Diane Sue Gilchrist was born on August 8, 1959 to William and Jean Gilchrist in Vancouver, WA. William Gilchrist was born on July 30, 1930 in Bessemer, Michigan and Jean was born on July 18, 1937 in Potlatch, Idaho. After he relocated to Washington state at the age of ten, Gilchrist served in the Army during WWII and the Korean War and upon returning home got a job as a longshoreman (which is a marine terminal laborer that is responsible for loading and unloading cargo from ships at ports). Before he was married to Diane’s mother he was wed to Georgianne Jordan: the couple tied the knot in Vancouver, WA on December 20, 1949 but had gotten divorced at some point prior to 1959, as he married Jean Peterson on April 16, 1959; the couple had six children together: Carol, Kay (b. 1962), Karen (b. 1959), Diane, William, and Donald (b. 1961). William and Jean seemed to have a rocky relationship, and according to records divorced then reconciled at least once before they eventually parted ways for the final time on December 15, 1980 (she married William Stuart on September 16, 1982). 

Few details are available in relation to Diane’s disappearance: at the time she was a freshman at Shumway Junior High School and wore her blonde hair at her shoulders; she had blue eyes, stood at a mere 4’10” tall, and only weighed 100 pounds. According to her sister Karen, after Diane got home that Monday it was just like every other night in the Gilchrist household: their father began to target her, which led to a verbal altercation and her head being slammed into a door jam. She then bolted upstairs to the bedroom she shared with her sister Kay and slammed the door, and talked about her plans of running away, exclaiming that she couldn’t: ‘handle it anymore;’ shortly after this exchange, she climbed out their second story bedroom window and vanished.

From there, she walked to her boyfriend David’s house, who lived nearby; he would later tell detectives that she got to his residence at around 7 PM but hadn’t been there for long before she announced she was ‘going to walk to the store for cigarettes.’ David wanted to go with her, and Gilchrist responded that she wanted to go by herself and would be back shortly… but when she walked out of the door and into the night, she was never seen or heard from again. Two days later, Diane’s mother reported her missing to the Vancouver City Police, and according to Karen, their mother was so grief stricken by her sister’s disappearance that she had a breakdown and checked herself into Western State Mental Hospital (which was coincidentally the same facility where WLF was later committed). And after that, the Gilchrist siblings went into foster care.

In the beginning part of the investigation, it was suspected that Diane may have been a runaway… and as a result her disappearance wasn’t taken seriously by police. However, this theory was eventually discarded, and investigators now strongly believe she is a victim of serial predator Warren Leslie Forrest. After his 1974 arrest investigators went over Forrest’s employment history, and he apparently took off from work the morning after Gilchrist was last seen alive, and just two days after Diane disappeared, Gloria Knutson was last seen alive (the day after she goes missing, Forrest left work early); two weeks after that, Carol Valenzuela was last seen in downtown Vancouver.

Forrest has been incarcerated since 1978 serving a life sentence for the 1974 murder of Krista Kay Blake (and before that he was committed to Western State Penitentiary in Steilacoom since January 1975). Nineteen-year-old Blake had been seen last on July 11, 1974, climbing into Forrest’s light blue Ford Econoline cargo van outside of downtown Vancouver; only six days later Norma Countryman was abducted while hitchhiking in Ridgefield (she survived the encounter). In 2018 new charges were brought up against Forrest in relation to the murder of Martha Morrison.

Seventeen-year-old Martha’s body was recovered on October 12, 1974, by a member of a hunting party in a densely wooded area in Dole Valley; sadly her remains went identified until July 7, 2015 when some familial DNA from Morrison’s half-brother, sister, and the exhumed body of her father matched some blood that had been found left behind on one of WLF’s dart guns.

