by Robert Scott
Lane said of the Websleuths, “The people on the cold-case forums spend many hours going through all of the missing and unidentified persons reports. They do help exclude possible matches. And they dwell on very minor details.”
In fact, a few Websleuths on the Elma Jane Doe forum had some very cogent comments and questions, and Lane addressed these on the forum. One person asked Lane if he saw any connection between David Gerard and the Elma Jane Doe murder. This person noted that Gerard’s murders had been known for their degree of violence, but that the MOs always seemed to change. In one murder there had been a fire; in another, a vehicle had been used; in yet another, the woman had been stabbed to death. This person had read somewhere about a bone being broken on the Elma Jane Doe and he asked if this had been an accident or done by the perpetrator.
Lane replied: Gerard hasn’t been excluded as a suspect. Her jaw was broken peri mortem (at the time of her death). She was shot in the head. Animals scattered the body, and half her skull was never recovered. Her eyes sat close together on the clay sculpture, but it was a guess based on the remaining skull. A forensic anthropologist said she could either be Native American or South East Asian based upon the skull.
Flyers were sent to every Indian tribe in the US and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.The remains had been found in a wooded area known for chanterelle mushrooms, and we have many Asians pick those mushrooms. She was 200 feet from the end of a logging spur, five miles back into the woods from the nearest paved road.
Another person on Websleuths had picked up about the Elma Jane Doe wearing nice shoes and clothing while out in the woods. This person was someone who picked chanterelle mushrooms as well. She told Lane that it would be extremely unexpected for a mushroom hunter to be out in the woods wearing nice clothing and jewelry as well. She mused that the Elma Jane Doe had not expected to be brought to that location, since she was wearing such inappropriate clothing for the occasion.
Lane replied: The clothing and jewelry didn’t fit a mushroom picker, but you never know.
This same Websleuth wrote back that her first thought had been that the Elma Jane Doe was Vietnamese. She conjectured that the person who took Jane Doe out to the isolated spot must have been there before. She noted that the killer hadn’t even hidden the body very well, since it was off the beaten track and not likely to be discovered for a while.
In yet another e-mail to Lane, the person who had previously asked about a possible connection between David Gerard and the Elma Jane Doe killing said he was just musing out loud, but the Elma Jane Doe killing sounded more cold-blooded and planned to him than most of Gerard’s murders. It seemed to this person that Gerard would generally burst into a rage and then murder. Then he asked if any more details could be given about Jane Doe’s clothing.
Lane wrote back: A woman’s long sleeve shirt was found, inside out, hanging on a branch about twenty feet from the body. She died with the rest of her clothing on.The top was a floral print shirt, black jeans that were still zipped up. The clothing was casual. Nothing fancy. The shoes are sold at K-Mart stores. A forensic podiatrist estimated that she had only worn them a short time.The whole area is frequented by mushroom, deer and elk hunters.There is an extensive logging road system, and one would need to know where they were going.
The body was 200 feet from the end of the spur road, down a hill. She either crawled under some bushes and logs to try and hide, or she was murdered and logs were stacked over her. She wasn’t dumped there. It’s too far to carry a body through difficult terrain, and evidence tells me she was murdered where she was found.
Once again the person who knew something about chanterelle mushroom hunting posted a note. She told Lane that there was a very specific season for them, and the land did have to have a certain slope. She asked if he knew if this was a perfect site to find chanterelles. And she also asked how from the evidence at hand, he saw the murder going down.
Lane posted back: The whole area is hilly, and there are a lot of slopes there where chanterelles grow. The woman was killed in either spring, summer or early fall. There was no coat found. Some serial killers will change methods of killing. Their MO will evolve. There is, however, one signature that will not change.The ritual they follow. It could be a physical act or something else.There are some details I cannot discuss. But I firmly believe that if we identify her, we will find who murdered her.
This last item was important. If the Elma Jane Doe had been a prostitute in an area that David Gerard was known to frequent, it put him one step closer to a probability as her killer. The new shoes, and expensive-for-their-era earrings, also pointed toward a non–mushroom picker. Why go out there and ruin new shoes, and possibly lose expensive earrings, when the woman could ill-afford to do so? If she had gone out to that area before, as Carol Leighton had to the Weyco Haul Road, to do a trick, then the Elma Jane Doe might not have been ill at ease as she rode as a passenger out to that remote location. A location where David Gerard had hunted in the past. A location he might have known well from his frequent wanderings all over the area. As Frankie Cochran had said, “He was always driving out on country and logging roads. He knew the area very well.”
As far as David Gerard’s life went after the conviction for the murder of Carol Leighton, he fell into a pattern that he hated. Gerard was routinely transferred from one prison to another around the United States. Mainly, this was due to overcrowding in some of the Washington State prisons. By 2008, Gerard was in the North Fork Correctional Facility in Sayre, Oklahoma. Sayre was in a locale about as different from Clallam Bay, Washington, as could be found. Situated on the windswept plains of western Oklahoma, it was closer to the Texas Panhandle than to Oklahoma City.
