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Area man investigated in serial killings; Authorities with Spokane task force question the man, who has been a suspect in several area slayings

Tara Tuchscherer

Published: Lewiston Tribune

1998-10-08

Page: 1A



Authorities investigating the Spokane serial killings were in Lewiston Wednesday looking into a man who lives in this area as a possible suspect.

The man is a longtime suspect in three murders and two disappearances that took place in the Lewiston-Clarkston area in the late '70s and early '80s, said Lewiston Police Lt. Alan Johnson.

The man and his attorney met with two detectives from the Spokane task force Wednesday afternoon.

The task force is investigating the murders of seven women in the Spokane area since November. The body of another woman linked to the case was found in Tacoma in December.

Johnson would not comment on what transpired during the meeting.

This is the second time members of the task force have been to Lewiston, Johnson said, and it will likely be their last.

He believes the information gained during Wednesday's visit will rule out the man as a suspect in the Spokane murders.

In the unsolved murders and disappearances in this area, however, the man is still a prime suspect, Johnson said, although he has never been charged.

The murders of Kristina Nelson, 21, and Jacqueline (Brandy) Miller, 18, and the disappearance of 35-year-old Steven Pearsall were reopened about a year ago at the Lewiston Police Department.

They all vanished from Lewiston on the same night in September 1982 and are all believed to have been at or near the Lewiston Civic Theater sometime during the night. Almost two years after they disappeared, the bodies of the women were found on a brushy slope in Kendrick.

Although Pearsall has never been found, he is not believed to be the women's killer.

Authorities announced years ago that they believe the person responsible for the Civic Theater murders is also responsible for the disappearance of 12-year-old Christina White from Asotin in 1979.

White had been attending the Asotin County Fair when she called her mother from a friend's home to say she was feeling ill. Her mother told her to put a towel over her head and walk back to the fair when she felt better. She never arrived.

Johnson believes Kristen David fell prey to the same suspect.

"Officially, he is a suspect in that case," he said. It is the first time law enforcement has publicly announced her murder may be linked to the others.

"We're looking at the time frame," Johnson said.

David became the victim of the area's most gruesome killing in 1981 -- two years after White's disappearance and a year before the Civic Theater murders -- when she disappeared while riding her bike from Moscow to Lewiston.

Eight days later, her headless torso and leg were found on the north shore of the Snake River near the Red Wolf Crossing in Clarkston.

The next day, a dismembered head, arms and part of a leg were found downriver from the bridge.

The cases, one of which is nearing its second decade as an unsolved mystery, are Johnson's top priority. He has spent a year going over the yellowed, handwritten documents in the Kristen David and Civic Theater files.

Last fall, he thought he had a break in the case when he and other detectives excavated property in Asotin that was thought to hold clues. None were found.

More recently, Johnson has sent information on the suspect to other law enforcement agencies that have had similar murders, hoping to find some sort of match.

"More than anything, I want to see these solved," Johnson said.



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People disappear.Their bodies sometimes turn up, sometimes not. It's murder, but the perpetrators go unknown or uncharged. Local law enforcement officials keep looking for clues, hoping they'll find new leads in a number of ... Unsolved musteries


Tara Tuchscherer

Published: Lewiston Tribune

1997-08-24

Page: 1A

Sitting on shelves in area law enforcement offices are binders titled "Kristen David," "Christina White," "Toni Ann Tedder" and "Joyce LePage."

The pages inside have yellowed. The signatures at the bottom of the reports are of men who have since retired or died.

But the binders of unsolved mysteries -- some murder, some disappearances -- are pulled off the shelves every now and then, dusted off and reviewed.

In the case of Kristen David, the young University of Idaho student who was found dismembered in the Snake River near Clarkston in 1981, a detective at the Latah County Sheriff's Office has begun to re-read the volumes of reports and interviews.

New information on an old suspect who has since died in prison surfaced recently, Sgt. Earl Aston said. Although he declined to say what the information is, or which suspect he's interested in, he did say he would renew the now 16-year-old investigation.

David's grisly murder remains one of the area's most frustrating cases, partly because of the horrendous nature of the crime and partly because closure has eluded a cadre of relentless investigators intent on finding her killer.

She disappeared June 26, 1981, while riding her bicycle between Lewiston and Moscow. Several motorists reported seeing her on U.S. Highway 95 near Genesee, but she never arrived in Lewiston.

Eight days later, a headless torso and a leg wrapped in plastic bags were found by a boater on the north shore of the Snake River near Red Wolf Crossing in Clarkston.

The next day, a dismembered head, arms and part of a leg were found downstream from the bridge.

