Unconfirmed Victims: Information from the King County Archives.
Rita Jolly
Missing/Murdered Oregon Women, 1969 to 1979.
I’ve been compiling a list of missing and murdered young women from the 1970’s in Oregon in a notebook, and I figured why not also include it here. As I learn of new victims I will update the list… over the years I’ve found dozens of names on various websites and newspaper articles about other missing and murdered women, but they’re scattered all over the internet in a million different sources… why not put them all here?
Janet Lynn Karin-Shanahan: (April 23, 1969, Eugene). Twenty-two-years-old. Strangled and found in the trunk of her own car.
Beverly Annette Gayley: (June 15, 1969, Deschutes County). Her remains were found in a wind cave covered with a bedspread and rocks; she had a ligature wrapped around her neck. A significant amount of blood was found in Gayley’s home, as well as in the trunk of her car.
Niki Diane Britten: (July 16, 1969, Albany). Fifteen-years-old. Frequent run away.
Julie Dade: (January 21, 1970, Junction City). Twenty-Year-Old. Julie’s husband, Terry was later found deceased in the couple’s Maple Street apartment. At about 4:20 AM, neighbors in the area of the Maple Street Apartments heard a female yelling and a witness saw a man dragging a screaming woman into a vehicle before leaving the area. A nearby neighbor woke to the sound of an explosion, saw the car on fire and tried to put it out but it was too late.
Sandra Young: (February. 23, 1970, Sauvie Island). Her remains were found on Sauvie Island in 1970 but were not identified until February 2024; her murder remains unsolved.
Barbara Katherine Cunningham: (May 25, 1971, Eugene). Thirty-four-years-old. Found deceased in her apartment by her mother.
Barbara Ann Bryson: (July 29, 1971, Stayton). Nineteen-years-old. Was last known to be attending a party.
Anne Marie Lehman: (found on August 19, 1971, Josephine County). Seventeen-years-old. Disappeared from Aberdeen, Washington in the winter or spring of 1971; the circumstances surrounding her case are unclear, although it is rumored she was a victim of human trafficking. Her remains were found by a man and his son while they were out mushroom hunting off the Redwood Highway, close to mile marker thirty-five; it is unclear as to why she was in Oregon.
Josephine County ‘Jane Doe’: (remains found on August 19, 1971). Body found near the California border; believed to be female victim somewhere between fourteen and twenty-five-years-old.
Fay Ellen Robinson: (March 12, 1972, Eugene). Found deceased in apartment.
Alma Jean Barra: (March 23, 1972, Happy Valley). Twenty-eight-years-old. Found deceased in Willamette National Cemetery.
Beverly May Jenkins: (May 25, 1972, Cottage Grove). Sixteen-years-old. Her remains were found in June 1972 just off the I-5 roughly ten miles outside of Cottage Grove; she had been strangled to death.
Jane Pellett: (June 7, 1972, Salem). Twenty-eight-years-old. Found deceased on a busy roadside on June 26, 1972.
Geneva Joy Martin: (June 16, 1972, Eugene). Nineteen-years-old. Found deceased on the side of the road by a farmer.
Rita Lorraine Jolly: (June 29, 1973, West Linn). Seventeen-years-old. Disappeared while out on a routine nightly walk.
Allison Lynn Caufman: (July 1973, Portland). Fifteen-years-old. Died as a result of head injuries after being shoved from a car moving at a high rate of speed.
Laurie Lee Canaday: (July 9, 1973, Milwaukee). Her remains were recovered on the pavement at the intersection of Southeast Scott Street and McLoughlin Blvd in Milwaukee, OR.
Susan Ann Wickersham: (July 11, 1973, Bend). Seventeen-years-old. Was found deceased from a gunshot wound on January 20, 1976.
Vicki Lynn Hollar: (August 20, 1973, Eugene). Twenty-four-years-old. Disappeared along with her 1965 VW black VW Beetle with IL plates and the running boards removed.
Gayle LeClair: (August 23, 1973, Eugene). Twenty-two-years-old. Found stabbed in her apartment.
