by Robert Scott
The news, at least on Natalie Kirov’s abduction and rape, started making its way into newspapers and on television in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And APD took one crucial step beyond what many police departments will do. They noted that Joel Courtney had an arrest record in Oregon, and APD asked various law enforcement departments in Oregon if they had had a similar situation to that of Natalie Kirov’s abduction and rape. Of course, Corvallis, Oregon, had in the case of Brooke Wilberger. Brooke’s task force was very interested in what APD had to say about Joel Courtney.
The news media had no idea what was transpiring in early December 2004 between Oregon law enforcement and New Mexico law enforcement. But already agencies were starting to construct a scenario of what might have happened in the Corvallis area in May 2004. And the trail led right through Joel Courtney’s failure to appear in court at Lincoln County on the morning of May 24, 2004. It was noted that Corvallis was right on the way of the most usual route taken by someone going from the Portland area to Newport, Oregon. In time the media was going to have in exacting detail what was occurring between the various law enforcement agencies on Brooke’s case.
As serious as the charges were against Joel in New Mexico, they were nothing compared to what was now brewing back in Oregon. Soon FBI agent Joseph Boyer filled out a fugitive complaint against Courtney. In part it stated that the state of Oregon sought to extradite Joel from New Mexico to Oregon for aggravated murder, kidnapping and rape. This was a very aggressive stance in light of the fact that Brooke Wilberger’s body had never been found. FBI agent Boyer noted on the form: The reason I believe that the defendant is the person identified in the fugitive warrant is: the physical description of the defendant, a copy of an NCIC message is attached. This dealt with all the possible links between Joel and Brooke Wilberger in Corvallis, Oregon.
It wasn’t going to be an easy road from New Mexico to Oregon, however. In a document of August 4, 2005, Metropolitan Court Division judge Sharon Walton in New Mexico let it be known, The Court finds that the defendant will not waive extradition and orders this case transferred to District Court for further proceedings. Through his lawyer, James “Jim” Loonam, Joel Courtney was going to fight extradition, every step of the way.
In fact, Joel took this intransigence to extremes. Bernalillo County DDA Melanie Harper let it be known, “Yesterday, Courtney was contesting identity, saying that it wasn’t really him. He was refusing to leave his cell.” This was only the beginning of a pattern of disruption and outlandish behavior that would mark Joel’s relationship with the court system, especially when it came to Brooke’s case.
And there was still the whole matter of Natalie Kirov’s case in New Mexico before Joel would ever set foot in an Oregon courtroom. Bernalillo County DDA Theresa Whatley told reporters that it would take a couple of months of discovery before they even got to pretrial hearings on Natalie’s case.
Extradition of a person from one state to another goes clear back to the early days of the federal government and laws in the United States. In some ways it is almost a “gentleman’s agreement” between one governor to another. In September 2005, Governor Ted Kulongoski, of Oregon, sent an extradition warrant to Governor Bill Richardson, of New Mexico, asking that Joel Courtney be brought back to Oregon to stand trial for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Brooke Wilberger. Benton County DA Scott Heiser noted that Courtney was being held on charges in New Mexico, and it was unlikely that Governor Richardson would sign the extradition order until after the Natalie Kirov trial. That wasn’t expected to take place until the spring of 2006.
Through his lawyer, Joel Courtney was compiling a witness list for the defense on the Natalie Kirov case. Despite Kirov, obviously, being an eyewitness to the attack by the nature of her being the surviving victim, Joel was nonetheless going to try and beat the charges against him.
Just how far Joel Courtney was willing to go in fighting the charges can be seen by a document he presented to the court from jail. In essence, it stated he was not being allowed to help in his own case. Joel wrote, I have had one opportunity to visit the law library. I believe this to be a violation of my 5th Amendment Right to due process. I feel as though I have purposely been deprived of the chance to assist in my own defense, educate myself in the legal aspects of my case, and reserve my right and option to defend myself pro-se.