The intense investigation that followed took investigators on a search for the killer as far away as Florida.

Still, no arrest has been made.

Aston hopes his new information will change that, but he doesn't have much time on hands. He is the lead detective in the Hazel Martin murder case of last year -- an investigation he says is well on its way toward solution.

Martin, 73, was last seen alive May 17, 1996, at a card party at the Princeton Grange. After she was reported missing, her home in Princeton was searched and no sign of struggle was found. Days later, bedding eventually identified as Martin's was discovered along the Palouse River.

Some five miles from where the bedding was found, a skull and lower jaw bone were discovered this spring in the White Pine Drive area by mushroom hunters. Since then, Aston said, a femur has been found.

Initial indications were the skull showed signs of trauma from blunt force, he said, but forensic tests that could determine exactly how she died have not yet been completed.

Aston said the Martin case is one that won't be added to the binders on the shelf.

"We're very optimistic about solving this case. ... We're not going to stop until we solve it."

Aston and Latah County Sheriff Jeff Crouch say they have suspects and know why Martin was killed.

A homicide last year in Pullman also has been added to the area's list of unsolved mysteries. But, like the Hazel Martin murder, the Dorothy Martin murder is being worked on night and day by optimistic investigators.

"It's a very active case," said Sgt. Sam Sorem of the Pullman Police Department.

Martin, an 89-year-old resident of the Statesman Condominium on Military Hill, was found murdered by asphyxiation in her bed in July 1996.

Investigators in both the Hazel and Dorothy Martin cases say a connection between the two murders is not likely, despite the similarities in age, last name and time frame. But a link has not been ruled out completely.

"In murder investigations, you don't rule anything out until you have solid evidence that would tell you otherwise," Sorem said.

"New information still comes in all the time, and Baker (Fred Baker, the lead investigator on the case) checks up on all of them," he said.

Investigators have a lot to work with now, he added.

In addition to having "persons of interest," there are a set of missing keys to Martin's apartment and missing items that should have been found inside.

"The only person that knows they're gone is the person that committed the crime," Sorem said.

Baker will be presenting information about the Dorothy Martin case at a meeting of Washington investigators involved in Homicide Information Tracking System (HITS) this week in Kennewick. The hope is after investigators present the evidence in their unsolved murder cases, similarities with other murders will arise.

Det. Joel Hastings of the Clarkston Police Department also will attend the meeting.

Hastings has the Toni Ann Tedder murder on his shelf.

"To solve this, we would need some additional information and we're just not there yet," he said.

Tedder, 18, was stabbed while she was sleeping on a couch in her family's living room in Clarkston in 1990. Another family member was sleeping on the floor near Tedder during the attack and came face to face with the murderer, Hastings said.

The fisherman-type knife used to stab Tedder was found near her.

Over the years, Hastings said, one suspect in a field of many has not been eliminated.

A Tedder family member said she believes Toni was killed by mistake -- that the murderer intended to kill someone else in another house.

Another case in southeastern Washington that has plagued investigators for years is the disappearance and probable homicide of 12-year-old Christina White of Asotin in 1979.

The White disappearance is unlike most unsolved mysteries in that investigators are certain they know the culprit.

"We do have a primary suspect who has been our primary suspect for years," said Sgt. Tom White of the Asotin County Sheriff's Office.

In fact, he said, White was last seen standing with her bike outside an Asotin home often frequented by the suspect.

White had called her mother from the home to tell her she felt ill from the heat. Her mother told her to put a towel over her head and come to the Asotin County Fair when she felt better.

She has never been found.

The suspect in her disappearance is believed to have killed again.

Investigators in the White case and in the Lewiston Civic Theatre case announced in 1989 they shared the same suspect.

In the Civic Theatre case, police believe the suspect, who was working at the theater that night, was presented with an opportunity to kill Kristina Nelson, 21, and her stepsister Jacqueline (Brandy) Miller when the two women walked by -- and perhaps inside -- the theater Sept. 12, 1982.

Nelson had left a note in her Normal Hill apartment telling her boyfriend she and Miller were walking to a downtown Lewiston grocery store.

Steven R. Pearsall, a janitor at the theater, was dropped there later that night by friends. He told his friends he intended to do some work, wash some laundry and practice his clarinet.

Police believe the suspect killed all three of them that night.

In 1984, the decomposed bodies of Nelson and Miller were found by a Kendrick youth at the bottom of a steep embankment along State Highway 3, about 2 1/2 miles north of Kendrick.

Pearsall has never been found.

Former Lewiston police Capt. Duane Ailor, who died this summer, was the primary investigator in the Civic Theatre murders.