Delores Thompson and Gwendolyn Fulce: (September 8, 1973, Portland). A double homicide, twenty-four-year-old Thompson and twenty-one-year-old Fulce were found deceased in a home on North Ivy Street.
Deborah Lee Tomlinson: (October 15, 1973, Creswell/Eugene). Fifteen-years-old. Disappeared along with a friend on her sixteenth birthday. According to her sister (and my friend) Jean she was seen in California after she disappeared).
Virginia Erickson: (October 21, 1973, Sweet Home). Thirty-two years old, mother of six. Disappeared, most likely killed by her husband.
Suzanne Rae Seay-Justis: (November 5, 1973, Portland). Twenty-three-years-old. Was from Eugene, hitchhiked to Portland despite having a car of her own.
Belinda Cowden, along with her husband Richard and two children, David and Melissa: (September 1, 1974, Copper). The family were the victims of a still unsolved mass murder after they vanished from their campsite near Carberry Creek in the Siskiyou Mountains of Oregon; they were last seen on September 1, 1974, when Richard and David bought milk at the Copper General Store. When they never showed up for dinner at Belinda’s mother’s house later that day, their campsite was found deserted, with their truck, wallets, and a half-full carton of milk left behind. On April 12, 1975, two gold prospectors found their bodies roughly seven miles from the campsite: Richard was found tied to a tree on a steep hillside, and Belinda, David, and baby Melissa were hidden inside a nearby small cave that had been sealed up with rocks. Autopsies later revealed that Belinda and David had been shot with a .22 caliber weapon, while Melissa died from severe blunt force head trauma; Richard’s cause of death could not be determined due to the condition of his remains.
Joyce C. Hess: (October 18, 1974). Fifty-four-years-old.
Marion Vinetta Nagle-McWhorter: (October 1974, Tigard). Twenty-one-years-old. According to McWhorter’s sister, she had been traveling before she disappeared around the Western part of the US. Her body was finally identified in September 2025, but the case remains unsolved.
Becky Rae Martin: (February 15, 1975, Junction City). Twenty-two-years-old. Throat cut.
Leslie Michelle (seven-years-old) and Geoffrey Lyman (five-years-old) Brown. Murders took place on February 22, 1975 and both victims were found on March 12, 1975 in McIver Park, Estacada.
Margo Nerline Ascencio-Castro: (March 1, 1975, Eugene). Twenty-two-years-old. Found stabbed in a motel room, possibly involved with a local motorcycle gang.
Ceceilia Louise Hostetler: (March 26, 1975, Eugene). Last seen leaving the Embers restaurant getting into a vehicle with another person whom she appeared to know. On October 30, 1998, an unidentified deceased female was found burned and stabbed in the forest near 24243 Bolton Hill Road in Lane County, Oregon; it was later identified through dental records as Ceceilia Hostetler.
Caroletta Spencer: (May 20, 1975, Sauvie Island). Seventeen-years-old. Spencer’s was a sex worker whose body was found on a gravel road on Sauvie Island in Oregon. She had been shot four times and most likely had been killed earlier that morning, as she was last seen at Fred’s Place Bar in Portland around 2:20 AM.
Wanda Ann Herr: (June 1, 1976, Government Camp). Nineteen-years-old. Few details about Herr’s life are available, but according to family members, she grew up in Gresham, Oregon, but did not live with her siblings and reportedly ran away from home multiple times as an adolescent. Herr was last seen alive sometime around June 1976 and may have been living in a group home when she disappeared; her upper skull and some miscellaneous bones were discovered on August 2, 1986, near two roads off of Highway 26.
Shirley Anita Wallace: (July 21, 1975, Eugene). Thirty-one years-old. Found, shot.
Tina Marie Mingus: (October 1975, Salem). Sixteen-years-old. Murdered, body recovered.
Cherril Sue Miller: (October 12, 1975, Portland). Twenty-eight-years-old. Few details are available in Miller’s case, but she had two children, whom she had left in a neighbor’s care that evening. One of her teeth in the front of her mouth is discolored or capped and she wears eyeglasses with thin bone rims.