The last sentence indicated that Joel was thinking about being his own defense lawyer, with the assistance of counsel. And Joel was asking for daily access to the law library at the jail. If he did decide to be his own lawyer, it was going to be a very bumpy road ahead at court. There’s a reason attorneys attend law school. The admission of evidence and testimony at trial have a very exact and procedural dynamic, and it is the most difficult thing for non-attorneys to grasp and be able to do themselves.
CHAPTER 17
THE OTHER GIRLS
If the Corvallis Police Department and Benton County District Attorney’s Office weren’t giving the media much new information about Joel Courtney, the news reporters had elsewhere to turn. And one of their most intriguing in this regard was the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) website. A description was given about Joel Courtney and right up front the FBI admitted that they were conducting an extensive investigation on Courtney. The FBI stated:
It is believed that he is a serial sex offender and killer. The FBI has identified three additional victims that Courtney may have sexually assaulted and killed within Oregon. He is inclined to abduct white females, fifteen to 25 years of age, with blonde hair and blue eyes, in an outside setting.
The FBI noted that Joel Courtney had grown up in the Portland area, and had moved around the country throughout his adult life:
There is a high possibility that he has assaulted other victims in other areas—Albuquerque, New Mexico (7/1994–8/1994, 8/1997, and 11/2000). Anchorage, Alaska (1989–1992), Beaverton, Oregon (1986–1992), Bernallilo, New Mexico (5/1995–8/1997). Cape Canaveral, Florida (5/2001–3/2003), Cocoa Beach, Florida (5/2001–9/2002), Grants, New Mexico (9/1995), Pensacola, Florida (5/2001), Portland, Oregon (1980–1989, 1993 and 2004), and Rio Rancho, New Mexico (6/1996–2004).
It was also noted that Courtney had traveled through Mexico via Arizona.
There was an alert to law enforcement agencies across America from the FBI in which they stated:
Law enforcement agencies should bring this information to the attention of all homicide, sex offender and cold case units. Anyone having cases similar to the described modus operandi with the suspect’s DNA evidence should contact Crime Analyst Vicki McRoberts, Corvallis Oregon.
Even though the FBI didn’t post what other murders of young women might have been committed by Joel Courtney in Oregon, the news media soon had leads of their own on who those victims might be. And the first one on the list was Katheryn Scott Eggleston, of Portland, Oregon. She had been born on May 4, 1971, and by 1993, Katheryn was a five-four, 125-pound, blue-eyed blonde. She was relatively petite and pretty—just like Brooke Wilberger.
Katheryn went by the nickname of Katie and was the daughter of Paul and Heather Eggleston. Paul was a former Seattle high-school teacher and later a superintendent of schools in Central Oregon. And Heather, just like Brooke Wilberger’s mom, was a teacher of young children. They all lived a quiet, comfortable life on the edge of Redmond in Central Oregon. Katie was very athletic and was on the high-school swim team.
In college Katie was popular and a good student. Her roommate, Treasure Lewis, later said of Katie, “She was very outgoing, very friendly, someone that people were drawn to. She was always joking and wanting to go do things.” Katie let her parents know that she was careful about her surroundings and took self-defense classes. She stayed out of bad areas and always carried a whistle with her when she was alone.
Katie was an OSU graduate, and was temporarily staying with her sister in Gresham near Portland. In early August 1993, Katie returned from a trip to Central Oregon, where she had visi
ted her boyfriend for the weekend. On August 2, 1993, Katie left her office at Allnet Communication Services in Lake Oswego, Oregon, where she sold long-distance services. She made her way to Portland, where it was her first day on the job alone. Even though it was a warm day, she wore a purple blazer, white blouse, black skirt, and heels.
That morning she attended a business meeting about making sales calls and then went to businesses on NE Whitaker Way in Portland. She stopped at a bank, at a gasoline station, and then at a Burger King restaurant, near the Lloyd Center in Portland.
That afternoon Katie made calls at the Port of Portland Building on Multnomah Street. Witnesses later said Katie had a worried look on her face while she was there. At 2:15 P.M., a man to whom Katie had just made a sale, saw her get off the building’s elevator with a man who wore a blue blazer. The witness recalled the man as having dark hair and a dark complexion. And from that moment forward, no one ever saw Katie Eggleston again.
