by Robert Scott
Detective Houck noted, “This encounter, as with Bob Clifford’s observation, occurred within blocks of the Oak Park Apartments and within an hour of when Brooke Wilberger was abducted.” And then Houck added that a third tip about a green van came in from Diane Mason.
Mason was interviewed by FBI agent Joe Boyer and Benton County DA investigator John Chilcote. Diane told them that she saw a “newer, clean, dark green minivan” at the intersection of Thirtieth and Western at around 9:30 A.M. on May 24, 2004. She described the minivan as having a round body with gray interior and tinted windows. She described the driver as having blue eyes, short blond/gray hair, a goatee, and two earrings in his left ear. Diane told about the driver having a road map of Idaho in his lap, and that he wanted her to point out on a Corvallis map, which he said was in the interior, about the locale of a fraternity house he was looking for. Boyer noted, “Diane Mason became suspicious and concerned, so she started backing away from the van. She then told the driver she was late for class and began walking toward Southwest Thirtieth Street and north toward the OSU campus. She saw the driver get back into the driver’s seat and drive away.”
At the time these three tips about a green minivan and a description of the driver were good, but they still did not give enough information as to who the driver was. And amongst the hundreds of tips flowing in at that time, they didn’t seem to be any more legitimate than any of the others. And that sense of legitimacy may never have happened if the Albuquerque Police Department detectives hadn’t been so conscientious about seeking other information on Joel Courtney after Courtney’s arrest on the abduction of Natalie Kirov.
APD detective Romero sent on information about their suspect in Natalie Kirov’s case, even though that man was driving a red Honda at the time of the incident. The man was Joel Patrick Courtney, born on June 2, 1966. And when Romero sent out that information, he was basically looking to see if Courtney had done anything of a similar nature to the Kirov case, especially in Oregon, since Courtney still listed his address as being at his brother-in-law’s residence in Portland.
Once APD’s query on Joel Courtney reached the Brooke Wilberger Task Force, CPD detective Houck went online and looked up information on the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and the Law Enforcement Data Systems (LEDS). What he found was that Courtney had been arrested seven times in Oregon, one time in California, and one time in New Mexico. One of these arrests occurred in Oregon in 1985 for first-degree attempted rape. He was also arrested on a separate incident for second-degree escape, probation violation three times, and driving under the influence. It was this last arrest that really caught Houck’s eye. The DUI arrest had occurred on January 20, 2004, by the Oregon State Police in Lincoln County. Joel’s arraignment was scheduled for May 24, 2004, the day that Brooke disappeared. Records showed that Courtney had not shown up for his arraignment.
There was also information describing Joel Patrick Courtney. He was listed as being five-eleven, weighing 185 pounds, having blue eyes, and two ear piercings in each ear. A photo from his 2004 arrest showed him having a peppery brown moustache, goatee, and closely cropped hair.
Because Joel Courtney was scheduled to appear in Lincoln County court in Newport, about fifty miles away from Corvallis, on May 24, 2004, Detective Houck contacted Nancy Jo Katner, who had been Nancy Jo Mitchell before getting married. Nancy Jo was a clerk for Judge Littlefield, in whose court Courtney was supposed to have appeared on May 24, 2004, but didn’t. Katner related, “On Monday morning it can be quite chaotic. A lot of motions on those days. May 24, 2004, was a Monday, and the first thing I would do when I came to the office was to get the computer up and running. Then I’d check all my voice mails and e-mails before I went into court, which was usually at eight-thirty A.M.
“I usually had a number of voice mails about cases that were going to be dealt with that day. And one of the voice mails was from Joel Courtney. I had written about it on my notebook, ‘Courtney and Montana.’ The voice mail said the person was Joel Courtney and he was not going to make it to court on time for his arraignment because he was driving in from Montana.”
Nancy Jo played a portion of a tape from court proceedings on May 24, 2004, for the investigators. On the tape Judge Littlefield’s voice could be heard as he said, “Joel Courtney. Is Mr. Courtney here?” There was no answer. So the judge said, “Okay, let’s move on.”