Camille Karen Covert-Foss: (October 17, 1975, Hillsboro). Twenty-five-years-old. Found shot in her vehicle at her POE, in a Southwest Portland-area shopping center.
Deborah McNoise-James: (October 28, 1975, Klamath County). Found deceased at the 97 Trailer Court with lacerations to her head, neck, arms, and leg, as well as trauma to her larynx.
Betty Johnson: (November 1975, Estacada). Nineteen-years-old. Not much is known, I only happened to stumble upon her name when searching for a different Oregon woman (Marion McWhorter).
Kim Charleson: (January 7, 1976, Cannon Beach). The twenty-two-year-old had been in college and may have been carrying a small amount of Canadian currency when she disappeared.
Cordelia Sheehan McMinn: (May 1, 1976, Portland). Twenty-six-years-old.
Julie Ann Beardslee: (June 30, 1976, Astoria). After Beardslee failed to attend a regularly scheduled Bible study class in Astoria her vehicle was found on July 1, 1976, at Fort Stevens State Park. Her body was discovered by hikers on July 12, 1976 near Coffenbury Lake in Clatsop County, Oregon; she had been stabbed, and her throat had been cut.
Sharon Ryan: (December 16, 1976, Portland): Seventeen-year-old. Vanished going to buy eggs, her body was found near a parking lot in Portland.
Roxanne Marie Sims: (January 1, 1977, Portland). Eighteen-years-old.
Sandra Renee ‘Sandy’ Morden: (1977) Approx sixteen-years-old, her partial skeleton was found in Washington in 1980 and it’s believed that she died in the late 1970’s; she was identified in October 2019.
Karen Jean Lee: (last seen alive, May 26, 1977, Cornelius). Lee ran away with a male companion, fourteen-year-old Rodney L. Grissom. Her possessions and clothes were found by a logging crew sometime in November 1977 however her remains were never recovered. Grissom’s clothes and belongings found in same area, roughly a quarter mile away from Lee’s in November 1982; his remains have also never been found. (Thank you to my friend Ryan AuClair for this information).
Lliana Gay Adank: (June 1977). Sixteen years-old. Was found shot to death along with seventeen-year-old Eric Shawn Goldstrand at the remote Broken Bowl Picnic Grounds near the Fall Creek Dam located about twenty-five miles southeast of Eugene.
Cindy Irene King: (July 19, 1977, Grants Pass). Fifteen-years-old. Disappeared.
Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Ann Roberts: (July 25, 1977, Roseburg). Found August 9, 1977, formerly known as ‘Precious Jane Doe.’ Roberts was identified on June 16, 2020.
Margie Ann Fernette: (January 24, 1978). Fifteen-years-old. Found in Fairfield Elementary School.
Benita Gay Chamberlin: (February 23, 1978, Eugene). Twenty-four-years-old.
Floy Joy/Jean Bennett: (February 23, 1978, Beaverton). Thirty-seven-years-old.
Karen Etta Whiteside: (March 22, 1978). Sixteen-years-old.
Ann Marie Ellinwood: (April 15, 1978, Corvallis). Twelve-years-old, last seen walking alone ‘during daylight hours.’ Possibly a victim of Earl Patrick Chambers.
Stephanie Ann Newsom: (April 19, 1978, West Salem). Eleven-years-old. Remains found on April 25, 1978 near the Ankeny Wildlife Refuge: possibly a victim of Earl Patrick Chambers.
Elana Jacobs and Teresa Krause: (May 21, 1978, Astoria). Both girls were enrolled in the Tongue Point Job Corp. They were known to go into town to ‘party and socialize,’ which is most likely why they left the compound the night they were last seen alive; their remains were found near Del Rey Beach, Krause’s on December 3, 1978, and two days later Jacobs were discovered; they were most likely stabbed and/or strangled to death.
