by Robert Scott
The amazing part of all this was that in the 1980s, David Gerard began hanging around with one of Billy Gohl’s great-nieces. In fact, she would become one of Gerard’s staunchest advocates, still believing in him while many, many others only thought of him as a man who became enraged and then murdered. This young woman would maintain these feelings toward Gerard even after the news about Frankie Cochran became public knowledge. She spoke of him as being a “good person. Fun to be with, and a nice guy.” Information about this great-niece of Billy Gohl’s eventually was passed on to Lane, and he found it remarkable that David Gerard always seemed to have connections to so many various people, living and dead, around the area. Lane Youmans said, “Lots and lots of people I spoke with said they knew of David Gerard. But very few said that they knew him very well. He was like a shadow moving through the area.”
If the Young Street Bridge was emblematic of Kurt Cobain, and one of his most frequent haunts, then the Red Barn Restaurant in Grand Mound became that place of choice for David Gerard. He spoke later of getting alcoholic drinks there by the time he was fourteen years old. Due to his exaggeration at times, this probably isn’t true, but he certainly was drinking beers there a few years later. The Red Barn became Gerard’s home away from home. It would also become his hunting ground for females. In fact, he would meet Frankie Cochran there and possibly one other girlfriend before her.
It was certainly the location where he met Frankie Cochran when she was working as a waitress. But even more intriguingly, it was also the place where a family named Strasbaugh ran that restaurant during the 1980s. And it just so happened that one of the Strasbaugh daughters named Roberta would go missing for a few weeks in the surrounding area. Only later would her remains be found on an isolated road in Lewis County. Just the type of isolated road where Frankie told Lane Youmans that Gerard was always driving on. Just the type of road where female bodies started showing up with some regularity.
Another location of extreme importance for Kurt Cobain and David Gerard was the Thriftway store in Montesano. In 1983, as Kurt recalled later, he showed up there one day to be given a flyer for a free rock concert behind the store in a parking lot. The band turned out to be the Melvins, playing their version of punk rock. Kurt was absolutely entranced by the hard-driving sound. Within a few years, the Melvins would be one of the first important bands playing the “Northwest sound.” What was remarkable was the fact that David Gerard, in 1998, would pull off one of his most audacious crimes at that very same Thriftway store. It would take a combination of Lane Youmans and Frankie Cochran to detail just what Gerard had done there. And when Lane learned about this, he shook his head at Gerard’s audacity.
While Kurt Cobain honed his skills on guitar, David Gerard stumbled on from one low-paying job to another. Then in July 1985, both Gerard and Cobain would have an intersection of importance that concerned law enforcement. Gerard was constantly being cited for misdemeanors concerning DUIs, public drunkenness and other “nuisance crimes.” On July 23, 1985, Kurt had his own run-in with the Aberdeen Police Department. Unlike Gerard, Kurt did not graduate to felonies, but he certainly had his run-ins with local law enforcement.
Kurt and three other guys were on Market Street in Aberdeen, marking graffiti on the wall of a business building. It was not the smartest place to be doing something like this, since the building was only one block from the police department. APD detective Michael Bens just happened to be driving by and spotted the foursome. The four young men spotted Bens jumping out of his vehicle, and three of them took off. Kurt, though, was rooted in place, perhaps shocked by the sudden appearance of the detective. Arrested and booked at the police department, Kurt was let go when he promised to pay a $180 fine.
Chronically short of cash, Cobain had not paid the $180 by May 18, 1986, when he was arrested again. This time it was for public intoxication while he was stumbling around on top of a downtown Aberdeen building. Since he hadn’t paid the fine, Kurt was booked into the jail. Since he had no money at all, Kurt spent the next eight days in jail.
