Washington State Mysteries

Possible answers in 11-year missing person investigation On the 11th anniversary of her disappearance from a Bloomington domestic abuse center, the Bloomington Police Department announced that two people were charged with the murder of April Pease. Pease, 30, was from Washington state and had been staying at the Cornerstone shelter for about five months when she disappeared in March 2009. Cedric Marks, a 45-year-old Belton, Texas, man and Kellee Sorensen, a 34-year-old Lynden, Washington, woman, were charged March 11 in Hennepin County District Court with second-degree murder, with intent, but without premeditation. The suspects face up to 40 years in prison if convicted. The charges follow a long investigation by multiple detectives who were initially handicapped by the fact that it was approximately six months after her disappearance when they received the report. Pease disappeared without a clue as to where she was going. Her situation was complicated by the fact that she had a hist...

Skip to content Missing Washington girl found in rural Mexico, FBI says By:  KIRO 7 News Staff Updated: March 27, 2020 - 3:13 PM SEATTLE —  Officials with the FBI office in Seattle announced Friday they recovered a girl who had been missing from Adams County for nearly two years in rural Mexico. Agents received a tip and worked with the the Legal Attaché Office in Mexico City to find the girl about eight hours outside Mexico City. >> Family confirms Robert Levinson, former FBI agent, dies in Iranian custody Content Continues Below “Too many times we see situations like these end in tragedy or with no answers. Happily in this case, we were able to bring her home, thanks to the quick actions of our agents and our partners at the Othello Police Department and the Mexican Federal Police,” said FBI Seattle Special Agent in Charge Raymond Duda. The girl was reported missing by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in June 2018 when she was 14 years old. Offici...

Snohomish County was state’s ground zero, analysis suggests A genetics and infectious disease expert studied the DNA of individual cases to trace transmission. Tuesday, March 3, 2020 7:27am LOCAL NEWS NORTHWEST CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK EVERETT   Trevor Bedford (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) By Mike Carter / The Seattle Times SEATTLE — A genetics and infectious disease expert at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center said Tuesday that additional analysis of the spread of the novel coronavirus, using genetic markers, has led to him conclude that  as many as 570 Washington residents may have contracted the virus , many of them without knowing it, and have been spreading it through the community with Snohomish County as the outbreak’s center. Trevor Bedford posted some of his initial findings on Twitter  over the weekend, concluding that the genetic relationship between the first confirmed case of the disease —  a Snohomish County man hospitalized in Ever...

Washington man Jacob Hilkin disappears after night at casino with friends March 26, 2018, 4:30 PM PDT / Updated March 26, 2018, 4:30 PM PDT By Juliet Muir Twenty-four-year-old Jacob Hilkin had been working hard to turn his life around. He had moved out of his mother’s house in Everett, Washington and moved in with friends nearby. He had bought a car, and was “emotionally mature,” according to his mother Marni Pierce. 24 year-old Jacob Hilkin has not been heard from since January 23, 2018. Courtesy Snohomish County Sheriff's Office “It was all those milestone things, like, you look at as a parent and know your kid is growing up,” Marni told Dateline. “Jacob and I were incredibly close.” They were so close, according to Marni, that they leaned on each other through life’s ups and downs. When Jacob lost his job in January, he asked her if he could come home and spend some time with her to organize his next steps. “[He] doesn’t have internet at his house. So he wanted to...

Woman's body found in remote Clallam County wilderness Investigators believe the woman found in the Olympic National Forest was the victim of a homicide. CRIME Author: Eric Wilkinson Published: 5:39 PM PST February 17, 2020 Updated: 5:39 PM PST February 17, 2020 BLYN, Wash. — A woman's body was found deep in the Buckhorn Wilderness of the Olympic National Forest in Clallam County on Friday. Police aren't saying much about the discovery except that the body is that of a woman and she appears to be the victim of a homicide.  Investigators won't say how she was killed, whether she was clothed or how old she appears to be. They did tell KING 5 the woman doesn't appear to have been dead for very long. Her body was found off Forest Service Road 28 near the town of Blyn, about 25 miles southeast of Port Angeles. The area is so dense that investigators had to tie brightly colored ribbons to the trees so they could find their way through the remote roads to the crime scene. ...

Push to exhume bodies in King County By: Dave Wagner Updated: Oct 7, 2019 - 11:33 PM 1 of 2 Facebook Push to exhume bodies in King County Washington’s state forensic anthropologist would like to unearth a mystery in King County.  There are 41 bodies that remain unidentified and some Washington leaders would like to exhume some of them. "I would love at some point to get some of those individuals out of the ground. It's on my wish list,” Dr. Kathy Taylor, Washington State Forensic Anthropologist, told KIRO 7 last year.  Content Continues Below The King County Medical Examiner’s Office is looking for the public’s help in identifying some bodies that were buried before the advent of DNA.  Cloyd Steiger leads the cold case unit for the Washington Attorney General’s Office.  He said he supports the idea of exhuming the bodies. “I absolutely do. It's a priority because there's no reason not to. You could never have done any...

MyNorthwest.com Child sex trafficking – as easy in Seattle as ordering a pizza APRIL 13, 2017 AT 8:54 AM Child sex trafficking has become a $42 billion a year illegal industry. Local police estimate up to 500 teens are working as sex slaves every day in King County. This sign on a boarded up motel along Aurora Avenue urges those involved with prostitution to seek help. (Linda Thomas photo) LISTEN: In our society people should not be able to order a girl for sex the same way they can order a pizza and have it delivered to their home. That’s what a mom says about child sex trafficking, which she knew nothing about until her daughter was sold as a sex slave between Everett and Burien for 108 days. “You warn them about the boogeyman and you warn them about the dangers of crossing the street without holding an adult’s hand when they’re younger, and you talk about the dangers of texting while driving. These are the things that you are worried about when your children are growing up,”...