Clark County

Medical Examiner
Dennis Wickham
360-397-8405


Skeleton of a female, age 14-18, found off Canyon Creek Road near Fly Creek, Feb. 23, 1980. Cause of death unknown. No county records found.

http://www.waspc.org/mp/
Unknown Unknown


Report Type: Unidentified Human Remains

Sex: Female

Race: Unknown

Hair: Unknown

Eye Color: Unknown
Skin: Unknown
Height: 0' 0" -> 7' 11"

Weight: 1 -> 999

Date of Birth: Jan-01-1964 -> Dec-31-1967
Place of Birth: Unknown

Current Age: 39 -> 43

Last Seen: Sat Feb-23-1980

Dental X-rays Available: Yes
Scars, Marks, Tatoos:
Clothes/Jewelry: Unknown
Aliases:


Click on the photo (if any) to see a larger/clearer version.

http://z10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/in...pic=25632&st=0&

Skull yields portrait of victim; Identity sought for girl found in 1980

Article from:
The Columbian (Vancouver, WA)
Article date:
June 7, 2005
Author:
JOHN BRANTON, Columbian staff writer
More results for:
identity sought

The girl looks confidently, even serenely, from the printed page, her eyes seeming to meet the viewer's with no hint of the "homicidal means" that caused her death.

If Clark County Sheriff's Detective Rick Buckner is correct and there's reason to believe he could be the image shows what this 15- to 16-year-old girl looked like before she was slain a quarter- century ago.

The girl's skull was found in February 1980 by two men who were panning for gold in a remote area of northeastern Clark County, along Fly Creek south of Healy Road. The skull is the basis for the image, made by experts with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, headquartered in Alexandria, Va.

The center's experts have proven their ability to create something lifelike from the remnants of death.

In 2002, using another skull found by an elk hunter in western Skamania County, they created an image that Buckner immediately recognized as that of Jason Lee Cruze.

Cruze, a local resident who was 24 when family members reported him missing in June 1998, had been convicted of assault and reckless endangerment in Clark County, so Buckner had his jail mug shot.

"The similarity was just remarkable," Buckner said.

DNA tests confirmed the skull was Cruze's.

Now Buckner, a longtime homicide detective, is hoping it will happen again.

In February, Buckner put the girl's skull in a box and sent it by FedEx to reconstruction experts at the missing-children center. They sent him the girl's image last week.

"I haven't got a clue who she is," Buckner said Monday. "We're hoping someone along the I-5 corridor will remember an old case. You can always hope. It would be nice to put a name with the remains."

He added: "She's got a mother. She's got a father."

Studying old cases from Washington and Oregon, and as far away as Wyoming, Buckner has a list of 28 women who disappeared and were never found.

At one point, Buckner wondered if the skull was that of Jamie Grissim of Clark County, who who went missing in 1972. But Grissim's dental records ruled her out.

An earlier facial reconstruction of the Fly Creek skull was completed in 1980, Buckner said. "It didn't resemble anyone," Buckner added.

The center's facial reconstructions can be made by computer technology and by placing clay on the skull itself, Buckner said.

Besides trying to show what the girl's face would have looked like in life, the center consulted with a forensic anthropologist, Dr. David Hunt, for more descriptive details.

After examining the skull's teeth and eye orbits, Hunt estimated she was mainly of white European ancestry but may also have had ancestors of other backgrounds.

Her ethnic mix could also include "most likely Asian or possibly Native American," according to an e-mail from center expert Gerald Nance to Buckner.

Hunt also found "enlarged neck muscle attachments" that indicate she may have been athletic or performed manual labor and had a strong neck.

Hunt was unable to estimate the girl's height because only the skull and some ribs and vertebrae were found, not a complete skeleton.

She was probably born between 1964 and 1967, Buckner said, and was probably slain as long as 15 months before her bones were found. Buckner declined to say how he believes the girl was killed, except by "homicidal means."

Anyone with information in the case is asked to call the missing- children center at 877-446-2632, ext. 6235; or Buckner at 877-CRIME 11.

John Branton covers crime and law enforcement. Reach him at 360- 759-8012 or john.branton@columbian.com.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-23282943.html

Identity of teenaged girl's skull still a mystery, 26 years later

Article from:
The Columbian (Vancouver, WA)
Article date:
November 12, 2006
Author:
KELLY ADAMS, Columbian staff writer
More results for:
identity sought

The unfinished story about how the skull of a teenage girl ended up near Fly Creek in a remote corner of Clark County is far from having a conclusion.

It started in 1980, when two men panning for gold discovered the remains. A reconstruction was done in 1981 but it didn't lead investigators to anyone.

About eight years earlier, Jamie Grisim, 16, went missing as she walked home from Fort Vancouver High School. In 1978, Cherie Wyant, also known as Cherie Larson, 14, walked out of a California hospital after a car accident. She had spent some time in a Clark County foster home, so there was a chance she may have returned to the area.

Decades later, technology advanced to the level that DNA from both girls's families as well as dental records could be compared with the skull. Recently, both girls were ruled out as matches.

Authorities now know who the girl was not, which leaves the question: Who was she, and how did she end up in the woods?

"I have no idea," said Clark County Sheriff's Detective Rick Buckner. The image created by the reconstructionist as well as the estimated age and race of the girl haven't led anywhere.

"It doesn't match anybody we know," he said.

The first time the image was published in June 2005, several calls came in with information. Buckner hopes a second publication will be more fruitful.

