by Gary C. King
Like Brudos, Rogers was a family man. Like Bundy, he has appealing features. As with the Green River Killer, he chose ladies of the night as his victims and cluster-dumped their bodies at outdoor locations. He knew what he was doing, and he became very proficient at it. Mutilation of conscious victims was his forte or trademark and was always a part of the acting out of his fantasies. But one day he would slip up, turn an entire community inside out, and be named like all those who came before him. He would lose his anonymity and would be remembered in the darkest annals of crime history.
There are eight known dead victims, and Turner and his colleagues suspect there are countless others whose bodies haven't yet turned up, and perhaps never will. Here is the chilling story of how Dayton Leroy Rogers became the Molalla Forest Killer, a ravenous sexual psychopath whose lust for blood knew no bounds.
Prologue
March 1987
Spring had arrived in northwestern Oregon again, at least on the calendar. It would be at least another six weeks, however, before the rhododendrons revealed their short-lived blossoms of pink and white, about the same time that the abounding rosebuds began to swell. It would be even longer before the warm rays of sunshine broke through all the massive layers of gray, ultimately proving that blue skies do exist above the dismal inkish pall to which most northwesterners pay little notice. Until then, the chilly mists and frequent downpours would continue their atmospheric journey across the Coast Range Mountains, descending upon virtually every parcel of earth west of the volcanic Cascades.
Tracie Baxter,* barely sixteen, bowed her head and careened her body against the frequent blasts of cold, wind-driven March rain as she confidently claimed her usual position along a block of Portland's busy Southeast 82nd Avenue, between Foster Road and Flavel Street. Donning a short, tight denim skirt that exposed a lot of thigh, provocative passion-pink anklets, and black high-heel shoes, the blond, brown-eyed young street whore shivered from the chill, wishing that she had dressed in something less scanty. But she wanted to attract some business fast, and dressing that way was the most explicit means she knew of to entice a john to stop right away, short of publicly undressing. She was the only hooker in sight that evening, at least so far, all alone in the dark save for the late commuters who seemed to literally parachute off the buses at the nearby transit stop. Watching them as they impatiently filed off, she briefly wondered how long she would have to wait for a paying customer to stop and knew that, despite the wretched weather and the accompanying discomfort she was feeling, she would remain on the block as long as was necessary.
Southeast 82nd Avenue, one of the city's main north-south arteries, embodied insanely whizzing traffic and muted flashes of chrome at all hours of the day and night. It was a lot like Los Angeles' Sunset Boulevard, but without all of the famous landmarks and glitter of Hollywood. As with Sunset Boulevard, 82nd Avenue was a haven for prostitutes, pimps, johns, runaways, drug addicts, pushers—the dregs of society, the discarded remnants of human hope gone astray. Most went by street names such as Dee Dee, Mo, Gypsy, Noni, and so on, some so far gone that it took considerable effort for them to remember their names, streetwise or real. Many of the street "residents" lived merely for their next fix of heroin or rock of crack.
Most didn't know where they would sleep from one night to the next, and the more desperate ones who ended up there because there was no place else for them to go often sold their bodies for a hamburger and a milk shake or a $15 motel room. And the regular cruisers who had money to blow, the friendless pariahs from the outer circle, knew just where to go to find what they wanted. If it was illegal, they could easily acquire it on 82nd Avenue.
Streetwise and aged beyond her tender teenage years, Tracie knew 82nd Avenue well and in a normal workday—or evening, as the case may be—traversed much of it. But she preferred to work along the active strip in front of what then was known as Bob's Big Boy Restaurant, where, it seemed, she had the greatest success hooking johns. Over time, it became her block, well within the boundaries of what she considered her territory. Most of the other hookers, in an unspoken code of ethics, stayed clear of it, at least as long as Tracie was there. Tracie, in turn, respected the other girls' territory most of the time.