According to LPD Capt. Paul Ayers, nothing has changed in regard to Ailor's suspect.

"There are four victims involved (including Christina White) and one suspect. We're 99 percent certain who the culprit is," Ailor told the Tribune in a 1995 interview.

The suspect was interviewed numerous times by police and then refused to cooperate, telling investigators to talk instead with his attorney.

He still lives and works in the community.

Although Pearsall could not be ruled out completely because he's never been found, Ailor believed Pearsall was a victim.

Sometimes in an unsolved mystery, a fresh approach may be what it takes to close the case.

In the 26-year-old murder of Joyce LePage, a Washington State University student found in skeletal form in a ravine about 10 miles south of the university, a sergeant from WSU's police department recently has reactivated the case.

"I'm taking an active second look," Sgt. Don Maupin said.

LePage, 22, was last seen by friends who dropped her off at her apartment July 21, 1971. LePage often would stay at Stevens Hall on campus even though the building was being remodeled that summer and was supposed to empty.

It is there, Maupin said, that LePage was killed.

Her skeletal remains -- which bore signs of a stabbing -- were found almost a year later by a boy hunting for opals in a steep ravine off Wawawai Road.

Maupin said he has suspects and a motive, but declined to elaborate on either.

Other unsolved murders and disappearances continue to haunt law enforcement officials and family members in this area:

After working an evening shift alone, waitress Janice Foiles, 18, was killed in 1969 by two blows to the head at a Moscow cafe. There was no sexual assault, police said, and nothing was taken from the restaurant. Police found no weapon and no motive.

In June 1979, Gayla Schaper, 27, was last seen feeding her horses on Lenville Road. Nearby meadows were excavated and pieces of clothing were found, but investigators declined to comment on the results of forensic tests on the clothing.

Patty Otto, a 24-year-old Lewiston woman, hasn't been seen since September 1976. Her husband was a prime suspect in her disappearance, but he died in prison, where he was serving 25 years for hiring killers to murder Duane Ailor, who at that time was a Lewiston detective.

A young man who has never been identified floated down the Snake River near Hellar Bar in June 1982. When sheriff's deputies recovered his body, they discovered he had been shot. His age was determined to be 18- to 22-years old, he was 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed about 150 pounds.

Daniel Walker, 31, a WSU student, was found shot to death in his pickup truck on the shoulder of Lewiston's Old Spiral Highway in April 1982. Police believe the shooting was drug-related and have issued a warrant in connection with the shooting for Edward L. Hart, who, after an extensive search in Alaska and Mexico, has never been found.

C. Bruce and Lynn Peeples were found strangled in their burned Grangeville apartment in April 1994. Their killer has never been found.



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Killer's crimes are more than 20 years old

Published: Lewiston Tribune

2000-08-27

Page: 2C



For 21 years, someone has been keeping a dark secret.

And though at times the Snake River, a ravine near Kendrick, and even a Lewiston theater have offered up clues to investigators, the secret of who killed five area residents is still hidden.

The five unsolved murders police in the region are working on all happened in a four-year period, beginning with a vanishing little girl.

April 28, 1979

Christina White was at the Asotin County Fair the morning before she disappeared. She left the fair and went to a friend's house, where she called her mother at about 2 p.m. to tell her she was feeling ill from the heat.

Her mom told her to put a towel over her head and walk home when she felt better. Twelve-year old Christina never appeared.

People helped the Asotin County Sheriff's Posse search for the girl. One of the men who offered to help would later be considered the primary suspect in her disappearance.

Neither Christina White, nor the 10-speed bicycle she had with her that day, has ever been found.

June 26, 1981

University of Idaho student Kristin David was biking from Moscow to Lewiston on the day she vanished. Though several motorists came forward to say they saw her near Genesee on U.S. Highway 95, she never arrived in Lewiston.

It was eight days before a clue to the missing 22-year old student surfaced, eight days before the Snake River yielded its grisly offering to a boater near the Red Wolf Crossing in Clarkston.

A headless torso and a leg wrapped in plastic bags had washed ashore.

The next day, arms, part of a leg and a dismembered head were found further downstream, near the bridge.

Sept. 12, 1982

Kristina Nelson and her stepsister Jacqueline (Brandy) Miller were headed to a downtown grocery store from Nelson's Normal Hill apartment.

Nelson, 21, and Miller, 18, walked by the Lewiston Civic Theatre. They may have gone inside.

Steven R. Pearsall was a janitor at the theater. He had friends drop him off there that night to do a little work, a little laundry and practice his clarinet in the usually empty building.

All three were killed that night, police believe, by the same man responsible for White's and David's murders.