Finley Creek Jane Doe: (found August 27, 1978, Elgin). The remains of a pregnant woman between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five-years-old; detectives strongly believe she died between 1970 and 1975 and was six to eight months pregnant at the time of her death; fetal remains were found with her. She was found buried face down under a log, and evidence at the scene, including a coaxial cable, suggests she may have been strangled.
Diana Marie Kuhn*: (December 10, 1978, Portland). Twenty-years-old. Remains found in in West Linn, OR.* Thank you for Diana’s cousin Donna Mollema for informing me about her.
Christie Lynn Farni: (December 14, 1978, Medford). Six-years-old.
Pem Michelle Yates-Briggs: (January 1, 1979). Fifteen-years-old.
Janie Landers: (March 9, 1979, Salem). Eighteen-years-old; she slipped away from the Fairview Training Center in Salem, a residential facility for those with developmental disabilities and mental health problems.
Mary Jo Templeton: (April 1979, remains found on April 30, 1979, Redmond). Forty-nine-years-old. In April 1979, she was renting a room at the El-Rancho Motel when she disappeared; her remains were uncovered in several parts over the time period of a month in Mirror Pond and near the Newport Avenue Dam in Bend. The first remains (a thigh) were found by a utility worker raking intake grates at a dam on April 30, 1979. She had been dismembered with what detectives called a ‘surgical precision,’ leading to theories that her killer may have had experience as a hunter, butcher, or surgeon, butcher (or a combination of the three); she was eventually identified through dental records.
Daisy Motley: (May 8, 1979, Portland). Motley was a sixty-four-year-old, unemployed female who lived alone that had no apparent enemies. Someone anonymously called the manager of her apartment complex to her death and asked them to check on her because they heard a ‘disturbance’ coming from her residence. The last time Daisy was known to be alive was when she talked to her daughter at approximately 9 PM on May 7th.
Lisa Danein Boggs: (June 13, 1979, Salem). Boggs and her boyfriend, Randolph Robertson, left their home state of Missouri on May 7, 1979 and arrived in Salem, Oregon, on May 9, 1979, and lived at a transient camp on property near the KOA at 1595 Lancaster Drive. On June 7, 1979, Salem police were called to the KOA for a homicide, where they discovered that Randolph Robertson, had been killed by two shotgun blasts; Boggs was nowhere to be found. On June 13, 1979, her’ body was discovered in a creek 17.5 miles up Little North Fork Road off Highway 22E in Marion County, Oregon. Her cause of death was drowning, even though she had also sustained a blunt-force injury to the skull behind her left ear. She was found lying on her back, with her head submerged in eleven inches of water; it had been held in place by a large rock
Irin Marie Meyer: (July 20, 1979, Brookings). Twenty-nine-years-old.
Sheryl Wright: (no additional information at this time).
Rita Lorraine Jolly.
Rita Lorraine Jolly was born on December 6, 1955 to Donald Clover and Mary Jolly of West Linn, Oregon. Donald Clover Jolly was born on May 17, 1917 in Salem, MA and Mary Elizabeth Horner was born in Fargo, North Dakota on June 17,1919 and after graduating from high school she attended Macalester College then later went on to law school, and earned her JD from the University of Minnesota in 1943. During WWII Mr. Jolly was a Master Sergeant, and after the war he graduated from the U of M with a BA/LLB in Law. The couple met while attending law school, and were married on April 24, 1947 in Hennepin, Minnesota; they relocated to West Linn in 1949. After graduating, the couple opened a law office: Mr. Jolly worked as an attorney and Mary was his legal secretary. Rita was the youngest of four children, and Mrs. Jolly had two boys (Jeffrey and Bryan) and a two girls (Rita and Jill). Because Don and Mary were both survivors of the Great Depression, they were often considered to be ‘frugal and liberal for their time,’ and above all else, the family valued education, and pushed for their children to have strong critical thinking skills.
