by Ann Rule
KISS ME, KILL ME
Sandy Bowman (in front) with a friend when they were both about eleven. Within just a few years, Sandy would be a teenage bride and, sadly, become a victim of an unsolved homicide.
Sandy Bowman, just turned 16, was a new bride and expecting a baby at Christmas, 1968, when a murderous stranger got into her apartment. Her murder would not be solved for more than thirty-five years! But DNA made the difference.
When Sandy’s husband came home from the night shift, he found her purse, its contents dumped out, her shoes scattered, and half-wrapped Christmas packages on the coffee table.
Mary Annabelle Bjornson lived on the second floor of the apartment house on the right, in Seattle’s University District. Although she was expecting her date any moment, she vanished completely, leaving dinner cooking on her stove.
Lynne Tuski disappeared from the snowy parking lot of the Sears store where she worked, in the north end of Seattle. She became the second “Saturday night victim” of an unlikely killer.
When the snow began to melt on scenic Stevens Pass in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains, some horrifying discoveries were unveiled.
A local resident of Gold Bar kneels where the body of Lynne Tuski was discovered, frozen in the deep snowbanks of Stevens Pass.
Charged with two murders, a rape, and an abduction, the high school athletic hero had even more secrets he did not reveal. It would take DNA evidence evaluated in a crime lab decades later to find the answers.
Eighteen months after Sandy Bowman, Mary Annabelle Bjornson, and Lynne Tuski were murdered in Seattle, flight attendant Eileen Condit was also stabbed to death.
Hallie Seaman was a brilliant postgraduate student in architecture, hoping to design housing for low-income families, when she met her killer.
For almost thirty years, Katherine Merry Devine, 14, was believed to be a Ted Bundy victim. Thurston County detectives used DNA to arrest a surprise suspect instead.
Thirteen-year-old Kristen Sumstad. DNA on the back of an ordinary postage stamp identified her killer decades after her murder.
WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
Karsten Knutsen, 24, an Alaskan crab fisherman, who trusted a beautiful blonde. She would become his final date.
King County Sheriff’s Office Chief of Detectives T. T. Nault with Detective Gene Steinauer. Steinauer spent many nights questioning bar patrons before he met a couple who were the last to see fisherman Karsten Knutsen. The investigation that began near Seattle ended on Sanibel Island, Florida.
Lovers Mick O’Rourke and Dee Dee Sogngaard leave court after being sentenced. Dee Dee pleaded with a photographer to “take our picture together, please?” After this photo, they never saw each other again.
OLD FLAMES CAN BURN
The beer bottle sitting upright below a blood-spattered wall was only one of dozens of empties in the victims’ apartment. Even though the suspect was drunk, there was no explanation for his maniacal fury. One young woman survived against all odds; the other did not.
Mallory Gilbert fought hard against the man with the knife as the couch where she slept and the items knocked to the floor show. She lost half the blood in her body in the struggle.
Seattle Homicide Detective Owen McKenna managed to calmly talk a violent killer into giving himself up to state police investigators in another state.
Steven Meyer, 20, on his way to court with Deputy C. L. Duncan. Meyer said he loved one girl, but he went berserk when an old flame turned him down.
LONELY HEARTS KILLER
A trio of photos taken by Harvey Glatman of Judy Ann Dull, 19, a fledgling model who thought she was posing for the cover of True Detective magazine. She soon realized to her horror that the ropes and gag were real, and that she had become the captive of a maniac. Glatman kept her in his apartment for a day, and then disposed of her in the California desert. In the left picture, she is posing. The other two were taken after she realized Glatman had tied her up for real. (Pierce Brooks Family Collection)
Shirley Bridgeford, 30, signed up at a Hollywood Lonely Hearts Club to meet men. The divorced mother of two was disappointed in her date’s appearance and personal hygiene, but she went out with him to avoid hurting his feelings. She never came back from their first date. (Pierce Brooks Family Collection)
On October 30, 1958, Harvey Glatman led Sergeant Pierce Brooks of the Los Angeles Police Department to Shirley Bridgeford’s remains in the Anza-Borrego State Park desert. (Pierce Brooks Family Collection)
Homicide detectives from San Diego County, Orange County, and the Los Angeles Police Department searching for the remains of Shirley Bridgeford and Ruth Mercado on October 30, 1958.
Sergeant Pierce Brooks, LAPD, points a flashlight at the last remains of model Ruth Mercado, who was abducted and murdered by Harvey Glatman. The investigators searched the lonely San Diego County desert near the Mexican border and finally located Mercado.
Captain Pierce Brooks, Commander of the Homicide Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department in 1968. He solved the Harvey Glatman serial murder cases in 1958 and went on to become one of the most admired lawmen in the United States.