Around 5:00 P.M., Katie’s silver/gray Volkswagen Golf was spotted in the Port of Portland parking lot by a person who would later be a witness. At some point the car was driven away. Katie had been scheduled to meet with her supervisor at 5:00 P.M. at the Lake Oswego office. She never made it to that appointment.
When Katie didn’t show up back at her sister Janet’s residence, Janet was initially irritated, then alarmed. All through Monday, there was no word from Katie. By Tuesday, August 3, Janet called her father about the situation, and he and a friend started on their way from Redmond, in Central Oregon, to the Portland area.
Meanwhile, a security guard at a parking lot in an industrial complex on Northeast Airport Way in Portland discovered Katie’s Volkswagen Golf, which had been parked there into the early hours of the morning. This was about nine miles from the Port of Portland Building. Katie’s car had its windows rolled down; the doors were unlocked and the keys were still in the ignition. Her purse and its contents were on the front seat and her workout clothes on the backseat. Katie’s Allnet binder was missing, however.
Almost from day one, Paul Eggleston kept a log on what was transpiring. On August 5, he noted that he and his wife were worried that Katie might be held hostage in one of the numerous warehouses in the area. Adding to Paul’s worries was the fact that Katie’s boyfriend joined them in the search, and he displayed “exceptionally strange behavior,” according to Paul. Paul already knew that Katie planned to break up with her boyfriend, and apparently she had told him so over the past weekend. The boyfriend related that he had “wigged out” when he got the news of the breakup. Paul noted in his log, This made him suspect number one.
The boyfriend as suspect lasted only one day. Portland police detectives checked him out and discovered that the boyfriend had been in Central Oregon all day on August 2. Not helping matters, the lead detective on Katie’s case, Joe Goodale, told Paul that his bureau was “desperately overworked” right then. They’d had a homicide come in on August 4, August 5, and August 7.
By August 7, scent-trained dogs were being used to try and pick up a trail of Katie from her car to the surrounding area. The dogs could find no trace of Katie being dragged away from her car or just walking away. It appeared more likely that she had gotten into or been forced into another vehicle and driven away.
Then on August 12, the case started going off track, as far as the Egglestons were concerned. Detective Wagner, one of the investigators, asked Paul why he hadn’t told them everything about the family’s dynamics. Paul asked what she was talking about, and she said that they’d discovered that daughter Janet’s ex-husband was facing trial on tax evasion. Paul was floored and said that had nothing to do with Katie’s present circumstances. In return, Detective Wagner told him, “You mean to tell me you don’t see the connection between a trial for a felony and a key witness disappearing!” And then Detective Wagner implied that the Egglestons were hiding Katie somewhere so that she could not testify. Wagner point-blank asked Paul, “Do you know where Katie is?”
“No!” he replied.
“Would you be willing to take a lie detector test?”
“Yes!” he responded with anger.
Almost immediately Paul sent two letters to Detective Wagner. In the first he told her how distressing it was to think that somehow his former son-in-law was the reason that Katie had disappeared. There was a federal tax case that involved that son-in-law and Janet for failing to report $190,000 in business income, and Paul admitted that Katie was to be a witness in the case. But her contribution was going to be minimal, at best. And then Paul related that Katie was barely thinking about the impending trial at all, but was excited about her new job with Allnet.
In the second letter Paul’s anger showed even more as he blasted Wagner for thinking that for some reason he and his wife would hide Katie and ruin their reputation for a son-in-law they had not seen or spoken with in years. A few days later, Paul passed the polygraph test, exonerating him of having any knowledge of Katie’s disappearance.
After the test Paul still had to deal with Detective Wagner. He asked her if she had contacted John Davis, the man who had seen Katie’s car on Multnomah Street around 5:00 P.M. She said she didn’t recognize the name. Paul theorized that Katie would not have driven her car there when she had a five o’clock appointment with her supervisor in Lake Oswego. He mused that someone else must have driven Katie’s car to the place where it was abandoned, for whatever reason.