A tall girl, at the time of her disappearance, Rita stood between 5’5 and 5’6” tall, weighed around 130 pounds, had hazel eyes and medium length brown hair she wore parted down the middle. She had a small scar on her face just below her right eyebrow and her front teeth were slightly crooked and overlapped a little bit. She also had her wisdom teeth pulled and had small pit fillings in the buccal (cheek) side of her lower molars. In an interview with the website ‘Uncovered,’ Jill Jolly said that her sister enjoyed ‘nature, animals, and creativity’ and spent her time after school ‘immersed in books, writing poetry, and creating art.’ … ‘she had a real talent. I have folders filled with her writings. I am ashamed to admit that it’s very difficult for me to go through these writings. They are such intimate windows into her life, and often the anguish in them bleeds through. I feel a responsibility to preserve these writings. I have a good flatbed scanner now, and hope to be able to focus on making digital copies so that I may more easily share them.’
Per Uncovered: ‘growing up, Rita struggled with emotional regulation and sensitivity, which led her parents to seek help from a child psychologist.’ Jill said that she now believes her sister may have been on the autism spectrum, a concept not widely understood in the 1960’s and 70’s. Disillusioned by cliques and peer pressure, Rita faced bullying for being different, and in her junior year of high school was reprimanded for writing a derogatory statement on the school wall. Her parents defended her, challenging the school to ‘improve its culture.’
At around thirteen, the Jolly’s bought Rita a gelding quarter horse named Sugar that became her best friend. I read from multiple sources that she walked with an uneven stride due to an improperly knitted fracture of her lower left leg, however according to a comment Jill (username ‘JillElaine‘) left on the YouTube video ‘Mystery Murders: The 1973 Disappearance of Rita Jolly,’ (done by ‘Steve the Amateur Historian‘): ‘as for Rita’s ‘limp’, she was still in the process of healing from her broken leg (a horse she was riding fell over on a muddy trail and crushed it). But whatever limp she might have had was almost unnoticeable.’ … ‘she was healthy & strong, and a horse owner. She went for walks in the evening almost daily, often several miles in length.’ Rita’s front teeth were slightly crooked, and overlapped a little bit; she also had her wisdom teeth pulled and had small pit fillings in the buccal (cheek) side of her lower molars.
Mr. and Mrs. Jolly said their daughter was incredibly bright and mature for her age and took academics very seriously. A user going by the name of ‘Cheryl Klawitter’ commented on the ‘The Morbid Library’ article about Rita that she ‘was in a couple of classes with Rita at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City in 1973. I won’t claim we were friends, just casual acquaintances. But we talked some. She had told me she’d hitchhiked to a concert in Eugene, (sometime in the month prior to her disappearance). So the image of her being a naive high school girl, out for an evening walk is misleading. Of note: there was a full lunar eclipse Saturday the 30th, the night after she disappeared. From what I knew if her personality, that would have excited her. She could have been hitchhiking just about anywhere that Friday night (the 29th), looking to party. If she was on I-5 it is just not that unlikely she may have crossed paths with Bundy. Or for that matter some other predator. I knew the Chief of Police in West Linn at that time and he confided (later) they suspected Bundy. I assume that was after excluding people she knew.’* Per Jill Jolly, ‘As a senior, Rita attended full-time classes at Clackamas Community College through a special program for scholastically-advanced high school seniors. Excelling in Creative Writing and art programs, Rita thrived in this environment. Though she did not attend classes at West Linn High School during her senior year, she insisted on participating in the graduation ceremony in June 1973.’