Tracie, who had been coached by her boyfriend/pimp to treat the sale of her body as a business, came to value her spot along the busy avenue. They had chosen it carefully a few weeks earlier after deciding that the downtown core area of the city was not for her. There were too many cops downtown, and the streets there seemed to attract a greater cross-section of Portland's "weirdos" and "creeps," as she called them, the enema freaks, torture aficionados, bestiality enthusiasts, and other deviants with whom she didn't want to do business. Not only did the 82nd Avenue location hold greater potential for scoring a number of customers on any given night due to the volume of traffic, but most, she mistakenly believed, were of a more respectable nature. She also saw fewer young boys, the "punks," climb into lawyers' and businessmen's Mercedes and Jaguars there, and she seemed less at odds with others in the trade on 82nd. She also liked her location because she could easily duck inside Bob's Big Boy if she spotted police cruisers coming down the block, or she could simply slip inside, where she was becoming well known, to sip on a cup of hot coffee and warm up in the unlikely event that it turned out to be a tough night. She could also occasionally proposition a lone male customer, as long as the management wasn't watching. However, she knew it was best to keep her business outdoors. That way she could avoid running the risk of getting eighty-sixed from Bob's.
It was a Friday, payday for many, she knew, as she walked and danced up and down the block, twirling her now-opened umbrella and feigning happiness, waving and smiling at the passing motorists, each a potential john. Tracie made no pretense, particularly to herself, of her simple objective: she needed to earn enough money to keep her and her boyfriend supplied with a motel room, a little food, crack cocaine, and liquor for at least a couple of days, or risk having the shit beat out of her at the end of the night. But her slim figure and petite build had helped make her a hot, profitable item, so she never worried too much about encountering a sudden downturn in business or meeting her objective.
It was a few minutes past 7 P.M. when she first noticed the light-colored silver-blue Nissan pickup pass slowly in front of the restaurant. The driver turned his head toward her and peered out of the passenger window as he drove by, and Tracie thought she detected a smile through the darkness. As her gaze followed the pickup's taillights, she momentarily recalled conversations with other hookers in which she had been warned of a man driving just such a vehicle. The other girls had said that he liked kinky sex and bondage and was especially attracted to women's feet. But he sometimes became violent, even savage. He liked knives, they said, and often cut his victims. The girls who had unwittingly accepted his offers said he was sexually aroused at the sight of their blood, and many came away from their encounters with him scarred for life, both emotionally and physically. Although he was known to pay as much as $150 for a "date," they advised Tracie to stay away from him. Even for that kind of money, they said, a girl would have to be desperate, crazy, or both to take a chance on him. Paying little heed to their warnings and concluding that such a thing could never happen to her, Tracie tried to put the guy out of her mind.
The pickup turned off the busy thoroughfare at the next block and stopped. Leaning over onto the passenger side, the driver opened the door, beckoning Tracie through the downpour to come over to his truck. Eager to earn whatever money she could and thinking that he was looking for what she was offering, Tracie went to him without hesitation. This was looking better than she had expected. It had taken less than ten minutes for her to get picked up.
"Hi! Wanna go for a ride and have some drinks with me?" He spoke slowly, as if feeling his way. He flashed her a wide smile as he gawked at her young body with puppy dog eyes that seemed to droop ever so slightly on his durably boyish face, and motioned for her to ge
t inside. Pale and soft-spoken, he could have passed for the actor John Ritter from a distance, and close up he somewhat resembled a popular local television news reporter. Outwardly he looked innocuous enough, and Tracie settled quickly into the seat beside him.
Tracie noticed that he seemed easygoing, cool, and relaxed as he put the truck in motion. But the traits that she believed she observed were deceiving, and she would realize only too late that she had misinterpreted them. His apparent congeniality was, in reality, calculating cold-bloodedness, and even though considerably streetwise at sixteen, Tracie was still too naive to see the evil that lurked behind his mask. Although flashes of the tales she had heard about the bondage and dominance freak kept returning, she really didn't want to worry that he might be the same man that the other girls had warned her about. So what if his pickup was similar to the bondage freak's? Hell, there must be hundreds, maybe even thousands of small blue trucks in the Portland area. Why worry that this one was his? Besides, he seemed like a nice enough guy, and she was desperate for the money.
