from Pocatello, Idaho, by the name of Camilla Prentiss who went missing from a neighbor’s house where she’d gone to babysit on a Saturday night. Camilla was never seen or heard from again. She just vanished out of the house, out of the neighborhood, out of town. The police files show she had a good home life and no reason to run away.”
“But I wanted you to focus on Washington State, specifically the Seattle area,” Skye said stubbornly. “So many other unrelated cases complicate matters.”
“I know but… There are four more in Idaho that fit, each about a year apart. It’s almost like every spring he had to… Make some kind of statement. There’s more. There’s a string of missing seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds from Oregon to British Columbia, sandwiched in between is Washington. According to info I retrieved online from websites established by some of the families, each girl seemed happy at the time she disappeared and by all accounts was heavily into school life, extracurricular activities and the like. Yet they went missing without a trace from around schools, football and soccer fields, and public parks. It might be a trivial thing, but some had even been seen partying after a basketball or a football game the night they went missing.”
“Nothing is ever too trivial because it’s an interesting detail we might be able to work into a pattern.”
“That isn’t all. You should know that even though I found a lot of disappearances, I eliminated those names where the ages didn’t fit. Let’s say, anyone on the list older than twenty-two, I excluded.”
“That could be a mistake in the long run,” Josh suggested. “We need to be able to consider all angles. This guy might nab an older girl in a pinch if he couldn’t find a teenager.”
Leo bobbed his head in agreement. “I’ve kept that age group in a separate spreadsheet. So, here’s the thing. I deleted all those missing from the Gary Ridgway era, since he’s been locked up for more than a decade.” Leo paused before going on, as if he dreaded mentioning the name. “I also discounted the ones Skye had already pinned on Ronny Whitfield—those Whitfield grabbed and shipped out to foreign countries, which accounted for a good many already on your list. Because of that, Winston and I wrote a specific program that pulled from two key factors—a young age and family stability. No one on our list had a reason to run off on her own. Not a single one. Our program has pretty much kicked out cold cases and narrowed it down to those forty-five that could be attributed to your guy.”
“Impressive,” Skye uttered, letting out an accepting sigh while Josh took the list out of her hands to peruse it.
“Thanks, but keep in mind this list may grow because it doesn’t account for any…”
“Who were never reported missing at all,” Skye finished. “Never passed onto any cop’s radar because they were never put into the system. It’s one of the more frustrating aspects of what we do.”
Josh went over Leo’s paperwork and let out his own pent-up breath. “So this is what was left. If this is the killer’s handiwork it shows he’s been a busy boy. Let’s say he began his killing around the age of twenty. That would make him thirty-five now. I wonder. Does he cover all this area because he lived in all these places or was he moving through these states for work?”
“And now, for whatever reason, he’s recently landed in the Seattle area to spread his perverted kind of…”
Leo was in the middle of his sentence when Skye didn’t wait for him to finish. “There’s just one problem with your leap in logic. While the stats are notable, and probable, the girls on that list are missing . We, on the other hand, have three real homicides with bodies that ended up in the morgue, murders that deal with females who disappeared several years back and have now reappeared. That means he didn’t just surface in Seattle last month. He’s
“But I wanted you to focus on Washington State, specifically the Seattle area,” Skye said stubbornly. “So many other unrelated cases complicate matters.”
“I know but… There are four more in Idaho that fit, each about a year apart. It’s almost like every spring he had to… Make some kind of statement. There’s more. There’s a string of missing seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds from Oregon to British Columbia, sandwiched in between is Washington. According to info I retrieved online from websites established by some of the families, each girl seemed happy at the time she disappeared and by all accounts was heavily into school life, extracurricular activities and the like. Yet they went missing without a trace from around schools, football and soccer fields, and public parks. It might be a trivial thing, but some had even been seen partying after a basketball or a football game the night they went missing.”
“Nothing is ever too trivial because it’s an interesting detail we might be able to work into a pattern.”
“That isn’t all. You should know that even though I found a lot of disappearances, I eliminated those names where the ages didn’t fit. Let’s say, anyone on the list older than twenty-two, I excluded.”
“That could be a mistake in the long run,” Josh suggested. “We need to be able to consider all angles. This guy might nab an older girl in a pinch if he couldn’t find a teenager.”
Leo bobbed his head in agreement. “I’ve kept that age group in a separate spreadsheet. So, here’s the thing. I deleted all those missing from the Gary Ridgway era, since he’s been locked up for more than a decade.” Leo paused before going on, as if he dreaded mentioning the name. “I also discounted the ones Skye had already pinned on Ronny Whitfield—those Whitfield grabbed and shipped out to foreign countries, which accounted for a good many already on your list. Because of that, Winston and I wrote a specific program that pulled from two key factors—a young age and family stability. No one on our list had a reason to run off on her own. Not a single one. Our program has pretty much kicked out cold cases and narrowed it down to those forty-five that could be attributed to your guy.”
“Impressive,” Skye uttered, letting out an accepting sigh while Josh took the list out of her hands to peruse it.
“Thanks, but keep in mind this list may grow because it doesn’t account for any…”
“Who were never reported missing at all,” Skye finished. “Never passed onto any cop’s radar because they were never put into the system. It’s one of the more frustrating aspects of what we do.”
Josh went over Leo’s paperwork and let out his own pent-up breath. “So this is what was left. If this is the killer’s handiwork it shows he’s been a busy boy. Let’s say he began his killing around the age of twenty. That would make him thirty-five now. I wonder. Does he cover all this area because he lived in all these places or was he moving through these states for work?”
“And now, for whatever reason, he’s recently landed in the Seattle area to spread his perverted kind of…”
Leo was in the middle of his sentence when Skye didn’t wait for him to finish. “There’s just one problem with your leap in logic. While the stats are notable, and probable, the girls on that list are missing . We, on the other hand, have three real homicides with bodies that ended up in the morgue, murders that deal with females who disappeared several years back and have now reappeared. That means he didn’t just surface in Seattle last month. He’s
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