At about 7:15-7:30 PM on June 29, 1973, Jolly left her family home to take a walk, something she did almost daily according to her sister. Jill said that she ‘left with a smile on her face’ and Mr. Jolly said ‘she smiled at us and went out the door. I went out to cut the grass. She never came back.’ Rita was last seen wearing a brown wool Pendleton shirt jacket, a red and blue cotton shirt, olive colored army fatigue pants (or blue jeans depending on the source), and low-cut blue tennis shoes with buckskin heels. She seemed okay and in decent spirits; her family said she didn’t have any known problems with anyone in her life and Jill commented that she ‘struggled with angst that affects so many young people, and it’s possible she initially ran away. But her social security number has never had any activity, as far as I know.’ Ms. Jolly was ‘in the Robinwood area and/or on Sunset Ave around 8:30 to 9:00 PM’ and was seen for the last time around 9:30 PM walking uphill on Sunset Avenue near the Oregon City Arch Bridge that crosses the Willamette River into West Linn. Shortly after she vanished two young men in Portland went to law enforcement claiming they saw her the night after she disappeared, but when approached she said her name was Mary. The men that reported the alleged sighting did not leave their contact information with police so no follow-up was made and their story was never confirmed. Regarding the incident, Jill said that: ‘the following night, two young men reported to the police that they tried to pick up a girl who looked like Rita, but this young lady was not her.’ Mr. Jolly told law enforcement that all of his daughters personal belongings were left behind and there was nothing missing from her bedroom. He said she that was an ‘independent thinker with few dates or close friends.’ Detective D. Calhoun (who worked the case and immediately had a gut feeling that Rita was murdered) commented that: ‘people don’t usually just disappear and have no contact.’
Almost from the beginning, information related to Jolly’s mysterious disappearance stopped trickling in and leads dried up almost immediately. By July 15, the idea of Rita having left home willingly had morphed into the possibility that she was most likely abducted under sinister circumstances. Mr. Jolly was crucial in keeping his daughters case in the news and relevant: not only did he hand deliver letters to local police precincts and news stations begging them to help find her, he also offered a $2,500 reward for any information leading to her whereabouts. Rita’s case was being investigated at the city, county, and state level, but despite all the help the investigation went nowhere. Apparently (per ‘The Morbid Library‘), her brother believed that the perpetrator was someone local who possibly knew her, and in an edit on their article about Ms. Jolly, author CJ Lynch said: ‘thanks to a comment on this post, we now know a bit more about Rita as a person. She is an adventurous person: at the time of her disappearance, she often hitchhiked to get where she was going, and she enjoyed concerts and parties. She is a free spirit, enjoying the freedom and independence that comes with being in college.’ (this edit was because of comments left by readers).
YouTuber ‘Whitney Dahlin‘ pointed out that a ‘hit and run is also possible. she was walking alone in the evening I feel like it’s entirely possible someone hit her and then hit her body or buried her body so they wouldn’t go to prison for it. I feel like a a lot of missing person cases where the missing person was last seen taking a walk in the evening are really hit by a car cases. Abductions are very rare compared with pedestrian car accidents.’
Within a six-month period in 1973 four young women went missing from the same general area in Oregon: first Rita in late June, then seventeen-year-old Susan Wickersham from Bend just two weeks later on July 11 (her body was discovered in January 1976 just five miles south of her hometown). Ms. Wickersham is sadly yet another unconfirmed Bundy victim I never heard of, although realistically he most likely didn’t kill her, as she was found with a gunshot wound in her head which wasn’t his MO… Next to disappear was twenty-four-year-old Vicki Lynn Hollar, a petite girl (only 5’1” and 115 pounds) with dark eyes and brown hair. Ms. Hollar was last seen getting in her black 1965 Volkswagen Beetle with the running boards removed (Illinois plates GR 7738) on August 20, 1973. She was leaving her place of employment at the Bon Marché (now Macy’s), where she had been employed as a seamstress for about two weeks. It’s been theorized that Vicki was headed home to her apartment at 600 West 27th Avenue in Eugene with the intention of meeting up with a friend to attend a party in her neighborhood later that evening (but she never showed up). Friends shared with police that Hollar had a habit of picking up hitchhikers; her VW and personal belongings have also never been recovered. Lastly is Suzanne Rae Justis, who disappeared on November 5, 1973. Recently divorced, Justis was from Eugene and hitchhiked to Portland, and in a phone call to her mother from outside the Memorial Coliseum that day said she would return home the next day to pick up her son from school. Sue’s mom booked a room for her for the night at a nearby hotel, but it was never used. She never came home and has never been heard from again. For unclear reasons, a missing persons report wasn’t filed until 1989.