"My name's Steve," said the man quietly, biting the nails of his left hand as he steered the pickup with his right. As they turned around in the parking lot of Bob's Big Boy, Tracie noticed that he not only chewed on his fingernails, he bit them to the quick. Aware that she was watching him, he quickly took his hand away from his mouth. He pulled back onto the side street, but remained silent. Aside from the cars that zoomed in front of them while they waited at the stop sign, the only sound that came from inside the pickup's cab was the windshield wipers slapping back and forth at the ever-blowing Oregon rain. At the first break in the seemingly never-ending stream of traffic, he turned right onto 82nd Avenue and headed south toward Oregon City, a Portland suburb.
It was a nice pickup. It had a stick shift, and the interior was a vinyl grayish blue color. Tracie noticed that it didn't have a sliding back window, like many pickups have. It appeared very clean, at least on the surface, and it seemed to her that the owner was very particular. As they drove along, Trade's attention was momentarily drawn to the ignition switch, where she was mesmerized by the swinging of a black plastic swivel hook that dangled from his key chain. For some strange reason, it was a minor detail that she would not forget.
Tracie brought herself out of the trance and introduced herself to make idle conversation, making a spurious attempt at returning Steve's smile, if that was his name. Instinct told her it wasn't, but it didn't really matter. Unless her johns impressed her in some way, she nearly always forgot their names anyway. Tracie peered straight ahead, waiting for the man to say something, anything. But he never uttered a sound.
Not wanting to make her date feel like he was being unduly scrutinized, Tracie tried not to look directly at him while he drove. But she could feel his eyes alternating between her and the road, moving up and down her sleek body as he studied her. Normally she wouldn't have found that annoying. Guys did it all the time. But in this instance, because of what she'd heard about the bondage and dominance freak in the blue pickup, a coldness consumed her entire body from the inside out. She shivered involuntarily and knew that sudden fear had inserted its icy finger inside her chest. Could it be him?
The man suddenly seemed detached and aloof to her and was all-consumed by the deep mental state he was in. Although she had no way of knowing it, her temporary companion was planning and mentally rehearsing a violent scenario he would eventually force her to play out with him.
Sensing her apparent unease, the man seemed to emerge from the depths of his mind. He casually reached into a small box he kept on the floor and brought out a cassette tape, which he popped into the stereo. Tracie was glad to hear the music, even if it was an old album of the Rolling Stones from the seventies. It brought forth a sense of calm in the young trollop, temporarily allaying her apprehension, and served to help break the ice between them as they drove on. A few miles later the man wheeled the pickup into the parking lot of a Denny's restaurant across the street from Clackamas Town Center, a mega-shopping mall on 82nd Avenue, and cut the engine as he brought it to an abrupt halt.
"I could use a drink," he said, his voice empty and seemingly directed only at himself. Reaching behind the long bench seat, he brought out a paper bag. Next he took out a plastic container of orange juice, the individual one-serving size, and a small bottle of vodka like those served on airlines. It seemed to Tracie that he came prepared, but for what, she did not know.
He drank some of the orange juice, apparently to make room in the container for the vodka. After pouring the liquor into the juice, he replaced the plastic lid and shook it vigorously. When it was mixed to his satisfaction, he took a long, steady draw, consuming half of the inebriating liquid before coming up for air.
"Want some?" He handed the drink to Tracie without waiting for her to respond. As she sipped the crudely made screwdriver, he mixed another one for himself, this time pouring in two bottles of the vodka. He drank it quickly and didn't have to wait very long for the alcohol's warming and exhilarating influence to overwhelm him. Alcohol somehow always made him feel sharp and well defined. Even though it was a falsity, it placed him a cut above the rest in his own mind.