The North Fork Correctional Facility was one of a new breed of correctional facilities in the United States. It wasn’t run by the federal or state government. Instead, it was privately owned. North Fork was part of a chain of correctional facilities run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). And just as the name implied, the entity was a business and its stock even traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
One thing about CCA—it had a good reputation in the correctional field. The guards, known as correctional officers (COs), were taught to interact with inmates to ease tensions before they started. And since there wasn’t overcrowding, there tended to be less stressful situations than in government-run prisons. One of CCA’s statements read, Correctional officers listen to needs and follow up on concerns to quell disputes and incidents before they arise.
By 2008, CCA had 75,000 offenders in sixty facilities nationwide. In the North Fork facility David Gerard shared the space with 1,400 other inmates and 245 staff personnel. If he’d wanted to, he could have accessed educational programs at North Fork. These included academic education, vocational training and life skills education. Yet, as Lane remarked, “I doubted that Gerard was into these sorts of things. He was never very interested in any sort of formal education.” It’s more likely that he took part in the recreational facility that offered card games and board games.
On May 26, 2008, Gerard wrote a letter to the Grays Harbor Superior Court. Once again he was seeking transcripts and the sentence report on Frankie Cochran’s case. He just wouldn’t let it go. He also seemed to be in a peevish mood. He wrote, I have previously written you three times seeking same, but obviously those letters must have gone astray.
Whatever the outcome of this matter, David Gerard soon found himself on the move once again. Never one for enjoying change, he must have been less than happy to find himself going from one prison facility to another on such a regular basis. This time it was a move clear back to Washington State. But the area he ended up at was more like Sayre, Oklahoma, than Clallam Bay. It was near the town of Connell, Washington, in the eastern part of the state. Gerard was once again housed in a facility on a wide, open prairie. Another relatively new facility, it was run by the state of Washington, and not a private entity. And just as at North Fork, Gerard was offered
educational courses. These included stress and anger management and something called “Getting It Right.”
Yet, as usual, Gerard preferred to be by himself and work on the one thing that consumed so much of his time and energy: overturning the thirty-seven-year sentencing for the attempted murder of Frankie Cochran.
Frankie Cochran enjoyed living in the assisted-living center in Aberdeen. But she always loved the country filled with farms and forests more. And Frankie liked surrounding herself with animals. The assisted-living center only allowed Frankie to have one cat.
In 2009, Frankie moved to a small town north of Aberdeen, where she continued to get on with her life. And as always, Frankie became a bit of a local celebrity—the woman who had cheated death on a milking shed floor. It wasn’t long before everyone in the area knew the woman who hobbled around, unsteadily at times, but kept going. Her body still ached, and she got around with a cane a lot of the time, but she got around without the aid of a wheelchair—something many in the medical field originally thought she would be confined to for the rest of her life. Frankie had promised herself not to be bound by one, and she’d kept good on her promise, despite a great deal of pain and struggle.
A reporter went to see Frankie ten years after the attack that had nearly ended her life. She spoke to him about all the particulars of the assault and then had him feel the lump on her head where a four-inch piece of skull had been “superglued” back into place. As he did so, Frankie laughed and said, “I told you I was hardheaded.”
And Frankie, being Frankie, was as feisty as ever. She had pulled herself up from the abyss by her incredible will and determination. Frankie Cochran told the reporter, “I kept going because I didn’t want that SOB, David Gerard, to win.”
David Allen Gerard had brushes with the law even as a young man.
(Mug shot)
As a young girl, Frankie Cochran was bright, inquisitive, and adventurous.
