When I went to Seattle in April 2022 I really tried to focus on going to locations related to the confirmed victims (largely because I was new at writing and was just sort of getting my bearings about me). However, I did find a few cases that were particularly intriguing to me and that didn’t seem to have any other real suspects worth looking into other than Bundy. I already wrote about the United Airlines flight attendants Lisa Wick and Lonnie Trumbull that were attacked in their Queen Anne Hill neighborhood in Seattle (Trumbull didn’t survive), but there’s another much younger victim I now want to focus on: Brenda Joy Baker. I can’t seem to find much on her background or tragic death AT ALL, not just information related to TB’s involvement.

Bespectacled Brenda Joy Baker was born on July 13, 1959, to Benjamin and Margaret (nee Stephens) Baker in Enumclaw, WA. The couple had seven children: three boys (Larry, Victor, and Randall) and four girls (Brenda, Margaret, Leslie, and Tina). Mr. Baker was born on March 1, 1924 in Bay County, Florida and Mrs. Baker was born on January 29, 1920 in Sedalia, Missouri. Margaret (who went by Maggie) was previously married to a man named John Beard Jr. (who passed on October 11, 1969). Brenda seems to come from a tragic roots, having two brothers that also passed away extremely young: Benjamin was born in 1956 and died at the age of 25 in 1982 and Victor (who was born in 1960) sadly died in 1981 at the age of 21. Her sister Tina passed away at the age of 51 on June 27, 2009. 

Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Baker raised their family at 21907 237th Ave SE in Maple Valley, Washington. At the time she was murdered, fourteen-year-old Brenda was attending Tahoma Junior High School and despite her young age, she was a frequent hitchhiker and liked to run away from home. She was last seen roughly four blocks away from her home near Puyallup, WA on May 25, 1974 trying to thumb a ride ‘south’ to Fort Lewis. Before she disappeared, Brenda shared with her friends that she was ‘planning to meet a soldier.’ Baker had a history of running away from home and even lived in a foster home for an unknown period of time. However, this time her absence was immediately noticed by her family and a missing person’s report was filed the same day. This was the second runaway report submitted by the Bakers: she was apprehended by Olympia police in one prior incident. The body of Brenda Joy Baker was found 31 days later on the outskirts of Millersylvania State Park not far from the Restover Truck Stop.**

When her body was first found, Tacoma based pathologist Dr. Charles P. Larson thought the individual was between 28-32 years old, approximately 5’2″ and was ‘slightly overweight.’ She also had a surgical scar located somewhere on her body. Dr. Larson was summoned from Tacoma after two local Pathologists were unavailable. He said the victim appeared as if she had been dead for about four weeks and there were no clues found on or around the body. They were found dressed in brown leather alligator shoes, white socks, bright red stretch knit bell-bottom pants and a large tan corduroy mid-waist jacket.

On June 17, 1974 the body of Brenda Joy Baker was found on a small road in an inaccessible area located on the outskirts of Millersylvania State Park just outside of Seattle. Her remains were covered by two logs as well as some brush and it appeared that some attempts were made to try to conceal her body. She was almost completely decomposed from the waist up. Her body was found slightly after noon by Tom Albert Ismay and his two friends, Mary Etta Rinehart and May Harnit. According to Sergeant Mike Celund, Ismay owned 195 acres west of Millersylvania State Park and told officers he came across the young girl’s remains about five feet off the roadway as he was walking down a dirt pathway off McCorkle Road at the north end of the park. He immediately called the sheriff’s department, who in turn summoned Deputy Coroner WW Frazier and Captain Harold Bade. Ismay told law enforcement that ten days before the discovery he placed an old tree across the road to keep trespassers off his property and was checking the effectiveness of his roadblock when he stumbled upon the remains, which were about 25 feet away. Despite some discrepancies in the possible age of the victim by medical experts in the beginning, the body was quickly identified as Brenda Joy Baker by Thurston County Sheriff’s investigators; this most likely happened so quickly because of a missing persons report her parents filed with King County Sheriff’s Department. Law enforcement also compared the body to Bakers dental records, the clothes she was last seen wearing, and the jewelry found with the body (specifically two bracelets, an earring, and a ring); everything came back a match. Her father also said that the body belonged to his daughter as well. Despite the body’s advanced decomposition it was determined tat the victim’s throat had been cut. Anything beyond that is unknown, as detectives admitted they couldn’t find any additional physical evidence or foreign DNA on (or near) her remains because it had been in a state of decomp for far too long.

Following a preliminary autopsy, Dr. Larson and his two assistants, Dr. Harvey Snyder and Dr. Jack Bohanan felt the victim’s age was somewhere between 28 and 34 years. In a separate, unrelated study using X-ray waves and other ‘extensive examinations,’ radiologist Dr. William Veach determined the body to be between 14 to 19 years old. Even though age is not the most important factor when attempting to identify an unknown victim, Undersheriff Jack Crawford did point out that the discrepancy helped to create a wider search field and it’s not abnormal to have extensive variances in age assumptions: ‘it’s not abnormal to have such a discrepancy in age. Right now we are working on the theory this woman is anywhere between the ages of 12 and 50. We are working on names not ages. We will try to identify her by her clothing and the like. Besides that, one man says one age, another is sure it’s another age. It’s only an opinion on their part. What we are doing is working as fast as we can, as accurately as we can to get this person identified, then worry about the age. … ‘Both are experts, but that’s only their opinion. We will continue to work on the 12 to 50 age bracket.’ … ‘There are many people who are worried sick now that it might be their relatives we might have. If we lower the age to 14 or so we open the door for a whole bunch more people.’ Crawford also cited King County missing persons and runaway statistics as 10,000 people in the age category of 14 to 19: ‘we have 40 of 50 here in Thurston county alone.’ … ‘ We are working around the clock because the sooner we come up with a name, the sooner we will see the case through. It’s critical to identify the dead person as soon as possible.’ Obviously they did something right because it was eventually determined the body was Bakers.

