by Robert Scott
By the next morning after the body had been discovered, detectives had received information that a woman named Carol Leighton had been reported missing by her ex-husband. The woman in the mortuary seemed to match Carol’s description. Carol’s ex-husband, Robert “Bob” Leighton, had read an article in the Daily World about a woman murdered on the Weyco Haul Road. Even though Bob and Carol were no longer married, they were on good terms with each other, and he had driven her into Aberdeen on the day she was murdered. He had let her off at the city’s public library, because she said she wanted to use a computer there to put a résumé together for future job opportunities. Carol told him she would take the transit bus back to Westport that evening, where they lived. She never arrived there, though.
Carol had been living in Arizona for a while, but she had recently returned to Grays Harbor County, and Bob let her stay in a camper that sat behind his house in Westport. He told her she could stay in the camper until she found a job and got back on her feet. Bob knew that Carol had an addiction to heroin, but he still cared for her. He just wasn’t going to take her back in for good.
After hearing from Bob Leighton, the detectives checked Carol’s background and learned that she did have an arrest record. Carol had turned to prostitution to support her drug habit, and she had been arrested several times in relation to that. Lane took some postmortem prints from the Weyco Haul Road Jane Doe and matched them to the fingerprints on file at the sheriff’s office. The dead woman was definitely Carol Leighton.
The article Bob Leighton had read in the Daily World had run a headline declaring, BODY DISCOVERED NEAR COSI (short for Cosmopolis). The article told of a woman, as yet unidentified to the newspaper, being found on the Weyco Haul Road. It noted that an autopsy would soon be performed, and that preliminary investigation revealed the woman had “suffered wounds from some type of cutting instrument,” according to Undersheriff Rick Scott.
Undersheriff Scott revealed something else as well. Scott told a reporter that the body had been discovered about 8:30 A.M. by motorists taking a shortcut from the Blue Slough Road down the Weyco Haul Road. They did not work for the Weyerhauser Company as logging truck drivers. These individuals drove into Cosmopolis and told a police officer what they had discovered. The police officer followed them back to the body, and then they called the GHSO, since this was in the sheriff’s jurisdiction.
The article went on to report that the dead woman was Caucasian, with shoulder-length brown hair and a medium build. She was possibly in her late twenties or early thirties. She had been wearing a red flannel shirt, a blue sweatshirt or pullover blouse, blue jeans and Birkenstock-style sandals. It was this description that made Bob Leighton believe the dead woman might have been his ex-wife, Carol. Unfortunately for Carol, he was right.
Rick Scott added one more intriguing bit of information. He said the sheriff’s office was trying to find out if this murder had anything to do with a stolen vehicle they had discovered a few miles from the scene on Blue Slough Road. Nothing yet tied that vehicle to the murder scene, except that it had occurred around the same time, and was abandoned in the general area. Scott told a reporter: “We’re treating them as separate incidents, but obviously we’re being very attentive to see if there is a connection.”
The autopsy of Carol Leighton was performed by Dr. Immanuel Lacsina who had been the medical examiner for Pierce County, and was now a private forensic pathologist. The same procedures were followed as in the Elaine McCollum case. Lane Youmans took photos of the woman’s body clothed, and as each item was removed. Each article of clothing was documented, placed in a separate bag and tagged.
As the articles of clothing were removed, the pockets were searched and all contents were packaged separately. A total of $30 was removed from the right back pocket of Carol’s jeans. The bills had been folded in half and a nickel was also found in the pocket. A small bar of motel soap was found in the left back pocket. It was not wrapped, and embossed upon it was the Camay logo. In Carol’s shirt pockets there were two opened packages of GPC cigarettes, along with two disposable lighters.
After all the clothing was removed, and the items from the clothing catalogued, Lane took photographs of Carol’s body. Meanwhile, Dr. Lacsina measured and examined each injury and spoke into a small recorder about each one. That procedure took over an hour as there were stab wounds on her front and back in an apparently random pattern. She had several stab wounds on her face, ten on her chest between her breasts, five in the area of her vagina and a scattering of other stab wounds on her stomach, legs, back and buttocks. The left side of her head was then shaved, revealing stab wounds there as well.