Later, on what was called a ForTheRecord (FTR) log, Judge Littlefield’s voice could be heard again. He said on the tape, “There is a matter of Joel Courtney, who is on his way from Montana.” Even later, on the FTR log, one of the attorneys in court asked the judge if Joel Courtney ever showed up, and Judge Littlefield facetiously answered, “No, I think he took a boat with the Lewis and Clark expedition (of 1803). He probably won’t get here until 2005.” Then the judge related that Courtney had phoned the court a couple of times and said he was going to be late. The real clincher for Detective Houck was that in one of the calls Courtney said that he was now in Corvallis and was going to be late to the court in Newport. Courtney made that call on the morning of May 24, 2004, in Corvallis, shortly before Brooke Wilberger was abducted.
Because of the revelation that Joel Courtney, by his own admission, stated that he was in Corvallis on May 24, 2004, Detective Houck began looking into Courtney’s work history. Houck discovered that Courtney was working in May 2004 for the Creative Building Maintenance (CBM) company and was assigned to a territory in Washington, Idaho, and Montana. CBM had its employees do janitorial work at retail stores, malls, and work sites in various states. Joel Courtney worked alone, traveling in a dark green minivan with Minnesota license plates. The same kind of license plates that Bob Clifford recalled. During the month of May, Courtney was living with in-laws Jesus and Susanna Ordaz in Portland, Oregon. Joel’s wife and kids appeared to have been there, too.
Houck started running numbers of distance and time for May 24, from Portland to Newport, where Courtney was scheduled for his arraignment. Houck noted, “To drive from Portland to Newport, the common and most direct route would be to drive through Corvallis. The phone call Joel Courtney made on May 24, 2004, was received at the Lincoln County court sometime between eight A.M. and nine-seventeen A.M. I spoke with Dodi Turnbull about Courtney and this court date. She told me that Courtney didn’t appear on May 24, 2004, and the arraignment was postponed to May 25, 2004, at one-fifteen P.M. When Joel Courtney did not appear on the twenty-fifth, a warrant was issued for his arrest.”
Because of all this information, Lieutenant Keefer met with Bob Clifford to present him with a photo lineup. Lke most in the law enforcement of the area, Keefer referred to a photo lineup as a “throw down.” He met Clifford at Clifford’s office on the OSU campus and placed six photos of men on a table. One of the photos was of Joel Courtney, and the other five were of men who looked similar in appearance to Courtney. Clifford looked at the photos and had a hard time picking one, and told Keefer the reason why. The man he saw in the green minivan in the stadium parking lot had been wearing a red baseball cap. To compensate for this, Keefer covered up the top portion of all the men’s heads on the photos. Once he had done this, Clifford immediately picked photo Number 3. Photo Number 3 was a photo of Joel Courtney.
Keefer asked Clifford how sure he was of his choice. Clifford answered that he was sure that photos 1, 2, 4, and 6 were not the man he had seen, and he was pretty sure that photo 3 was. Clifford said, “He has the right look.” And then later on a form, Clifford wrote down, Number 3.
FBI agent Boyer went to talk with Jesus and Susanna Ordaz. Jesus said that both he and Joel worked for CBM and that on May 24, 2004, Joel had packed a gray duffel bag and left, supposedly going to take care of his court appearance in Newport, Oregon. Joel did not reappear at the house until after 10:00 P.M. on May 25. During that time he did not phone them or even his employer, although he was supposed to be working on May 24 and 25. Jesus said that Joel had been driving a dark green Dodge minivan with Minnes
ota plates. He also said that Joel often wore a red baseball cap and dark glasses. This description matched the man whom Bob Clifford had seen at the Reser Stadium parking lot on the morning of May 24, 2004. Jesus added that when Joel came home, all he would tell his in-laws was “I slept in the van.”
According to Houck, the Ordazes also added that when Joel came home, he began telling two different stories of where he had been. In one story Joel said that he’d been at some kind of party that got out of hand. Sometime near the end of the party, Joel said he had been kidnapped for a while. Houck wrote in a report, Talking with Dr. John Cochran, a forensic psychologist who has worked on the Green River Killer Task Force and with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit, that many times violent offenders will tell a parallel story that tracks with his criminal conduct as a cover story.