"Let me see your feet," he bluntly demanded.
"What?" His demand struck Tracie as strange. This must be the guy, she thought, her body growing numb with fear again.
"Take off your shoes. I want to see your feet."
Nervously Tracie did as he asked, and she noticed that the man's breathing increased considerably. He seemed to be getting excited, aroused. She decided there was no need for her to worry too much, at least not yet. After all, they were in a busy public parking lot. The guy would have to be crazy to try anything there.
"Put your feet in my lap," he said. When she complied, he began massaging them. She could feel the stiffening inside his pants, and she knew that he was turned on by her feet. At one point he made another demand, telling her to put the bottoms of her feet together. He continued massaging them, breathing heavier as Tracie wondered what he had in mind. He suddenly stopped the foot massage and mixed another drink.
"Here, have another one." He pushed the drink toward Tracie.
"No. I don't usually drink these." Her voice was light and trivial and trailed off into silence.
"Come on. Just drink it. One more," he insisted.
"No," she firmly refused, her tone heavier now. She promptly followed up her rejection with a faked smile. Hadn't the other girls said that the bondage freak had a thing about feet? The thought frightened her again, but she somehow managed to shake off the fear almost as quickly as it had come. Like most people, she convinced herself that bad things only happened to others. It could never happen to her.
"Okay, then. Let's carry on with the business. You know, I've only got forty dollars and some more vodka," he stated matter-of-factly. "That's all I can offer you for tonight."
Tracie was disappointed, but she tried hard not to show it. Forty dollars was quite a bit shy of the type of money she had been hoping for. Her standard fee was more than that just for straight sex; she charged even more for extras such as fetishes or anal entry but often less for fellatio. She might have turned his offer down if they had talked business before she got inside his truck. But she decided that $40 was better than nothing, and she was out of the wind and the rain. She reluctantly decided to carry on with the "date" and secretly hoped for the best.
"What do you have in mind for forty dollars?" she asked, somewhat smugly. "Straight sex? A blow job?"
"I don't know," he lied, smiling at her like a shark. "I really hadn't thought about it. I'm just looking for some company, someone to spend a little time with." He confidently placed his hand on the inner thigh of her left leg and gently stroked it back and forth with the tips of his fingers. It made Tracie's flesh crawl. "We could drive around for a while and just drink. I know of a perfect place where we can go and do it. It's out in Molalla, a very private place."
Desperate to turn a buck
, Tracie voiced no objections, despite the fact that she didn't have any idea where Molalla was located. Besides, he seemed to have lost interest in her feet, relieving her anxiety that he might be the violent foot fetishist she had heard so much about. The man who called himself Steve pulled out of the Denny's parking lot and began driving up Sunny side Road to the on ramp of Interstate 205. From there they headed south for a few miles, exiting the freeway at the Park Place/Molalla off ramp, where they left the bright lights and the perceived safety of the city far behind.
Little was said during the drive, and at one point Tracie found herself wondering where she was after becoming disoriented on the dark highway. She saw a few road signs as they passed, one of which read Clackamas Community College, but none of them really meant anything to her. Passing the college seemed to be the point where they left civilization behind, and she suddenly found herself wishing that she hadn't gone out with this guy. She was completely lost by now.
Tracie tried to push the fear out of her mind again, but the darkness and unfamiliar territory caused it to keep creeping back in. She soon began wondering how long the date would last, knowing that her boyfriend would be really pissed off if she came home with only $40. She was beyond the point of backing out now and, not wanting to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere, she decided she'd just have to make the best of it and hope that she would get back to the city in time to turn a few more tricks before calling it a night. In her youthful naivete, she hardly even considered that she might not make it back at all. Nobody kills another person without a strong reason or without being provoked, she decided.