"Somebody out there knows who this little girl is," he said. "It would be nice, if nothing else, to give her a name."

In his experience working with the families of crime victims, he has seen uncertainty lead to agony.

"It is heart-wrenching, the not knowing," Buckner said. "There's no closure."

Starr Lara, Grisim's younger sister, knows all about that.

Lara was disappointed when Buckner called to say the skull did not belong to her sister.

"I really thought it was going to be her," she said in a phone interview from Portland. "It's hard because I don't have answers."

One possible answer is that Grisim was the first victim of Warren Leslie Forrest. Forrest is serving a life sentence at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla for the 1974 murder of Krista Kay Blake. He was linked to the disappearances of a least six other women but denied any involvement with Grisim.

Lara is skeptical, particularly after discovering that Forrest attended Fort Vancouver High School five years before Grisim. He also had a younger sister who would have been at the school when Grisim was there.

Buckner said that the DNA and dental records for Grisim and Wyant are now part of the nationwide missing persons database that could lead to information in the future.

Lara and Buckner also met with a psychic who told them she believes Grisim's remains are still in the woods around the Sunset Falls campground. Lara hopes someday to put her sister to rest in a proper grave.

"I just don't like the idea of her being out there," she said.

Update

Previously: The skull of a teenager found in a remote area of northeastern Clark County in 1980 was tested to see if it was one of two girls reported missing in the 1970s.

What's new: DNA tests have determined the skull is not the remains of either of the girls.

What's next: Clark County Sheriff's investigators hope the reconstruction created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will look familiar to someone and help identify the girl.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-23313628.html

Skull not that of missing teen; DNA tests rule out Jamie Grisim, who vanished in 1971

Article from:
The Columbian (Vancouver, WA)
Article date:
February 11, 2006
Author:
JOHN BRANTON, Columbian staff writer
More results for:
identity sought

DNA tests on a skull found in a remote area of Clark County in 1980 have ruled out the chance it was that of Jamie Grisim, who vanished from Vancouver in 1971 at age 16.

With that news received Thursday, Clark County Sheriff's Detective Rick Buckner now is waiting for DNA tests to see if the skull was that of another missing girl.

And the mystery of Grisim's disappearance remains, along with 34 years of emptiness, for her sister, Starr Lara.

"In my heart I know that she's dead," Lara said Friday. "She never got a funeral. She never got anything. She's gone but not forgotten."

Back on Dec. 7, 1971, a cold day that later brought snow, Grisim, a student at Fort Vancouver High School, had told Lara she would walk home after classes. Lara was 14.

When Grisim didn't arrive, Lara called all her friends, but none knew where Grisim was.

In the spirit of the times, officials noted that the girl had been wearing blue "hip-hugger" jeans, a striped blouse and white tennis shoes with the words "peace" and "love" handwritten on them.

Lara, now a resident of Hillsboro, Ore., suspects that her sister's supply of peace and love ran out at that time, as do homicide detectives. The next year, Grisim's purse, identification and other belongings were found near a trail.

And that was it.

In 33 years since her purse turned up, no trace of the girl was found, as far as anyone knows.

Clark County Sheriff's Office detectives, like Lara, suspect that Grisim was murdered by Warren Leslie Forrest, who drew a life sentence for another murder, in 1974, but has denied killing Grisim.

In a curious way, Lara's hopes of learning what happened to Grisim were raised in the past few years then dashed again.

Two men who were panning for gold in remote northeastern Clark County along Fly Creek in February 1980 found a skull that never was linked to anyone.

In February 2005, Detective Buckner sent the skull to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The center used computers and other modern techniques to create an image of what the girl whose skull was found would have looked like.

Since the image matched Grisim's face in some ways, DNA from the skull was compared with that from Grisim's family.

On Thursday, Buckner learned that the DNA ruled out Grisim, and he told Lara that same day.

"I would have been upset either way," Lara said Friday. "But I would have had some answers (if the DNA had matched Grisim). It's just really hard when you don't know where they are."

There are no answers about Grisim now, but there's still hope some may surface later.

For one thing, Buckner said, the girl's DNA now is in a nationwide database. If her body is found in another area, detectives can check to see if its DNA matches that from Grisim's family.

Lara suspects her sister's body already has been found somewhere but hasn't yet been identified.

In addition, Lara said, Grisim's story and photograph are kept alive on the Internet.

"Jamie is probably on six or seven Web sites," Lara said. "There's a lot of people working on missing persons cases, trying to solve them."

One such Web site is www.doenetwork.us, operated by The Doe Network, an International Center for Unidentified & Missing Persons. The center, formed in 1999, calls itself a volunteer group that works with law enforcement agencies to solve cold cases, including unexplained disappearances like that of Grisim, and unidentified victims in North America, Europe and Australia.

"It is our mission to give the nameless back their names and return the missing to their families," the Web site says.

In the next two or three weeks, Buckner said, he hopes to receive DNA testing results to see if the skull matches another girl, Cherie Wyant, who disappeared at age 14 in 1978. Wyant, who also called herself Cherie Larson, had lived in California and Clark County.

Like Lara, Wyant's sister, Jackie Schille, has been hoping to learn something.

"I'll be disappointed either way, but at least we would know," Schille told The Columbian last year.

Anyone with information about missing persons who might have resembled the image made from the skull is asked to call Detective Rick Buckner at 877-CRIME11.

John Branton covers crime and law enforcement for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-759-8012 or john.branton@columbian.com.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-23300141.html