There was a deep cut across the front of Carol’s throat that appeared to go from right to left in a sawing motion. The neck wound was the main source of the large pool of blood found at the murder scene on the road. That blood had also covered her face, chest and hands. Both Dr. Lacsina and Lane Youmans agreed that the neck wound had been one of the first inflicted, since the other wounds had not bled very much after that lethal injury. These other wounds were typified as perimortem and postmortem, meaning they were inflicted when she was dying or already dead.
Dr. Lacsina removed the paper bags Lane had placed on Carol’s hands to see if there were any defensive wounds there. There was a bruise about the size of a quarter on the back of her left hand. She had probably been struck on the head at some point, and may have raised her left hand to try and protect her head area.
The knife used in the attack had probably not been very sharp, if judged by the wounds and the sawing effect upon Carol’s throat. The majority of stab wounds were superficial, although one of the stab wounds to her chest had penetrated deeply enough to strike a lung. Dr. Lacsina concluded that Carol Leighton had died as a result of blood loss from the neck injury.
During the postmortem exam Dr. Lacsina also produced a rape kit, which consisted of hair samples; vaginal, oral and anal swabs; and fingernail clippings. Once the autopsy was completed, Lane took the evidence to the sheriff’s office evidence room, where Carol’s clothing was spread out on butcher paper to let them dry. All while the autopsy was going on, other GHSO detectives were contacting people who knew Carol Leighton. As they did so, a picture began to emerge about Carol’s last hours.
After Bob Leighton had dropped Carol off at the library, she didn’t use the library computer, as she told him she would. Instead, she contacted a friend of hers named Carol C and purchased some heroin. Leighton then went about collecting some more money in order to purchase more heroin. She went to various places around Aberdeen throughout the day, until about 10:00 P.M., and was last seen at the Time Out Tavern. She refused to pay the $2 cover charge, then left the tavern. Previous to that, she had been seen at Mac’s, a downtown Aberdeen tavern, which was situated right across the street from the Smoke Shop, where Elaine McCollum had last been seen before her murder. It appeared that Carol Leighton may have been picked up by a driver in downtown Aberdeen, as Elaine had been, and was then taken out to the Weyco Haul Road. Unlike Elaine, who had to have wondered why she was being driven that way, Carol, who was a sometimes prostitute, probably assumed she was being taken out there for sex with a john.
As time went on, the detectives were able to put together a very accurate timeline of Carols’ last movements. In a report Lane Youmans created, he noted:
12:42 P.M.: Bob Leighton drops off Carol at the Aberdeen Library. He then purchases eight-foot 4x4 lumber at Ernst. A receipt in his residence indicates time of purchase.
Early afternoon: Carol visits Carol C on East Market Street, where she visits for twenty minutes.
Between 1:00 and 2:30 P.M.: Carol Leighton purchases heroin from Dwight W, and they make arrangements to meet at 7 to 7:30 P.M. so she can purchase more.
4:30 to 4:45 P.M.: Anita B sees Carol walking from Mac’s Tavern to possibly the Silver Dollar Tavern.
Between 5:00 and 7:00 P.M.: Carol C finds a message on her answering machine from Carol Leig
hton advising her that she would get ahold of her later.
Between 7:00 and 7:30 P.M.: Leighton is supposed to have dinner with Nadine J at Nadine’s house. But she does not show.
The picture starting to come together for the GHSO detectives was that Carol had been driven about a mile and a half down the Weyco Haul Road, where the vehicle turned around, facing west. There was no shoulder on the road, so they parked in the middle of the road. At that time of night there was no traffic on the road, and the whole area was secluded, hidden by dense forest. Carol and her customer had sex, and either he or she dropped the used condom and condom wrapper onto the road, and cleaned themselves up with McDonald’s napkins.
