by Ann Rule
It has been said that each man kills the thing he loves; Wayne Merriam had killed his Kaitlyn many times over.
• • •
The general consensus was that Merriam would be found dead. He had tried suicide at least once; now that he had made sure that Kaitlyn was dead and would never date another man, he must have come to the realization that she was forever lost to him too. Since he had told her he couldn’t live without her since she was 15, what reason would he have to go on now?
Word came from the Kittitas County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies there had located the cabin on Stampede Pass and said that the green Mustang was parked outside. They noted that the cabin was tightly padlocked, and there was no sign of the suspect around the car. They were hesitant to approach the Mustang until they got a go-ahead from King County, so they didn’t know if it was locked.
“We’re on our way,” Bob Keppel told them. “If you’ll sit on the car until we get there, we’d appreciate it. He may be inside it—dead—or in the cabin itself. Or he may be armed and waiting.”
The cabin was located a half mile from a tiny lake high up in the Cascade Mountains. Bob Keppel and Detective John Tolton picked up Deputy Glenn McKinney along the way. McKinney was the only King County deputy working the thinly populated mountainous area to the eastern border of King County and he knew every road and stream. They arrived at the isolated spot shortly after 5:00 P.M. on June 22.
The Mustang was indeed parked alongside the cabin. It was photographed before they made any attempt to approach it and look inside. It appeared to be empty, and it was locked, but McKinney found a spare key in the windshield wiper reservoir.
Keppel and Tolton searched the car and found one cartridge casing next to the driver’s seat and another under the rear seat. A Bible lay between the front seats, and, wedged in the transmission covering, there was an ace of hearts and photographs of Wayne and Kaitlyn Merriam in happier times.
There was no weapon in the car. They approached the cabin with extreme caution, half-expecting bullets to fly toward them. But there was only the serene quiet of the mountain. The padlocks were dusty. It was clear that no one had entered the cabin for some time. Wayne Merriam was either escaping on foot, or his body was somewhere nearby, hidden by evergreen branches, sword ferns, salal, and huckleberry growth.
If he was there, he made no sound. The detectives called for a tow truck, and the suspect’s car was impounded and transported into North Bend at the western slope of the pass for safekeeping.
In the morning light, they could bring more deputies in to search the wilderness for his body.
• • •
But Wayne Merriam was not dead. It was 10:00 A.M. the next morning when Lieutenant Frank Chase, commander of the Major Crimes Unit, received word from the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office that they had a suspect in custody who fit the Wants and Warrants bulletin from King County. Spokane was near the Idaho border, more than three hundred miles east of Seattle.
It was a clerk in a 7-Eleven store at Argonne and Indiana Streets in Spokane who called the Spokane sheriff. She had become alarmed by the actions of a tall man who’d come into the store earlier that morning. He had seemed agitated when he asked for the latest editions of both Seattle papers, saying, “Haven’t you heard about the shoot-out there?”
The clerk hadn’t. The Seattle papers hadn’t yet been delivered, but she attempted to help him find the news item he was looking for in the Spokane Spokesman-Review.
The man had been very intense as he leafed through the paper—so intense that she was frightened after spending about half an hour with him. “I told him that he should go to another store. I said the Seattle papers might have come in on a bus and they usually got them earlier than we did.”
As soon as he walked outside the 7-Eleven, she had called the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office: “There’s a man here who’s been asking about a murder—or a shooting or something in Seattle. He seems to know a lot about it.”
When the Spokane officers arrived, they found Wayne Merriam wandering in the 7-Eleven’s parking lot. He asked them if they knew where to get Seattle papers, and accepted their invitation to get into their patrol car without hesitation.
When they asked him why he was so anxious to see a paper, he only shrugged. Almost absently, he said, “Why did you come to pick me up?”
“Because we’ve been told you might be involved in a homicide in Seattle,” they said truthfully. “We don’t know if you’re a witness or a suspect or what at this point.”
Moreover, the Spokane deputies didn’t even know who the murder victim was.
“What’s a homicide?” Merriam asked curiously, as if he had never heard the term before.
“Basically, it’s the killing of another human being.”
“You mean someone’s dead?” Merriam demanded.
At the word killing, the young man in their car became very emotional, and tears filled his eyes. Finally, he said, “Then I guess I’m a suspect.”
The deputies exchanged glances. One of them said, “I’m going to advise you of your rights. I don’t have any questions right now, but it’s obvious you are upset because you think someone has died.”
“ . . . I think I did it,” he said slowly.
Transported to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, Merriam was turned over to Detective Jim Hansen, who verified that Wayne Merriam was wanted in Seattle for the murder of his wife.
He was held pending the arrival of the King County detectives. He told Hansen that he had hitchhiked to Spokane from Stampede Pass, catching a ride with a trucker. He no longer had a gun with him.
• • •
Detectives Tolton and Keppel went to Spokane to return the suspect to Seattle to face charges of murder. Merriam declined to talk about Kaitlyn’s death. Instead, he demanded to speak to an attorney. In fact, he had already been contacted by the Public Defender’s Office while he was in jail in Spokane and was represented by counsel.