I’ve been finding most of the ‘unconfirmed victims‘ have very weak commonalities without a lot of substance… Rita did look like one of Ted’s victims: she was attractive and slim, with long brown hair and dark features. Her abduction was most likely a crime of opportunity (like so many of the others), meaning the perpetrator took advantage of a particular situation most likely with no prior plans to go out and commit the atrocious act. Additionally, Jolly fit neatly into his preferred age range: she was seventeen, and he typically targeted younger females anywhere from twelve years old (possibly even as young as eight if you throw Ann Marie Burr into the mix) all the way up to twenty-six (Colorado ski instructor Julie Cunningham). But that’s about it. And it’s important to keep in mind how common the ‘long hair parted down the middle’ look was during that time period: even my own mother looked like she could have been one of Bundy’s victims.
During his death row confessions Ted admitted to abducting Roberta Kathleen Parks from Oregon State University on May 6, 1974; he claimed to have raped and killed her at Taylor Mountain, over 250 miles away from her school and about 25 miles southeast of Seattle. Because Parks was found in Washington state she is typically not included in his Oregon victim count. In interviews, Bundy confessed to killing two additional women in Oregon but refused to elaborate on the details; according to most detectives, Rita Jolly and Vicki Hollar are the best candidates. Law enforcement tried but were unable to question Ted about Rita’s disappearance before his execution in 1989, eliminating the chance of possibly closing her case. Jill Jolly said of Bundy’s execution: ‘as I recall, my mother told me that the local detectives managed to get a direct question about Rita through to him before his execution, and his reply was ‘No. No more in Oregon.’’ Dubbed Ted’s ‘bones-for-time scheme,’ he withheld many secrets right up until the very end of his life in hopes to parlay the untold stories into yet another stay of execution. ‘There are other buried remains in Colorado…’ Bundy said, refusing to elaborate any further. He then took his secrets with him to the grave. Colorado Detective Matt Lindvall felt this was a direct conflict between his desire to postpone his execution by giving up information and his need to remain in ‘total possession: the only person who knew his victims’ true resting places.’
Regarding suspects, Ted is one of only two seriously considered individuals I could find that was investigated for the abduction of Rita Jolly; the other one is Warren Leslie Forest. Two additional names that are almost casually thrown around when ANY unclaimed victim is brought up from that time are Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole. The pair were lovers, united in their shared childhood traumas and together they terrorized the United States throughout the 1970’s and 80’s. Lucas falsely claimed he killed upwards of 600 people (Toole said he participated in 108 of them), however it was eventually determined he was responsible for two of them and was strongly suspected of only eight more. But, investigating both men a little further, at the time Rita disappeared in mid-1973 Lucas was serving a 5-year prison stint for attempting to kidnap three schoolgirls in 1971, and Toole’s history is a little fuzzy between 1966 and 1973, but his first strongly suspected kill was the 1974 murder of Patricia Webb. Oddly enough, Toole died at the same Florida State facility that executed Ted in 1989: he entered the Raiford prison in 1983 and died in 1996 from cirrhosis of the liver. Additionally, Ed Kemper and Gary Ridgway both popped in my head as possible suspects, but Kemper was apprehended on April 24, 1973 and operated more in the California area (Rita disappeared June 29 which is obviously after he was arrested) and Ridgway didn’t start his atrocities until 1982. In her interview with Uncovered, Jill said that: ‘there are five possible suspects that have been identified.’ I’m unsure who else it could have been (I’m sure police are playing close to the vest with what information they have). If I think of any additional potential suspects I will update my article.
Warren Leslie Forrest was convicted of abducting and stabbing to death nineteen-year-old Krista Kay Blake in 1974 then burying her remains near Battle Ground on Tukes Mountain. He’s been in prison since October 2, 1974 and for decades Clark County law enforcement tried (with no success) to link him to other murders in the area. On October 12, 1974, the human remains of two women were found in Dole Valley near Vancouver, Washington. One was immediately identified as Carol Platt-Valenzuela but the other individual remained unidentified for over 40 years. But, thanks to DNA profiling and some blood left behind on the dart gun Forrest used to subdue his victims, in 2015 those remains were finally determined to be those of Martha Morrison, who disappeared from the Portland area under mysterious circumstances in September 1974. Two of his suspected victims have never been found: Diane Gilcrist (14) and Jamie Grissim (16). Before Warren was identified as the killer, Bundy was considered a person of interest in Morrison’s death (he’s still a suspect in Valenzuela’s murder). In 2020, Forrest was charged with the murder of Martha Morrison.