In a joint announcement between County Fultz and the Thurston County Sheriff‘s Department, there was no doubt that the body belonged to Brenda Joy Baker. Fultz listed her death as a homicide and that she most likely died either by strangulation or knife wounds. Regarding the 48 hour identification process, Crawford said it was ‘like the spokes on a wheel. All the clues we had seemed to lead back to one hub and that hub was Brenda Joy Baker.’ He also said that the King County runaway report helped lead deputies to the final conclusion and that the clothing found with the body was sent to an FBI laboratory for analysis. Fultz released the body to the Baker family to bury. After the ID was made, Crawford said that they had no material witnesses in Brenda’s death but they ‘had a lot of people to talk to.’ On Thursday June 20, 1974, the Thurston County sheriff’s department traveled to Seattle in an attempt to retrace the last steps of the child. Because both girls were last seen hitchhiking, there was a brief period of speculation that Baker’s disappearance was somehow linked to the murder of 14 year-old Kathy Devine (also from the Seattle area): about six months before Baker disappeared on November 25, 1973 Devine was last seen hitchhiking near Olympia. Her body was found in the Capitol State Forest on December 6, 1973 after a young couple stumbled upon her remains. It was eventually determined that Bundy had nothing to do with the young girls murder: on March 7, 2002 Thurston County authorities revealed that recently discovered DNA evidence cleared him and pointed to a different man as her killer: William E. Cosden Jr. (who coincidentally was already in prison for rape).

In an article about the Baker case published in the Olympian on June 23, 1974, an anonymous male called the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department and told them he had been grouse hunting in late November 1973 when he came across a shack in the woods, where he saw a male with two girls, around 12 to 14 years old at a time that roughly corresponded with the murders of Kathy Devine and Brenda Baker. He returned to the secluded shack on the Black River in January 1974 and found it abandoned, but scattered around the structure were the carcasses of six dogs and one cat, all of which had been skinned with the bones removed. The shack apparently remained vacant until the beginning of June 1974, when the caller said he returned and saw the same man. The mystery caller returned for a final time on June 20th with a friend, but on this occasion he said they were ‘fired upon.’ He told law enforcement that the time he saw the man at the shack was very close to the time of the two homicides. Additionally, the same article reported that a Seattle man and his wife told police they saw a girl matching Bakers description hitchhiking near the Scott Lake interchange on the I-5 in May. Additionally, a man named Bill Sullivan (also from Seattle) reported that he stopped with his wife at a truck stop at the Scott Lake interchange and saw a young girl matching Bakers description. She was hitchhiking and had gotten into an older model, light colored panel truck driven by a bearded man that came from the direction of Scott Lake.

According to the ‘TB Multiagency Investigative Team Report 1992,’ Bundy was in Seattle the day Brenda disappeared, which wasn’t that far away from Puyallup and Millersylvania State Park (it was about an hour and a half one way, I made the drive with no problems). In May 1974, he was living at the Rogers Rooming House in Seattle on 12th Avenue and was employed at the Department of Emergency Services in Olympia (he was there from May 3, 1974 to August 28, 1974). Ted was in between schooling at the time and didn’t start at the University of Utah School of Law until September 1974; he was also dating Liz Kloepfer at the time.

There has been an effort to tie Bakers murder to Ted Bundy, however during his death row confessions he told Dr. Robert Keppel that he had no knowledge of the girl or her murder. I mean, who knows if he was telling the truth or not (Lord knows he didn’t do it often). Since he went to the electric chair in Florida on January 24, 1989 we’ll probably never know what really happened to young Brenda Baker (unless some unearthed, long lost evidence comes to light). Her murder is still treated as a cold case. I wish I had more time to hike through Millersylvania State Park when I was in Seattle, because the little of it I did see was beautiful. Ted committed SO MANY atrocities in Washington state alone that I barely had enough time to cram everything into my eight-day trip (I literally finished at 8 PM the night before I went home). When I told my husband about all the states I need to go to for my ‘little writing project, he was absolutely shocked. His exact words: ‘what a monster.’ I married a smart man.

Sadly both of Brenda’s parents passed away before her murder was solved: Mr. Baker died on January 18, 1979 at only 54 years old in King County, WA; he was cremated and per his last request his ashes were scattered in the Gulf of Mexico. Margaret Baker passed away on January 18, 1989 (just a few days before Bundy was executed) at the age of 68.

* Edit, July 2024: I had someone in Washington state that was in touch with the Baker family reach out and tell me that a good amount of information out there on Brenda’s case was wrong, including the most commonly used picture of her. However she didn’t elaborate beyond that and I’m unsure what I needed to fix.

**Edit, October 23, 2023. The Restover Truck Stop is oddly enough where William Cosden Jr. worked (it was owned by his father. I was chatting with Kathy Devine’s sister Charlene the other day and we talked about the idea that Cosden killed Brenda, and it was like a light bulb went off in my head. The more I think about the more it makes sense.