Bob Keppel talked to a witness who indicated that Wayne Merriam had been rational just after the shooting. The wife of one of Merriam’s friends said that Wayne had called her on the morning of June 22 within hours of the murder. He had seemed quite calm, much calmer than she’d known him to be on other occasions. “He told me that he wouldn’t be around, and told me to send the money we owed him to his parents. I asked him where he was going, and he just said he wouldn’t be around.”
The M1 carbine used to kill Kaitlyn Merriam was never located, although investigators questioned every business on the route to Stampede Pass to see if someone had tried to sell such a gun on the morning of June 22.
• • •
Wayne Merriam never went to trial. Instead, he agreed to a plea bargain, and he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Kaitlyn Merriam’s death. On a chilly weekend in the first part of January 1979, he asked to be taken to her grave. His request was granted. One can only surmise his thoughts as he stood under heavy guard at Kaitlyn’s grave. In a few seconds of violence, he had ended her life and it seemed that his, too, was finished. He would, however, be eligible for parole in less than a dozen years.
A conviction on first degree murder would have meant thirteen years and four months, with a consecutive sentence of five years because Merriam had used a deadly weapon in the commission of his crime. But he was only 21. It was possible that he would be free before he was 35.
And he was.
Kaitlyn would never have a second chance. Perhaps there never was a place far enough away or safe enough for her to run to. From the day she was 15, Wayne had considered her to be his and he was not prepared to let her go—ever.
• • •
Wayne Merriam served almost fourteen years in prison, and then he was paroled. He soon remarried. Apparently, he could live without Kaitlyn after all. If only he could have realized that before he ended her life.
Kaitlyn Merriam was only the first of dozens of women I would have to write about over the years ahead
. But, because she was the first, I remember her and wonder what her life might have been like. As I write this, I realize that she wouldn’t be 50 yet.
Young women who read this would do well to beware of any boyfriend who loves them too much. How can they determine this? There are warning signs:
• If he tells you that you and he don’t need anyone else, and you should be happy to spend all your time with him.
• If he urges you to avoid makeup, clothes that flatter your figure, and high heels.
• If he begins to cut you off from your friends and your family.
• If he calls you a dozen times a day to ask what you are doing and whom you are with.
• If he discourages you from seeking higher education.
• If he tells you constantly that he cannot live without you.
• If he begins to chip away at your self-confidence, making you feel that you are not worthy of having the things that are important to you.
• If he ever strikes you in anger.
Run. And if you are afraid to run, look on the Internet (www.google.com) for “Domestic Violence Groups” or go to the library to find one near you. There is support out there to help you.
Bad Blind Date
Almost everyone has suffered through that potentially disastrous social custom known as a “blind date.” The very worst are usually well-meaning setups by mutual friends who are convinced that they are bringing together two strangers who will feel instant attraction. The would-be cupids are almost always wrong; individual tastes vary so much that nobody else can detect what we are looking for in the way of romance. If we were asked to jot down a list of qualifications, most of us couldn’t even say what we’re hoping for ourselves.
Occasionally, a date with a stranger does work—just often enough to keep matchmakers optimistic. However, the horror stories far outnumber the happy-ever-afters. Some are boring, some are totally embarrassing, and a handful are scary. That’s why our mothers taught us to always carry mad money so we can take a taxi or a bus home.
Closely aligned with completely blind dates are the invitations we accept impulsively from someone we really don’t know at all. Maybe you’ve had a long-term Internet relationship with someone, but the Internet is really only words on a computer monitor; you can’t actually know if you are talking to a man or a woman, a teenager or someone collecting social security, a dependable citizen or a sexual pervert.
Thirty years ago, there was no Internet, and someone without meddling friends wasn’t likely to get set up with a blind date. One young Seattle woman took a chance on a man she barely knew, telling herself it wasn’t really a blind date because she had, at least, seen the man, and he looked presentable enough and certainly seemed safe enough.
Her date ended in the kind of horror she didn’t know existed.
Twenty-one-year-old Victoria Legg worked as an entry-level clerk at Boeing’s Marginal Way plant. She accepted a date with a man she barely knew because he reminded her of a former boyfriend who had left for military duty in another country. To someone more worldly-wise than Victoria, that wasn’t a good way to judge character, but Victoria’s coworkers found her to be “very naive.”
She had led a relatively sheltered life and she had never been exposed to violence, not in the home she grew up in, or anywhere else. She felt she was an adult who was quite capable of making her own decisions. So, on July 17, 1970, when Victoria’s mother warned her against going out with strangers, she reminded her that she was of age and it was time she did as she pleased.
If she wasn’t allowed to make her own choices, how was she ever going to learn? She told her mother gently—but firmly—that she intended to keep the date with a college man named Cal that night. There was nothing to worry about: He was a nice guy—she was sure of that—and he was cute too.
• • •
The call that was to propel the Seattle Police Department’s Homicide Unit into a massive investigation came into the police radio at 3:20 A.M. on the Saturday morning of July 18, 1970. Patrol officers Sergeant E. George, P. H. Wright, L. F. Stark, and H. P. Sloan had responded to a citizen’s complaint at the North End Precinct that a woman’s body had been found in Cowan Park. At that time of the morning, the homicide detectives’ office was empty; their night shift ended at 11:45 P.M., and radio operators called the investigators who were next up to be notified at home.