Joel stuck around Portland, Oregon, for the next two and a half weeks after May 25, and then he suddenly took off without telling his in-laws the reason why. He took off in the green minivan owned by CBM; then he gave them no reason why he was leaving the area. A few days later, Joel suddenly showed up back at the home he shared with Rosy, his wife, and the kids in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. He drove the green minivan there. Houck was able to discover that Joel Courtney took virtually all his possessions to New Mexico with him, without telling his employer he had quit working for them.
Joel was not long at that Rio Rancho home before he got into an altercation with his wife, Rosy, who was there now as well. She called the police and Joel was arrested. When he got out of jail, he did not move back into her house, nor did he go back to take anything from there. After he moved to Albuquerque, it wasn’t long before he was in trouble again. Joel, of course, abducted and sexually molested Natalie Kirov in November 2004 and was arrested. And what he had done in New Mexico and Oregon was just coming to light to the authorities.
Detective Houck, in the meantime, sought a search warrant, wherein New Mexico law enforcement agents would go into Rosy Courtney’s house to see exactly what Joel had taken with him when he left Oregon without even telling his in-laws where he was going. In the warrant Houck asked for the search and seizure of many items including an Oregon Coast Aquarium postcard addressed to Joel Courtney and dated 1997, a composition notebook labeled Joel Courtney, an Idaho Official Highway map, receipts and documents evidencing travel expenditures of Joel Courtney, clothing belonging to Joel Courtney, weapons, binding materials, objects related to Brooke Wilberger which could be viewed as a memento, body fluids, blood, semen, saliva, sweat, latent fingerprints, hairs and fibers, bones, bullets, cartridge casings and fabric.
Albuquerque police were going after their own search warrant as well, to help out Corvallis with their interest in Joel Courtney. Detective Michael Hughes, who had been a law enforcement officer for eighteen years by 2005, spoke in person with Detective Houck, who had flown out to New Mexico. Houck brought along a copy of the search warrant he had filled out. Detective Hughes let Houck know that he’d already gone out to Rosy Courtney’s house on Apple Court in Rio Rancho, along with FBI agents.
The official Albuquerque PD search warrant, in part, asked for a nighttime search on the property which is a tan stucco dwelling. The items to be searched for and seized included a gray T-shirt with the words BYU soccer, an indigo sweatshirt with the words FreshJive, a woman’s pair of size 4-6 blue jeans, a bra, a pair of small to medium panties, a silver-colored ring engraved with the letters CTR, earrings, a stained extra large T-shirt.
During that search Rosy had given a key to the house to Special Agent Tim Suttles “without incident.” While the FBI agents were in the house, Detective Hughes went around the neighborhood, talking to the Courtneys’ neighbors. He apparently didn’t get very much information, since few neighbors knew Joel very well.
After talking to the neighbors, Hughes went into the Courtney home and helped with the search-and-seizure process. At the time they were basically looking for things connected to the Natalie Kirov case. Hughes noted that they seized one black string and several green pieces of string from a toolbox in the garage. They also seized a white string and duct tape from above the dryer in the garage, and three black shoestrings from the garage. The agents collected a white piece of rope and a gray duffel bag from underneath the bed in the master bedroom. A hair tie containing a blond and brownish hair was located inside the bag. Hughes noted, “The bag is consistent with what Susanna Ordaz described Joel as having in Oregon.”
And then the agents found and seized one very important item: a floorboard mat containing blond hair fibers. At the time they didn’t know who the blond hair belonged to. The fibers could have come from Natalie Kirov, Brooke Wilberger, or some other person.
Detective Hughes spoke with Rosy Courtney about a case that was being investigated in Corvallis, Oregon, although apparently he didn’t mention the name “Brooke Wilberger” at that point. Rosy said she would cooperate with Hughes. Hughes asked Rosy about the gray travel bag, and Rosy said that only Joel used that duffel bag. Hughes asked Rosy about the day Joel was supposedly going to Newport, Oregon, for a DUI court appearance. Rosy recalled that he left and returned a couple of nights later, which would have been in the night hours of May 25, 2004. When Joel returned, he told her he wasn’t feeling very good.