The badly decomposed bodies of Nelson and Miller were found in 1984 by a Kendrick youth. They'd been placed at the bottom of a steep embankment along State Highway 3, about 2 miles north of Kendrick.

Pearsall's remains have never been found.




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Psychics to help in old Asotin case

Team will search for the remains of girl who disappeared 25 years ago

Kerri Sandaine

Published: Lewiston Tribune

2004-06-24

Page: 1A




ASOTIN -- It's been 25 years since Christina White, a 12-year-old Asotin girl, vanished from the Asotin County Fair.

An eight-member team of "remote viewers" is coming here next month to search for the child's remains.

Christina's mother is hoping the search will bring some closure to her daughter's unsolved disappearance.

"It's because we don't know, that I guess we hope there's a chance she's alive," Betty Wilks said, her voice choking with emotion, "but in our hearts we know it's not true."

Ret. Maj. Edward A. Dames of Hawaii is leading the search. Dames served as the training and operations officer for the federal Defense Intelligence Agency's psychic intelligence collection unit, and is the executive director for the Matrix Intelligence Agency, a private consulting group.

"In this case, as is often the case, the child is close to home," Dames said in a telephone interview with the Tribune. "We've been working on this for 2 1/2 months. We believe the missing child is deceased. ... Our job is to locate her remains."

Dames and his team use remote viewing, which he describes as a trained ability to use the unconscious mind to gather data about any unseen or hidden person, place, thing or event and deliver it up to conscious awareness.

He rates his confidence level in finding Christina's remains at 80 percent.

"I've been doing this 20 years," Dames said. "We're the best there is."

Most of his team's child search work has been done in Japan, he said.

Dames, who is a frequent guest on Art Bell's "Coast To Coast" AM radio show, was contacted about Christina's disappearance by a police officer from Eagle, Colo., who is a friend of Christina's sister, Carlin White, and a fan of the late-night radio show.

After hearing about the case, Dames agreed to come to the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley for several days in mid July to conduct the search. He's doing it on a voluntary basis.

"No one can get over the grief of a missing child. Instead of treasure hunting. I've chosen this as a public service."

Wilks moved 13 years ago and now lives in Genesee, but still owns her house in Asotin where the family lived when Christina vanished. "I always think maybe she'll come back," she said Wednesday, crying softly.

Christina disappeared April 28, 1979. She telephoned her mother about 2 p.m. that day and said she was not feeling well. Her mother promised to pick her up downtown, but Christina did not show up. According to newspaper reports at the time, she was last seen at the carnival grounds.

Wilks thinks about her daughter everyday. "She was a good kid. She was just a sweetheart. She was elated because she was getting ready for her first communion."

Christina's father, Gary White, doesn't live in the area, and he and Wilks, who are divorced, are not in contact.

Christina's brother, Kirk, lives in Seattle and her sister resides in Colorado and plans to come here while the searchers are in town.

"We've had a lot of ups and downs trying to get to a point where we can make some sense out of the whole case," Wilks said.

"This is not a closed issue. We're always searching for answers. People are always a little uncomfortable asking me if there's anything new, but I'm always glad to have people ask."

Over the years, local authorities have worked extensively on the case of the missing child.

"The police department has been very diligent and followed every lead," Wilks said. "They've been really good about working on the case."

In addition, several psychics have attempted to locate Christina, to no avail.

"We can run rings around psychics," Dames said. "That's why the government used (remote viewing.)"

Law enforcement officials in Lewiston and Asotin County have been notified about the remote viewing team's plans to visit the area.

Wilks said she needs some closure and wants Christina's remains located, even though it means knowing for certain her daughter is never coming back.

"Actually, I think there's a whole lot of things worse than death. Your imagination can work overtime and be so cruel."


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Sandaine may be contacted at kerris@lmtribune.com




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Old mystery takes new turn

As psychic searchers try to solve Christina White case, Asotin County sheriff receives cryptic letter

Kerri Sandaine

Published: Lewiston Tribune

2004-07-15

Page: 5A



ASOTIN -- The Asotin County sheriff is seeking new information in a 25-year-old case of a missing Asotin girl.

Sheriff Wayne Weber said his office has received an anonymous letter from a person who claims to have some information about the Christina White case, and he wants to talk to whoever sent the cryptic note.

The Asotin sixth-grader vanished April 28, 1979, during the Asotin County Fair.

"We got a letter from an anonymous person saying they have information about Christina White," Weber said Wednesday. "I am treating this as legitimate. I want the person who sent it to come forward and talk to us."

Christina's disappearance has been in the headlines this week because some psychic searchers are here to look for the missing girl's remains.