About WLF finally being held accountable for his sisters murder, Michael said, ‘boy, am I happy about that one. It’s been 45 years. Am I expecting some kind of closure? I don’t know. I’m kind of really settled in my own mind at this point. I’d like to look him in the eye and say: … ‘Why did you do this?’’ He also said their father reported Martha as missing years prior, but the police report was lost so her disappearance wasn’t officially reported until January 2010, when he contacted police in Eugene, OR. According to Michael, his sister was a ‘free spirit’ that was known to hitchhike and played the guitar, and: ‘was an artist. She was real friendly. She was just a great kid. I don’t know what I’m really expecting. There isn’t really any closure. I got all of the information. OK, this happened. What more can you do? That’s probably all I can really expect at this point. I’m kind of at peace with it somewhat, somewhat.’

In August 2018 Diane’s sister Karen went to the murder trial of Martha Morrison to face her sister’s accused killer for the first time, and about the event said that it was mostly curiosity that brought her there, and ‘it was frightening. We made eye contact. It felt like he knew me’ (as she said this, she was reportedly trembling). 

A friend of Jamie Grisim’s (who is another suspected victim of WLF) sister Dena Rush also attended Forrest’s 2018 hearing (on Starr’s behalf), and about him said: ’there are a lot of girls from our county who are missing that he had a hand in. It’s hard because so many years, and he’s still alive and their loved ones are still missing, these girls. And they deserve better.’ Rush also said she was struck by Forrest’s small stature: ‘you always think when you are going to be next to evil, you’re going to feel it or sense it. He looks so innocuous. He just looked like he couldn’t hurt a fly.’

One of Diane’s friends from early childhood, Jerri Mitchell thinks about her a lot, especially on August 8 of every year (which was their shared birthdays): ‘I miss her, I’ve missed her all these years. She was my first real friend.’ Since 1974, Jerri has held onto hope that her best friend ran away to live another life, and that she isn’t lying dead somewhere.’ At the time Diane disappeared the two friends had been ninth graders at Shumway Junior High School in downtown Vancouver, and they both experienced rough childhoods: ‘when Diane came along, she just came out of nowhere. I don’t remember her being in school before, we just ended up being friends and we hit it off and then she disappeared.’

About her friend, Jerri said: ‘I’ve always thought of kids like her and I, we get lost in the world. We are the ones that if we disappear, no one cares. And that’s what I saw with Diane. Nobody cared when she disappeared. I never had anyone come ask me. I was her best friend when she disappeared.’ She also said that if Diane was one of Forrest’s victims, ‘at least there’s knowing what happened to her,’ and knowing she wasn’t forgotten.’

Karen Gilchrist currently lives in Vancouver, WA and Diane’s sister Carol lives in Washougal, WA. She has been employed as a laundry room attendant at a Holiday Inn since March 2022

Jean Gilchrist-Stuart died at the age of fifty-eight on September 5, 1982 in Vancouver, WA; her obituary said that she was a homemaker. William Gilchrist died at the age of sixty-eight in a Vancouver care center on February 27, 1999. According to his obituary, he was a longshoreman for thirty-five years before his death and he was a member of the Longshoremen’s union. He also enjoyed watching TV and playing cribbage. Diane’s brother Donald William Gilchrist passed away on July 1, 2021.

Warren Leslie Forrest is serving life sentences for the murders of Krista Blake and Martha Morrison in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla (despite being suspected in six disappearances and murders). As of February 2026 he has never been charged in connection to Diane’s disappearance, and her disappearance remains unsolved. After Diane disappeared the Gilchrist family purchased a burial plot that they keep to this day, waiting for a resolution to her disappearance. According to Karen Gilchrist, her sister: ‘was cheated out of life and Warren Forrest took that away.’

Works Cited:
Carolyn Osorio. (September 9, 2025). Stolen Voices of Dole Valley, Episode 5: The Good-Looking Stranger. Taken February 12, 2026 from https://pod.wave.co/
Prokop, Jessica. (January 6, 2020). ‘Suspected Serial Killer, 70, in Clark County Court in 1974 Murder Case.’ Taken February 18, 2026 from http://www.columbian.com
Tilkin, Dan. (August 8, 2018). ‘Could Diane Gilchrist be Warren Forrest’s 9th Victim?’ Taken February 18, 2026 from http://www.koin.com