Hughes passed on one more bit of interesting information to Detective Houck. Hughes had been at an interview with Natalie Kirov in December 2004. Joel Courtney had asked her how old she was when he had abducted her. Before she could answer, he said, “You must be eighteen or nineteen years old.” Then Joel asked if she was a virgin. Hughes noted that all indications were that Brooke Wilberger was a virgin when she was abducted. And she was nineteen years old. Whether Joel had gotten that information out of Brooke Wilberger at some point was still not known by investigators.
Both Detectives Hughes and Houck knew that the FBI had already seized the green Dodge minivan that Joel Courtney had been using in May 2004 when Brooke Wilberger disappeared. Even as the new search warrant was being implemented at the Courtney home in New Mexico, unidentified hairs, fluids, and stains discovered in the Dodge minivan were being analyzed at the FBI Crime Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.
This lab analysis took a long period of time, as always happened at the crime lab, because so many police agencies around the country were also seeking the lab’s help in their major cases.
And then indisputable evidence came back from the FBI Laboratory. A blond hair that had been found within the green Dodge Caravan had belonged to Brooke Wilberger. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence that Joel Courtney had abducted Brooke on May 24, 2004. And now this one hair could prove that she had been inside his van. Joel Courtney was going to have a very hard time explaining what a missing nineteen-year-old girl had been doing inside the van he had driven.
At long last, after looking at “persons of interest” such as Sung Koo Kim, Aaron Evans, and Loren Krueger, the Brooke Wilberger Task Force now had a person who had moved up to the category of full-fledged “suspect.” After all of the false leads, dead ends, and disappointments of the preceding year, they were finally zeroing in on what had happened to Brooke, and who had been responsible for her kidnapping.
PART II
CHAPTER 13
BREAKING NEWS
The media around Corvallis, Oregon, knew that something big was in the works on August 2, 2005. They had just received a notice from the Brooke Wilberger Task Force that on the next day there would be a press conference about “significant developments in the case.” In fact, the task force was having the media gather at the LaSells Stewart Center on the OSU campus, which was a large auditorium. The Gazette-Times reported, Lt. Noble did not give any indication what the break in the case might be. Nonetheless, there was a great deal of anticipation about what might be revealed.
The next day at the LaSells Stewart Center, in front of a throng of reporters, Benton County DA Scott Heiser announced what so many in the area had been waiting to hear for so long. There wa
s an arrest in Brooke’s case. Not another person of interest, or even a possible suspect, but an actual arrest of an individual. And it was a name that had not been reported on before anywhere in connection to Brooke Wilberger.
DA Heiser announced that the man was thirty-nine-year-old Joel Patrick Courtney, and he was presently sitting in a jail cell in Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Courtney was awaiting trial there for having kidnapped and sexually assaulted a female student in that city. Heiser said of the young woman in that case, “The credit goes to her because she didn’t give up. She didn’t give up on the moments and opportunities to take action.”
DA Scott Heiser went on to say that a Benton County grand jury had just indicted Joel Courtney on fourteen counts of aggravated murder, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, and one count each of rape, sex abuse, and sodomy. All of these counts came in despite the fact that Brooke Wilberger’s body had not been found, and Joel Courtney had not confessed to anything concerning her. Heiser told the assembled members of the press, “Under Oregon law the maximum possible penalty for aggravated murder is death.”
Heiser went on to say that the break came in the case back in December 2004 when police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, conducted a background check on Courtney. It was Courtney’s prior convictions in Oregon that prompted detectives of the Albuquerque Police Department to contact law enforcement in Oregon to see if they had any outstanding cases that might match Courtney’s MO on Natalie Kirov’s case. And, of course, the one case that popped up immediately was that of Brooke Wilberger—a blond, petite girl, about Natalie’s age, abducted near a college campus during daylight hours.