(Photo courtesy of Frankie Cochran)
Frankie was a proud mother when her first child, a daughter, was born. She would eventually have two sons as well. (Photo courtesy of Frankie Cochran)
One day, in the town of Montesano, Gerard told Frankie that he had stolen a bank bag from a local Thriftway store and that he would hurt her if she ever told anyone. In a strange coincidence, Kurt Cobain jammed with his buddies behind the store. (Author photo)
When Frankie decided she wanted to work part time, Gerard became so upset about losing total control of her that he smashed most of her personal belongings. (Photo courtesy of Gray’s Harbor Sherriff’s Office)
Gerard grabbed Frankie and violently pulled her out of his vehicle during an argument. In response, Frankie threw hot coffee on Gerard’s chest. (Photo courtesy of Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office)
The deputy who took this photo believed that Gerard had bitten his own lips to make the injury look worse than it was. (Photo courtesy of Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office)
After Frankie threw coffee on Gerard, he took a hammer from a tool shed and threatened to kill her with it. A week later, he attempted to do just that. (Photo courtesy of Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office)
On March 17, 1999, Frankie was alone in the milking parlor at Clark’s Dairy, milking cows. Gerard sneaked in, hit Frankie in the head at least five times, and stabbed her in the neck. (Author photo)
A long streak of blood trailed down a concrete ramp in the milking barn where Frankie lay for hours before help arrived. (Photo courtesy of Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office)
The injuries to Frankie’s head from the hammer blows were massive. Few expected her to live through the ordeal. (Photo courtesy of Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office)
Frankie miraculously survived the attack, but it would take years of painful recovery to learn to walk again and use her arms. (Photo courtesy of Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office)
Gerard’s girlfriend, Patty Rodriguez, had two boys, Matthew and Joshua. (Photo courtesy of Matthew B. McDonnell)
Patty broke up with Gerard on February 14, 1995, at Muddy Waters Tavern in Aberdeen and threw some of his clothing at him in the parking lot. Hours later, Patty, her sons, and her mother Patricia McDonnell were dead. (Photo courtesy of Lane Youmans)
The remains of the house where Patty, her sons, and her mother died in a mysterious fire. (Photo courtesy of Matthew B. McDonnell)
Patty never made it down this burned-out hallway. Detective Lane Youmans believes that Gerard murdered Patty, her two boys, and her mother, and then set the house on fire to cover up his crimes. (Photo courtesy of Matthew B. McDonnell)
Elaine McCollum of Aberdeen had a typical childhood and attended Aberdeen High School. Although not a good friend of Gerard’s, she knew him. (Yearbook photo)
After an emotional breakdown, Elaine got back into the city life and often went to downtown taverns with her boyfriend, Dave Simmons. (DMV photo)
On February 5, 1991, Elaine went missing from a downtown Aberdeen tavern. The next day, her body was discovered on the Weyco (Timber Company) Haul Road outside of Aberdeen. She had been run over and crushed by the same type of large vehicle that Gerard owned at the time. (Author photo)
Carol Leighton’s sister said she was courageous and had an adventurous streak. (Yearbook photo)
Carol was arrested on August 19, 1993, in Aberdeen. (Photo courtesy of Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office)
Carol was last seen at Mac’s Tavern in downtown Aberdeen on the night of August 2, 1996. Elaine McCollum had been last seen across the street from Mac’s on the night she was murdered. (Author photo)
After the assault on Frankie Cochran, Detective Lane Youmans saw a photograph of a knife that Gerard had owned, according to Cochran. It looked like the same kind of knife that Carol had once owned. (Photo courtesy of Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office)
Detectives discovered that Gerard bought tires at the Aberdeen Les Schwab store, the same kind of tires that matched plaster casts of tread marks found on the Weyco Haul Road. (Author photo)
Detective Lane Youmans and Detective Matt Organ did a stakeout on the one-year anniversary of Carol’s murder. At midnight, someone drove by and honked their horn at the spot where Carol had died. Lane later showed the place where he’d made his observation post by the side of Weyco Haul Road. (Author photo)
Gerard was convicted of murder in 2005, after pleading guilty to the second-degree murder of Carol Leighton. (Mug shot)
Rumors would surface that Gerard buried a box of “keepsakes” near Lake Quinault, adjacent to Olympic National Park. According to Frankie Cochran, the box contained numerous photographs of women unknown to her, as well as women’s jewelry. (Author photo)
Eighteen-year-old Roberta Strasbaugh went missing in October 1985. Her parents owned the Little Red Barn Restaurant, one of Gerard’s favorite hangouts. Months later, her remains were found in a wooded area of Lewis County. (Author photo)
Seventeen-year-old Tracy West went missing while riding her motorbike to work on October 26, 1988. The following year, her skull was found two miles from where her motorbike had been discovered. Years later, Gerard became a suspect in her abduction and murder. (Yearbook photo)
Connie Rolls was a music fan and an accomplished artist. In January 1984, she disappeared from the streets of Aberdeen. A year later, her skull was found in a neighboring county. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Hansen)
Lane Youmans worked tirelessly to connect the murders of Carol Leighton, Elaine McCollum, Patty Rodriguez, Matthew Rodriguez, Joshua Rodriguez and Patricia McDonnell to David Gerard. (Photo courtesy of Terri Youmans)
The one person whom Gerard would talk to was Undersheriff Rick Scott. Both Gerard and Scott knew many people on the same farms and dairies of Grays Harbor County. (Photo courtesy of Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office)
Frankie and her caregiver Steve Jones fell in love and planned to get married, but Steve got cancer and it was Frankie, in a reversal of roles, who tended to him before he died. (Photo courtesy of Frankie Cochran)
Elaine M
cCollum is buried not far up the hill from Patty and the others in the same Aberdeen cemetery. (Author photo)
Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals connected to this story.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2010 by Robert Scott
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