The late Pierce Brooks near the end of his forty-year career contributing to law enforcement. He helped establish VICAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program), wrote Officer Down, Code Three, a book which is credited with saving many cops’ lives, and became an expert adviser to many serial killer task forces, including the Green River Killer cases. The Glatman case was Brooks’s prototype to develop the theory of Serial Murder. (Pierce Brooks Family Collection)
THE CAPTIVE BRIDE
Bob Keppel, now renowned for his expertise in serial murder and author of The Riverman, was one of the King County Police detectives who approached the isolated cabin where they expected to be met with gunfire from Wayne Merriam—who would rather have his ex-wife dead than divorced.
BAD BLIND DATE
Homicide Sergeant Elmer Wittman, who led a crew of detectives into the deep wooded ravine of Cowan Park, where Victoria Legg’s body lay. None of them had ever encountered such a terrible crime scene.
THE HIGHWAY ACCIDENT
When Marion County detectives developed film found in a camera in the victim’s home, they found photographs of a happy couple. Within a few weeks, they would be separated forever. (Police file photo)
Bloodstained bedding found many miles from the duplex on Cedar Court matched sheets found in Lori and Walt Buckley’s home. (Police file photo)
When Detectives Jim Byrnes and David Kominek arrived at the fatal accident site along the Van Duzer Corridor between Salem, Oregon, and the Pacific coast, they were surprised to find there were no hesitation marks where the Buckleys’ Vega left the road and crashed over a bank and into the forest. (Police file photo)
YOU KILL ME—OR I’LL KILL YOU
Fran Steffen had no idea that the older man who was giving her too much attention was very, very dangerous and obsessed with a bizarre sexual fantasy.
Silverton Police Officers Frank Wilson (left) and George Holland (above) were the first investigators to arrive at the crime scene in Fran Steffen’s apartment. They were stunned by what they found there.
Lieutenant Jim Byrnes of the Marion County, Oregon, Sheriff’s Office led the investigators in the search of Kent Whiteside’s house. The detectives found a number of bizarre items that hinted at what was really going on behind Whiteside’s calm facade.
The weapon used by the out-of-control masochist was a Finnish filleting knife, razor sharp.
WHERE IS JULIE?
Julie Weflen was an outdoors girl who loved to camp and ride horses. She disappeared in September 1987.
Julie Weflen as a bride. She loved her husband, her marriage, her horses, and her job. Yet something—or someone—took her away from all of them.
Search and rescue teams, sheriff’s deputies, friends, family, and strangers volunteered thousands of hours to look for Julie Weflen. She was lost somewhere in the vast rugged wild
erness outside Spokane, Washington.
Sheriff’s detectives and deputies from Spokane County, Washington, set up roadblocks on every road leading to the Spring Hill power substation where Julie Weflen’s rig was found. She was a skilled worker for the Bonneville Power Administration, even though she looked more like a beauty queen. Someone followed her there and forced her into another vehicle.
For the first two months after Julie vanished, her husband, Mike Weflen, was never far from the Bonneville power substation where she was last seen. He organized a huge effort to find her.
Books by Ann Rule
Green River, Running Red
Without Pity: Ann Rule’s Most Dangerous Killers
Every Breath You Take
. . . And Never Let Her Go
Bitter Harvest
Dead by Sunset
Everything She Ever Wanted
If You Really Loved Me
The Stranger Beside Me
Possession
Small Sacrifices
The I-5 Killer
The Want-Ad Killer
Lust Killer
Ann Rule’s Crime Files:
Vol. 9: Kiss Me, Kill Me and Other True Cases
Vol. 8: Last Dance, Last Chance and Other True Cases
Vol. 7: Empty Promises and Other True Cases
Vol. 6: A Rage to Kill and Other True Cases
Vol. 5: The End of the Dream and Other True Cases
Vol. 4: In the Name of Love and Other True Cases
Vol. 3: A Fever in the Heart and Other True Cases
Vol. 2: You Belong to Me and Other True Cases
Vol. 1: A Rose for Her Grave and Other True Cases
We hope you enjoyed reading this Pocket Books eBook.
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The names of some individuals have been changed. Such names are indicated by an asterisk (*) the first time each appears in the narrative.
An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
A Pocket Star Book published by
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 2004 by Ann Rule
“The Highway Accident” was previously published without the introductory material in A Fever in the Heart and Other True Cases, Ann Rule’s Crime Files: Vol. 3. Copyright © 1996 by Ann Rule.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0-671-69139-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-6716-9139-4 (Print)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-0003-2 (eBook)
First Pocket Books paperback edition December 2004
POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Cover design by James Wang