And then Detective Wagner told Paul that there were no leads on the case, and that the main theory now was that Katie had disappeared of her own will. Fed up with the Portland detectives, the Egglestons used money they had been receiving in donations to hire a retired OSP detective. This detective did develop a lead about a security guard who had keys to the Port of Portland Building. There was also an anonymous phone call that came in from a man who said that he had killed Katie two weeks after abducting her.
Then on October 12, 1993, the same day that Janet was sentenced to home detention and probation on the tax case, Detective Wagner told the media that they still believed that Katie’s disappearance was of her own volition so as not to testify in the case. They noted no signs of struggle near or in her car, as well as Katie’s missing passport. The Egglestons were outraged, and Paul told the media that not once had the detectives ever searched Katie’s room. If they had done so, they would have discovered that her clothes, makeup, prescriptions, and suitcases were all still there.
As far as the passport was concerned, Katie’s mom recalled that Katie had asked for a passport on July 18, 1993, as proof of citizenship for her new job at Allnet. Heather Eggleston surmised that the passport might have ended up in Katie’s Allnet binder, which was not found in her car. And there was also proof that Katie’s passport had not been used to get her out of the country in 1993 or 1994.
The case lay fairly dormant until May 4, 2001, on Katie’s thirtieth birthday. The Egglestons had recently run an ad in the Oregonian with a short synopsis of the case and a phone number to call. They also wrote, Katie, your family and friends are waiting to hear from someone who can tell them what happened to you on August 2, 1993.
Then suddenly Joel Courtney appeared on the radar because of his abduction of Natalie Kirov, and alleged abduction and murder of Brooke Wilberger. There had been some inner demon that made Joel talk to his sister about being kidnapped himself and the death of a blond girl. It made some in law enforcement wonder if Joel had been the anonymous phone caller to the Egglestons. Joel obviously had high stress levels after the abduction of Brooke Wilberger, and a certain amount of guilt in concocting the story of his own abduction.
An FBI agent contacted the Egglestons and actually drove all the way out to Redmond from Portland to talk to them about Joel Courtney. Paul later said, “I was surprised he drove all the way out here to do that.” The agent told them that Katie was of the same general type of young woman that Joel liked. He also said that Joel was in the Portland area at the time of Katie’s disappearance.
Paul gave the agent seven loose-leaf binders that he had been keeping as a log on the case since it had started. The FBI agent also took samples of Paul and Heather’s DNA. A short time later, Portland PD sergeant Wayne Svilar, who was head of the Cold Case Unit, also contacted the Egglestons. Svilar told them that Courtney’s possible connection to their daughter was under review by his unit. This was the first time in several years that anything tangible had surfaced about the disappearance of Katie Eggleston. And to the Egglestons’ relief, the matter was being looked at as if Katie had met with foul play, and had not just vanished on her own accord.
The second case that caught law enforcement’s attention about Joel Courtney and a blond young woman in Oregon was that of Stephanie Elizabeth Condon. Stephanie was fourteen years old in 1998 and lived in Myrtle Creek, Oregon, about 120 miles south of Corvallis on I-5. She was five-two, weighed 120 pounds, and had blue eyes and blond hair.
On October 30, 1998, Stephanie was babysitting a relative’s child in Myrtle Creek. She was in the residence and then just disappeared. There were no signs of struggle or forced entry into the residence. None of the children whom Stephanie was babysitting were harmed or turned up missing. Stephanie was last seen wearing two-piece Winnie the Pooh pajamas.
When Stephanie’s cousin came home at 1:30 A.M., she found the door locked, the children asleep, and the house undisturbed. Stephanie’s shoes and backpack were still in the mobile home.
All of this left many unanswered questions: Had she answered the doorbell and been kidnapped? Had she simply walked away for some reason? But then why leave without shoes in the middle of the night? And why leave her backpack in the mobile home?
Investigator Joe Perkins told reporters, “We’re interested in a blanket, described as a comforter.” The implication was that it was now missing from the mobile home. Many wondered if Stephanie had been rolled up or draped in the comforter while being spirited out of the residence. She had obviously not been seen by anyone after going into the residence on her babysitting job.