A remote viewing team led by Ed Dames of Hawaii, the executive director of Matrix Intelligence Agency, has been poking around Asotin since Monday.

"I am glad those psychics are trying," Weber said. "I don't know if psychics work or not, but who's to say? I'm not discouraging them. I just want her found."

And even if the psychics aren't successful, the renewed interest in Christina's disappearance may end up helping law enforcement officers get some new leads in the case, Weber said.

The anonymous tip may prove to be nothing, but the sheriff said it's worth checking out.

Weber was a deputy at the time Christina vanished and said he wants to see the case solved. "I looked all night for that little girl," he recalled.

The remote viewers turned their attention to the girl's bike Wednesday morning.

Christina was riding her Schwinn 10-speed the day she disappeared, and it has never been located, according to authorities.

Dames was told about the bike Tuesday night. The next day his team was out looking for it around the sewer plant on the north end of town, but no bike was found.

"The undergrowth is too heavy," he said.

The focus of the search shifted this week, after the remote viewers gave up on finding Christina's remains. Dames said he believes the girl's remains are somewhere between the sewer plant and the Snake River, but there's too much overgrowth and too little time to find them.

He and his team have been working on other aspects of the case, trying to determine what led to Christina's disappearance. Dames believes she was murdered.

"Now we're trying to find the house in Asotin where Christina was murdered," he said. "Two viewers in California are faxing us information. What we find may open a brand new line of investigation for the police, and that's what we're hoping."

Earlier this week, Dames told the Tribune he plans to talk to the sheriff about his findings today, but Weber said he first learned of a potential meeting when he read about it in the newspaper.

"I don't mind them coming around and looking," Weber said. "We can use all the help we can get. But it's funny no one has called me personally and talked to me."

However, when Dames and his team shows up at the sheriff's office, they won't be turned away.

"I'm going to listen to the psychics and I'll listen to anyone who has any information," Weber said.

Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also were surprised to learn Dames and his group were digging, chopping and raking property owned by the corps.

Dames said he didn't contact the corps prior to the search because he didn't want to deal with any bureaucratic snarl during the short time he and his team had to work at the site.

On Wednesday, the remote viewers met with the girl's mother, Betty Wilks of Genesee, to update her on the group's progress. According to Dames, "she's doing fine."

The psychic searchers will be gone by the end of the week, but they plan to keep working on the case.

"I'm coming back," Dames vowed. "I'm not leaving this open-ended. It's not over until it's over."

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Sandaine may be contacted at kerris@lmtribune.com



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Psychic search team heads home

25-year-old Asotin County case remains unsolved

Kerri Sandaine

Published: Lewiston Tribune

2004-07-17

Page: 5A



ASOTIN -- Ed Dames and his psychic cohorts have left town after several days of working on the 25-year-old disappearance of Christina White.

Dames, a regular on Art Bell's late-night "Coast to Coast" radio show, claimed he knew where to find Christina, a 12-year-old Asotin girl who vanished in 1979. But he and his team of "remote viewers" came up empty-handed. They did not find the girl's remains or her 10-speed bike.

If the psychic searcher had found Christina, it would have been the first time Dames has successfully located the remains of a missing child.

Before leaving, Dames, executive director of Matrix Intelligence Agency in Hawaii, gave Asotin County Sheriff Wayne Weber a report on the search. Dames said his team came up with some "significant findings."

"We got some information from Dames," Weber said Friday. "I'll follow up on it and do some background checking. The investigation will continue through the sheriff's office."

The sheriff's office has received dozens of calls this week from citizens who want to talk about Christina White's disappearance. Weber said he plans to follow up on all the information he's received since the case has been back in the spotlight.

"I'll take any leads I can get," Weber said. "We've had a huge response from people who have ideas about what happened to Christina and have heard things in the past. Some have theories and some want to pass along leads.

"We're listening to them all, and we appreciate the information. We cannot do our job without the help of the people."

Weber still is waiting to hear from an anonymous letter writer who claimed to have information about the case. Earlier this week, the sheriff made a public appeal to the person to contact him.

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Sandaine may be contacted at kerris@lmtribune.com




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IDAHO MISSING PERSONS CLEARINGHOUSE


STEVEN R PEARSALL

LAST DATE OF CONTACT : 09/12/1982

DOB : 03/08/1947 HEIGHT : 5'11"
GENDER : MALE WEIGHT : 160 lbs
HAIR COLOR : BROWN EYE COLOR : BROWN
RACE : WHITE


CASE INFORMATION :


IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THIS PERSON PLEASE CONTACT : LEWISTON PD 208 746-0171

ADDITIONAL CASE INFORMATION :