As they were heading back toward Aberdeen, the vehicle suddenly stopped. The detectives had learned by now that Carol sometimes ripped off her johns by stealing their wallets, and it was wondered if she had done that on the Weyco Haul Road. She was also known to carry a small knife in her purse. People who knew her said that she either carried that knife in her purse or strapped to a leg. It was wondered if Carol had pulled the knife on her john, but he had overpowered her and then killed her with her own weapon. In fact, he had not just killed her; he had slaughtered her in a towering rage.
Lane Youmans said later, “She was stuck a mile from civilization on a logging road with no escape. The suspect struck her several times on the head, and she put her hand up to protect herself. She was disarmed, and was probably on her hands and knees. The suspect took her knife, then cut her throat and began stabbing her in what could only be described as a frenzy. The scenario made sense, but we had to prove it with the evidence that was collected.”
Lane later noted the work done by Detective Matt Organ, who started spending a lot of time in the downtown Aberdeen area, talking to bar patrons and especially prostitutes who knew Carol. Lane said, “Matt spent a lot of evenings with the prostitutes, buying them cigarettes and hamburgers to gain their confidence. He was able to identify a number of their regular customers. One of the most helpful on giving information about Carol was a prostitute named Nadine J. Nadine and Carol were friends.”
Nadine told Matt that she would sometimes work with Carol and provide security for her. Nadine even said that sometimes she would hide underneath a bed at a local motel while Carol was with a john. Nadine added that Carol generally carried a knife for protection, either in her purse or in her pants.
Matt also found out from Aberdeen prostitutes that Carol did not permit oral sex or anal sex, and that generally she only had a few “dates” per night. But as Carol’s heroin addiction progressed, she might have upped to ten clients per night, and her rules about oral and anal sex became less stringent if she was desperate for money.
Another article appeared in the Daily World reporting that the dead woman had been a resident of Westport. Rick Scott told the reporter, “I would say this is a very horrific crime. This woman was killed in a very brutal fashion and we’re working very hard to determine who is responsible for this.” Scott went on to say that he thought the woman had lain by the side of the road for about eight hours before being discovered. He asked that anyone with information about Carol Leighton’s last movements call the sheriff’s office.
Scott said that Carol did have a criminal record in Grays Harbor County, and that some of it was related to drugs. He added that he didn’t know if that had anything to do with her death. And he told the reporter they were still looking into the matter of the stolen car left abandoned by the side of Blue Slough Road. That vehicle was determined to have been stolen in Seattle.
By the next day’s newspaper there were a few more details about Carol Leighton. It was reported by her sister that “she had a good head on her shoulders, but a monkey on her back.” When Carol had been murdered, she had been in the process of trying to get off welfare and kick her drug habit.
Carol’s sister, Ruby, spoke of both their very traumatic childhoods. Ruby said that they had been molested and abused as children. As Carol grew older, she dealt with these problems in a more confrontational and combative style than Ruby. Carol would fight back, both verbally and physically in many situations in her life. Sometimes this anger in Carol would bubble to the surface at inappropriate times. For one so young, she had a lot of baggage to carry with her.
Things seemed to get better for Carol when she got married as a young woman and had a son. Carol was a loving mother and very protective of her son, knowing how harsh the world could be to a young person. But eventually the marriage failed, and part of the reason may have been Carol’s new-found taste for illegal drugs. Drugs were Carol’s way of escaping from her demons—demons that continued to haunt her from the things she had endured. Carol could overcome many things, but as time went by, drugs were not one of them.
Carol married again, this time to Bob Leighton, who was a good guy who loved her. But that marriage failed as well, mainly due to her drug use. Even though she tried several times to kick the habit and went to drug rehabilitation centers, she could never overcome that hurdle. By the 1990s, Carol was hooked on heroin.
Ruby said of Carol, “She was smart and caring. But she had these things she could not overcome. At least Carol was a good person and truly loved her son. She cared about others, too, and would stick up for them. But she had that battle with drugs that she just couldn’t seem to win, no matter how hard she tried. It made her do things she wouldn’t have otherwise done.”