What is intriguing with both Kurt Cobain and David Gerard was what they didn’t get arrested for. Tavern patrons who knew Gerard very well would later tell of his “light-fingered” ways. Wanting only to tell their first names, bar patron Larry said, “David was always stealing stuff. When he was drunk, he’d brag about it. I didn’t doubt that he was doing it. He didn’t make a lot of money from his jobs.” Fellow customer Ed agreed with this assessment. He said, “Gerard was a scrounger. He was always getting into stupid situations.”
Jeff Myers, who would later become Hoquiam’s police chief, also picked up on this theme of stealing by David Gerard. Myers said, “Gerard was a suspect in a 1982 robbery and 1984 burglary. In 1990, he was the suspect in a theft. He always seemed to be getting into some kind of trouble. But it wasn’t learned until much later, what kind of really serious trouble he could get into.” And Lane later would learn of Gerard’s most boneheaded theft. Gerard was working for Ocean Spray when a bunch of their Thanksgiving turkeys were stolen. The trail led back to Gerard as the thief, and he was fired.
Stupid situations were the hallmarks of Kurt Cobain’s life in Aberdeen and Hoquiam. For both Kurt and David, there was always an aspect of not thinking things through, but rather just acting on impulse. For Kurt, it would lead to flights of inspiration and insight. For David, it would often just lead to violence.
In 1987, Kurt took a huge step that would change his life and that of the rock world. He left for Olympia, Washington, with its college-town atmosphere and milieu of progressive bands. Kurt would never live in Grays Harbor County again. Within a few years, Kurt and the band Nirvana would take the music scene by storm and, arguably, become the most important rock band of the early 1990s.
On February 6, 1994, on the day that Elaine McCollum was murdered, Kurt Cobain was in a reflective mood and writing lyrics for his upcoming album. He also wrote a few pages of autobiographical material that covered his younger years in Aberdeen, Hoquiam and Montesano. On the same day that Elaine died beneath the wheels of a car, Kurt penned, Thanks to unencouraging parents everywhere, for giving their children the will to show them up. By that point Kurt was indeed showing his parents up, by being at the height of worldwide fame. David Gerard would also show his parents up, not by music but by murder.
In later years there was one word that more than any other would be repeated by ordinary people who knew Kurt Cobain and David Gerard in downtown Aberdeen. The word was “weird.” They spoke of Kurt as being a “weird kid” and David as being a “weird guy.” Both of them were constantly prowling the streets of downtown Aberdeen, day and night, like alley cats. They both seemed to be restless, searching for something. Even now, there were still plenty of people in downtown Aberdeen who had known both young men. For Kurt, his journey would take him to the heights of stardom and eventually suicide. For David, it would take him to murder and a life behind prison bars.
Just as Kurt Cobain was in so many places on Aberdeen’s streets and on Grays Harbor County’s back roads, so was David Gerard. In fact, their paths intertwined and melded and ran in parallel lines. Kurt bounced between homes in Aberdeen, Hoquiam, Montesano and Cosmopolis. And if anything, David Gerard bounced around even more, as if he were being pushed around by a strong wind.
Lane always liked to believe that an enormous storm, known as the Columbus Day Storm of 1962, presaged the advent of David Allen Gerard into the world. In mid October of that year, Typhoon Frieda developed in the tropical western Pacific. As it moved northward, it veered around a very cold air mass moving down from the Gulf of Alaska. Once it did this, wind speeds started picking up and Frieda slammed into the Oregon and Washington Coasts. Sustained winds were clocked at 150 miles per hour, and one gust reached 179 miles per hour near Cape Blanco.
By the time Frieda ripped through the area, forty-eight people had perished, and damage costing over $6 billion in today’s terms had occurred. It was a storm the National W
eather Service considered to be “the benchmark of all Pacific Coast windstorms, against which all others are compared.” Two weeks later, on November 23, 1962, David Gerard was born.
The Gerard home, not unlike that of the Cobain home, became unglued at some point. Most of the reporting on this came from David himself, so it had to be taken with a grain of salt. He later spoke of abuse by both parents, though his siblings did not. Of course, by the time he spoke of this abuse, he was trying to mitigate actions he had taken, especially concerning murder and attempted murder.