Detectives George Cuthill and Bernie Miller woke up rapidly when their phones rang. They arrived at the scenic park a few blocks north of the University District within a half hour. It was warm—64 degrees, even at that hour of the morning—and the sun rose to a day that was clear and dry.
Much of Cowan Park was a wooded ravine, a deep-green sanctuary in the midst of the city, its paths winding rapidly from the heavy traffic of University Way to a silent place where the only sound was wind in the trees and birds singing. It was peaceful and serene, but it would be a terrible place for someone who was afraid.
Cuthill and Miller were met by Sergeant George, who explained that the body of a young female had been found on a dirt path north and east of the Cowan Park bridge. George said he had touched nothing at the scene beyond checking the victim’s wrist for the beat of her pulse. There had been no sign of life at all.
He said her arm was already very cold to the touch. He led the homicide investigators down the trail to the ravine area where the body lay. The air became dank and chill as they descended into the cool, leafy spot where a small stream rippled.
With the aid of flashlights, Miller and Cuthill could see the outline of a woman’s body. She appeared to be lying on her back with arms and legs outstretched. Using strobe lights, they took their first pictures of the body and the scene where she lay. But they decided they would wait until dawn—which comes early in Seattle in summertime—before attempting a full-scale processing of the death site.
The area was secured with yellow crime scene tape, and patrol officers stood guard around the perimeters while the detectives talked to the reporting witnesses—a young couple who said they had been walking along a trail in the park a few hours after midnight when they suddenly came upon the dead girl. Beyond that, they couldn’t offer any information. They didn’t recognize her and they hadn’t seen or heard anyone else in the park.
A very nervous young man fidgeted in Sergeant George’s car. George had spotted the man walking away from the vicinity where the body was found. He had admitted readily that he had been walking in the area, but when George questioned him, he babbled, “I never saw a body at all. I don’t know anything about it.”
The detectives looked at his ID, jotted down his name and address, and let him go.
Now Miller and Cuthill waited beside the body until the first rays of light broke through the ceiling of trees above them. Shortly before five A.M., they were joined by Homicide Sergeant Elmer Wittman and Detective Ted Fonis. The investigators searched the area meticulously but found nothing that seemed connected to the murder. They moved closer to the hapless girl’s body. She had probably been very pretty in life, but now her face bore evidence of a savage beating. Her left eye was blackened and swollen shut, she had bled copiously from her nose, mouth, and left ear. It also appeared that several teeth had been knocked from her mouth. Whatever else had happened to her, she had surely sustained severe brain injuries.
What appeared to be a nylon stocking was wound so tightly around her slender neck that it almost disappeared into the flesh beneath it. She wore a one-piece dress of brown and beige that was pulled up around her thighs, and her white shoes lay near the body. They found torn blue panties and pantyhose beneath her body. The victim still wore a gold wristwatch, a gold ring with a green stone, and a chain around her neck bearing a cross.
Obviously, robbery wasn’t the killer’s motive.
The detectives noted that the dead girl’s skin and clothing were covered with dirt, brush particles, leaves, and bits of bark. The soles of her feet were extremely dirty—as if she ha
d been walking in the area barefooted. It appeared that she had put up a tremendous fight for her life.
Although it would take the medical examiner’s report to confirm their assumptions, they had little doubt that the victim had been raped either before or after her death.
Even for veteran homicide detectives it was difficult to view such a scene with detachment, but it was vital that they begin the dozens of steps necessary to preserve evidence. They had learned a long time before that they couldn’t allow their emotions to interfere. Grimly, they went about the task according to time-tested procedures.
George Cuthill and Ted Fonis collected the victim’s scattered clothing, along with particles of vegetation and dirt samples found near the body, and bagged it all in individual plastic bags, the seals marked with the date, time, and their initials.
A beige straw purse lay in the dry leaves near the girl’s head. It was open, and Elmer Wittman peered into it. It appeared to contain the usual female paraphernalia—makeup, brush, comb, and facial tissue. There was also a payroll stub from The Boeing Company made out to Victoria M. Legg.
That was probably her name: Victoria. They had no idea yet how she had come to this secluded place by the stream or who had come with her—or she had perhaps encountered. Still, it was likely she hadn’t walked so deep into the woods alone—not in the dark. And she hadn’t been dead long enough to have lain here since the day before.
Bernie Miller photographed the entire area again, showing it as it now appeared in the daylight. Later, homicide detectives Wayne Dorman and Dick Reed, who were accomplished aerial photographers—if white-knuckle flyers—would be flown over the scene in a helicopter piloted by Detective Sergeant Jerry Yates. Often, comprehensive panoramas of a wooded area showed details that couldn’t be seen from the ground.
Ted Fonis carefully encased the victim’s hands in plastic bags and taped the bags securely at the wrists before her body was removed to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, thus preserving any evidence that might be caught beneath her fingernails.