In this last reference, Ruby may have been referring to Carol becoming a prostitute in order to fund her drug use.
Carol’s ex-husband, Bob, agreed with that assessment as well. The newspaper noted that Bob Leighton was not a suspect in Carol’s murder. Bob said, “She wanted to be self-supporting. She didn’t want to have to rely on other people.” He added that she had been addicted to “opiates” for some years, but “she was doing better now, as far as I knew.” Bob added that he didn’t socialize much with his ex-wife around Aberdeen. He said that she was “free to come and go.” Bob added that sometimes she would spend nights with her friends in Aberdeen, but when she did that, she almost always phoned and let him know she wasn’t coming home for the night.
Another person who knew Carol was a former counselor who had met her when she got a DUI in the early 1980’s in Washington state. This former counselor spoke of Carol being at an AA dance and about the charisma she radiated. “There was something in the way she walked. A rhythm, a kind of grace.” He added, “Carol had a physical magnetism that was eventually her undoing. She told me that an AA counselor in California had once told her, ‘The way you walk is a character defect.’ She was puzzled. I knew what he meant by that, but I wouldn’t have wanted it changed.
“What attracted me to Carol the most was a connection to her as an emotional being. There are only one or two other people I’ve known whose emotional vibrations I could feel as I did Carol’s. Her pleasure, when she was happy was spontaneous and contagious. I’m sure that’s what her husband, Robert (Leighton) saw in her. But the combination of the early trauma, her fatal attractiveness to the opposite sex, and the addiction were things she couldn’t overcome.”
One of Bob Leighton’s last comments in the newspaper, gave a clue as to what might have happened on the Weyco Haul Road. He said, “She would stick up for herself. She wouldn’t back down if somebody gave her a bad time.” Rick Scott, Lane Youmans and the other detectives wondered if Carol had been given a bad time, not backed down, and been murdered for the consequence of sticking up for herself. The stab wounds on her body went far beyond what had been necessary to kill her.
9
STAKEOUT
Lane Youmans later signed out the evidence and took it to the old jail, which had been built during the early 1900s and was now used for GHSO storage. In the center of the three-story building, there was a large room that had once been the exercise yard. It provided Lane with a secure area where he could spread out the evidence and let it air-dry. In Aberdeen’s wet, moist climate if that step wasn�
�t taken, the items could easily mold, destroying key DNA evidence. Lane photographed every item of clothing once again on both sides, and after it had dried properly, each item was folded up with the butcher paper and returned to the evidence bag. The butcher paper was collected to insure that any trace evidence that had transferred from the clothing to the paper was collected as well. The photographs were essential so that if any questions arose about pieces of clothing, the photographs could be referred to without having to open up the collection bags every time. The less times they were opened, the better.
Once the initial examinations were done, Lane placed the collection bags into paper evidence bags and sealed each one with evidence tape, writing his initials and date on the tape. This was also important. If the evidence ever went to trial, a defense lawyer would want to know every person who ever looked within the bag and may have handled the item inside.
Lane knew that most items were going to be sent to the WSP Crime Lab, but some would be sent to the FBI Laboratory in Virginia. As the evidence bags made their way around the country, they would collect various colored evidence tape seals. GHSO seals were red; WSP seals were blue; FBI seals were yellow.
As Lane was photographing Carol’s jeans, he noticed what appeared to be a bloody handprint on the upper left thigh. Lane surmised the handprint may have come from the perpetrator’s right hand, with the fingers pointing toward Carol’s head. This may have occurred when he spread Carol’s legs apart so that he could stab her vaginal region.
Lane also noted a bloody finger mark on the back of the lower right leg of her pants. Carol had been moved around by her killer, and his hands were most likely covered with blood after he had slashed her throat. There were some small spots of blood on Carol’s front pants legs that had either been caused by blood dripping from the knife, or the suspect may have even cut himself while butchering her, and it was his blood that had landed on her pants. This latter possibility would be a great help to Lane and the other detectives, if that were the case.