What is known is that once his father left home, David and his siblings lived with their mother in a housing project in Aberdeen. And something occurred there when David was a teenager that was dark and half-hidden in rumor. A woman named Nora, who lived near the Gerards, heard a story that David had molested a very young girl in the projects. Nora didn’t know this for a certainty, but she didn’t discount it. Nora considered David to be “weird.” She also thought he was a bully to those who were smaller than him and a coward toward those who were larger than him. To say the least, she did not like him, even when he was a teenager.
David certainly did not like school. He never did well in any subject, and by the time he was in the eighth grade, he dropped out of school for good. Neither he nor Kurt Cobain ever got a high-school diploma. What followed for Gerard was a long line of low-paying jobs all around the area. Later court documents would tell of his low IQ, and even friends would describe him as “slow.” The one thing that Gerard liked to do more than anything else was to go hunting. He was good at it, and bagged his share of deer, elk and even bear. And true to form, more often than not, he didn’t bother buying a hunting license. Instead, he just sneaked off into the woods somewhere.
Next to hunting, his other passion was driving. Not to any specific location—just driving. The roads took him up north to Forks and Olympic National Park. West to Ocean Shores, and east to Elma and Olympia. South to Pacific County and down to Lewis County. He could do it for hours on end, almost in a trance. Being inside his vehicle might have been the one place he felt safe and not put upon by others. And when he drove, it would be from cafés to bars to roads, out into the most distant parts of the county and beyond. Isolated roads that only locals seemed to know about. Frankie would later say that she lost all sense of direction while riding around with him. She added, “I don’t know if he was looking for something or hiding from something.”
On September 11, 1984, the Hoquiam Police Department (HPD) received a phone call about a domestic disturbance at a residence on Arnold Street. Officer S. Wood drove to that location and talked with Donna Gerard, who told him that her son David had struck her son Donald with his fists. In fact, David had hit Donald so hard, that Donald was now hiding out in a bathroom, behind a locked door. Donna also indicated that she had been shoved against a wall by David when she tried to intervene.
Officer Wood, Officer Kinney and Sergeant Maloney all walked into the house to the back portion of the residence, where David was standing outside a bathroom yelling, “I’m going to get you!”
Officer Wood asked who David was talking about, but he would not state a name, or even look at Officer Wood. Wood wrote later: His eyes were fixed on the bathroom door. He also appeared to be very angry and tense.
Because of the things Donna Gerard had told Officer Wood, and David’s continued bizarre and angry behavior, David was placed under arrest. In fact, David was so intent upon his mission of beating his brother, he barely acknowledged the officers at all. At first, he would not respond, but eventually submitted to being arrested when the fairly new domestic violence law was explained to him. Without any further trouble David was taken to the station by Officer Kinney and booked into jail.
Meanwhile, Officer Wood took a statement by Donald Gerard of what had just occurred. Donald was so rattled by the incident, he was still shaking when he spoke with Wood. Donald said that he and David were watching television, and David left the room. When David left, Donald changed the channel to HBO. David came back into the living room and turned the channel back to where it had been before, telling Donald that if he changed the channel again without asking, he’d “knock” his brother’s “block off.”
Maybe just to irk David, Donald did get up and changed the television channel once again. Without a word David walked over and struck Donald in the head twice. Donald was not only stunned by this, but angry as well. He went over and unplugged the cable attached to the television. When that occurred, David became extremely angry and punched Donald in the nose, making it bleed. In fact, he hit him so hard that Donald fell down and the television crashed to the floor. Then David started striking Donald in the side as his brother lay on the floor. Mrs. Gerard heard all the commotion and ran into the room to restrain David. While she did so, Donald got up and ran into the bathroom, where he locked himself inside.