‘Historywmystery.blogspot.com‘ said about the Jolly disappearance: ‘It’s also important to remember that this was the 1970’s and there were numerous women, especially young ones, hitchhiking along I-5 back in the 1970’s and some of them met with death at the hands of someone who couldn’t have been Ted Bundy. There was an extensive article I found in a 1975 paper discussing the perils of young women who were hitchhiking in Oregon, many of whom knew the danger and yet continued to hitchhike. There was Martha Morrison, who was a frequent runaway who vanished from Portland on September 1, 1974. Her remains were discovered a little over a month later and were not identified until 2017 using DNA testing. She, for a long time, was considered a possible Ted Bundy victim until her remains were identified and it was found she had been killed by William* Forrest, a serial killer working out of the Vancouver, Washington area. Interestingly enough, Forrest was someone that I considered as a possible culprit in the Rita Jolly case, something that’s still possible but definitely something I am calling more into question now.’ *they meant Warren Forrest.
Jill Jolly gave the following quote in her interview with ‘Uncovered:’ ‘…the truth is that we really don’t know what happened to her. We all have theories. Our dad thought she had called several times, mostly just silence on the phone but once he said that he heard her voice, ‘Mom? Mom?’, then ”Dad?’, then a click on the phone hanging up. Could she have gotten involved in a cult or some other situation where it was hard to leave? I find myself wondering how folks can help with solving the mystery of what happened to Rita. After 50 years, I don’t think it’s likely that we will have answers before all of us who knew her are gone from this earth. The advent of DNA gave us so much hope! But the number of unidentified bodies and the expense & difficulty of the tests has been discouraging. It’s not a quick fix. Nonetheless, perhaps someday she will be one of the humans who are ‘given their name back’.’
2022 marks the 49th anniversary of Rita Lorraine Jolly’s mysterious disappearance. Sadly, Mr. and Mrs. Jolly both passed away before learning what happened to their daughter: she passed away after a chronic lung illness and osteoporosis on March 23, 2005 at the age of eighty-five. According to her obituary, she worked mostly as a property custodi9al officer for the Lake Oswego PD until she retired in 1983. Her hobbies included archeology, birdwatching, and politics. Mr. Jolly died at the age of ninety-three on July 2, 2010 of natural causes at home. After his daughter disappeared he always held onto hope that Rita was still alive. As of December 2022, all three of her siblings are alive and are still desperate for answers. Rita’s dental records are available and her DNA was entered into CODIS in 2000.
Bryan Jolly currently resides in Bend, OR and is the owner of ‘Bryan Jolly Construction.‘ Jeff Jolly lives in Depoe Bay, Oregon. Jill Jolly is active in her sisters disappearance, and is vocal on multiple social media platforms (like WebSleuth’s, and my own blog), and in recent years has also done interviews both in front of and behind the camera; she currently resides in Bend, OR.
* Jill Jolly researched the lunar calendar extensively and couldn’t find any record of there ever being an eclipse on the evening her sister disappeared.
I’mWorks Cited:
doenetwork.org/cases/2503dfor.html
namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/7780
newspapers.com/clip/38129030/rita-jolly-missing-oregon/
clackamas.us/sheriff/case/73-9833
missingin.org/reg4206/rita_lorraine_jolly.htm
salem-news.com/articles/march022008/cold_cases_3-1-08.php
newspapers.com/newspage/565976821/
historylink.org/File/2637
obits.oregonlive.com/obituaries/oregon/obituary.aspx?n=donald-clover-jolly
uncovered.com/cases/rita-jolly
Another Bundy Blog. 