallas DNA. She's one of many who appears to have been railroaded by Texas officials.

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Edited by David lohr to add: You can find information on the show here:
http://investigation.discovery.com/tv/dallas-dna/dallas-dna.html

[Jade Montrose]

This is a perfect example how time changes so many things. Hopefully reopening these cases and retesting with new DNA techniques will bring justice for the victims and their families. Knowing a toll-free tip line has been activated may encourage someone to come forward with information that will solve these senseless murders.

[BreeAnn Marquez]

I was a friend of both Kara & Jennifer. I moved back to CA in the summer of 1994. My dad who still lives in Newport sent me the newspaper when the crimes happend back in 1995. I lived with Kara & her mother for awhile & to this day I look back on what a cool girl she was. Her mom took us to the store one day and bought us both necklaces I still have mine almost 15 years later. I hope they find the sick person who took away these wonderful girls