Taking a statement from Donna, Officer Wood learned that Donna heard a crash in the living room and ran there to see the television set on the floor, and David striking Donald with his fists. When Donald got up and ran to the bathroom, David followed him. Donna tried restraining David in the hallway, but he pushed her up against a wall. While that was going on, Donald managed to lock the bathroom door.
David didn’t help his cause any by telling Officer Kinney in the police department booking room that he had planned on going bear hunting that day, but now his day had been ruined. David said that if he had to spend time in jail, he was going back and “get Donald.” At the booking room David’s height was measured at five-ten and his weight as 205 pounds. In bulk he held a substantial advantage over his mother, Donna, and brother Donald.
In the end neither Donald nor Donna wanted to press charges against David. They signed waivers, which were sent on to the County Prosecutor’s office. Officer Wood told them about restraining orders, which could be placed against David, which would make him keep his distance from them, or be arrested all over again if he disobeyed the order. But it did not appear that they wanted a restraining order.
Eventually Donald filled out a form that stated in part: I, Donald Gerard, do hereby authorize the Hoquiam Police Department not to prosecute David Gerard regarding my complaint. I am satisfied with the manner in which the investigation was conducted. I release the City of Hoquiam, its officers and agents and the Police Department of any responsibility regarding this complaint.
This was the only official incident to come to light about David Gerard’s younger years and trouble with the law. But there were rumors that went around his neighborhood about David and his strange ways. Detective Parfitt later said, “I talked to some ‘tavern girls’ in downtown Aberdeen. Some of them knew Gerard. The common theme was how ‘weird’ he was. They recalled him mostly sitting alone at the bar and staring at them. He gave them the creeps.”
Gerard also gave Jeff Myers the “creeps.” Myers would one day become Hoquiam’s police chief. Before he was with the HPD, Myers recalled, he worked as a sheriff’s office deputy. Myers often patrolled the back roads of Grays Harbor County. On several occasions he gave David Gerard speeding tickets. These occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Myers recollected, “When he was pulled over, he always seemed to be in a different vehicle and on a different road. He had an odd way of looking right through you. He was one of those guys I would not turn my back on. Literally. After giving him the ticket, I would walk backward to my patrol car, never turning my back on him. I just didn’t trust what he might do.”
In time Jeff Myers and the other cops would learn that David Gerard had a habit of wrecking his vehicles over the years. He wrecked his T-Bird when he lost control of it and ran into a ditch. Frankie said that he was always drinking and driving. He wrecked his Metro when he hit a deer. When Lane Youmans saw the insurance photos on the Metro, he said, “He really smacked something.”
Gerard was just as careless with his employment as he was with his vehicles. According to Lane, Gerard lost a job at Kmart for stealin
g and another job at Ocean Spray for stealing. In both cases the police weren’t called. Gerard was just terminated for his habit of taking things that weren’t his. In time the taking of things would include taking people’s lives.
11
LANE
David Gerard and Lane Youmans had two things in common; both their parents had divorced when the boys were teenagers, and both teens went to Hoquiam High School. But that was where the similarities ended. Lane’s family had all been involved in public service in the area. Lane’s dad, Rolland “Omar” Youmans, was mayor of Hoquiam at one point, and later a Grays Harbor County commissioner. Lane’s mother, Jackie Youmans, worked as a retail clerk at La Vogues store in Hoquiam, and she also worked on election boards and was a senior companion. Lane’s brother, Paul, was the head of the Community Action Program in Aberdeen for many years, and later worked for the Cowlitz County Economic Development Council.
Lane related, “I wanted to get into law enforcement ever since the fifth grade at Central Grade School. I was a patrol boy, working as a crossing guard, and the Hoquiam police officers would drive by and wave. I’d picture myself driving in one of those cars and being a police officer someday. When I was seventeen, I became a Police Explorer for the Aberdeen Police Department, which gave me my first real taste of police work. After graduation from Hoquiam High School in 1971, I attended Grays Harbor College, where I met and fell in love with Terri, who would become my wife.”
