The Last Time We Saw Her

by Robert Scott

  Haroldson went on to say that Kim kept name tags on some of the underwear he had stolen and collected women’s names and the locations where he had stolen them. He also had bags of laundry lint that were tagged with names. And then Haroldson divulged something new: The defendant took great pleasure in violating the personal living space of his victims, stealing their most intimate apparel and then sexually celebrating the violation by donning the fruits of his crime, as evidenced by images of the defendant striking poses in stolen underwear and photographing himself.

  Haroldson saw a “troubling coincidence” that Sung Koo Kim had stolen women’s items from a laundry at the Oak Park Apartments in Corvallis. And one of his victims, Lynsey, had a strong resemblance to Brooke Wilberger. Haroldson called Kim’s alibi for May 24, “suspect at best.”

  Haroldson stated that the court should not define criminal activity too narrowly. On the surface stealing women’s undergarments didn’t seem to be that big a crime, but when coupled with the sheer volume of it, the stalking of specific females, and the violent images on his computer, Haroldson wrote, Sung Koo Kim is a present danger of physical or sexual victimization to women. It is a simple concept of a depraved predator hunting prey, for a fate of such macabre proportions, that it would rival even the darkest nightmares of the human mind.

  Because of all the interest in Sung Koo Kim as a possible perpetrator of Brooke’s disappearance, a crush of media showed up at the Benton County Courthouse on September 10, 2004, to watch a hearing in Kim’s case. This concerned the defense’s motion for a bail reduction. The whole proceeding was anticlimactic, however. After a few minutes Judge Janet Holcomb set a new date in the matter. DDA Haroldson told reporters after the brief hearing, “We were under the impression that we were going to argue our case today. All our deadlines were met for filing and responding to motions.”

  The only new developments going on in Brooke Wilberger’s case that September were that three retired investigators from various sheriff’s offices were volunteering their services. The trio were Jacqueline Meyer, of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office in California, and Bill Kennedy and Kurt Weist, of Oregon’s Lane County Sheriff’s Office. Another development was a large roadside billboard at the junction of Highway 20 and Highway 34 with Brooke’s photo and a toll-free number to call with tips.

  The CPD captain told reporters that the officers still working on the case were focused, but that it had taken its toll on them. And as far as Sung Koo Kim went, Captain Sassaman said that because Kim had “lawyered” up, they could no longer talk to him without his lawyers’ consent. Sassaman added, “The courtroom drama puts law enforcement at a standstill.”

  In addressing how officers tried to stay upbeat on Brooke’s case, Sassaman replied, “There have been peaks and valleys in the investigation.”

  Right around the corner, there were about to be some more peaks. And they were coming in areas that had not been foreseen by anyone.

  CHAPTER 8

  ABDUCTION CENTRAL

  On September 29, 2004, around six-thirty, a twenty-one-year-old OSU student named Rachel was taking an early-morning walk near LaSells Stewart Center on campus, just blocks from where Brooke Wilberger had been abducted. Suddenly a man came charging out of the bushes and grabbed her around the shoulders. But because of all the media attention about Brooke, this young woman was ready. She managed to knock the attacker’s hands away and then sprayed him with Mace, which she was carrying with her. As soon as he was sprayed with Mace, the man took off toward the bushes, and the young woman raced for help. As she did so, she screamed all the way down the sidewalk.

  Rachel managed to call police within a very short time, and officers from OSU and the Corvallis PD were on the scene within minutes. A campus-wide search was soon implemented with a perimeter set up around Cauthorn, Poling, Buxton, and Hawley halls. The young woman was able to describe her attacker to the police as white, in his early twenties, wearing a black jacket with a hood and black pants. Every man in the area who remotely matched the description was detained and questioned by officers.

  A tip came in that the man matching the description had been seen in the basement of Cauthorn Hall. This was checked out, but nothing turned up there. Despite a thorough search of the area, all of the residence halls were reopened by noon when no suspect was found in them. When reporters got wind of this latest attempted abduction, the police would not give them a description of the young woman who had been attacked or her full name. All they said was that she was an OSU student and not an Oregon native. Oregon State Police lieutenant Gregg Hastings did say, “She’s very shaken, but she’s assisting the investigation.”

  Lieutenant Ron Noble later chimed in as well, telling reporters that the CPD, Benton County Sheriff’s Office, Oregon State Police, and even the FBI were looking into the matter. He added that at that point they didn’t know whether this latest abduction attempt had anything to do with Brooke Wilberger or not. The only indication so far that it might be connected was the fact that it had happened within blocks of where Brooke had been taken. And Noble added that law enforcement acted very quickly on this latest case because of all the things they’d learned about investigating and cooperating in Brooke’s case.

  Lieutenant Phil Zerzan, OSP station commander, weighed in on the early-morning assault as well. He said, “One of the positive things is that educational efforts (about abductions) have had their effect. The young woman responded effectively and appropriately, and she was able to get away to a location where she could call police.”

  As far as all the attempted abductions that seemed to be occurring in the Corvallis area, making it seem like “abduction central,” Noble said, “It’s hard to say if there’s actually an increase or if people are much more aware of suspicious persons and are willing to call police.” Noble added that Greg Wilberger had contacted him and said that he was happy that the young woman was safe and had not been hurt.

  All afternoon and into the night, plenty of behind-the-scenes investigation was ongoing. And then on the afternoon of September 30, twenty-one-year-old Aaron James Evans, of Albany, was suddenly arrested for the assault on Rachel, the OSU student. Evans’s arrest came about in a peculiar way, which stretched clear back to August 20. On that date Evans had been arrested for public indecency by exposing himself in Albany. His arraignment was to have been in Linn County on September 29, but Evans called the court and said that his wife was at the hospital having a baby. It wasn’t clear if he had shown up for his arraignment on September 29, but in the afternoon Evans did drive to Corvallis and approached a woman outside a Ross store, at the Timberland Shopping Center. He harassed her and stalked her, and the woman was so upset that she called the police department. Within a short time police detained Evans in the area, but apparently he talked his way out of what had occurred.

  Evans’s freedom was short-lived, however. The next morning an investigator went to Evans’s residence and spoke with him once again. Because of certain evidence obtained overnight, and the answers that Evans was now giving, he was arrested.

  The OSU vice provost for student affairs said that the swift arrest of Evans made students on campus happy, but that they still had to be on the alert, since so many kidnapping attempts seemed to be occurring. And the newest abduction attempt definitely made them jittery.

  The big question now became: was Aaron Evans responsible for Brooke Wilberger’s abduction?

  Although he had not come up on any of law enforcement’s list of possible suspects before, the fact that this latest attack had occurred within blocks of where Brooke was abducted raised a lot of red flags.

  Lieutenant Noble told the media, “I guess you can say we added one more person of interest today. Now we’re at six.”

  On October 5, 2004, Evans appeared in Benton County court via an unusual means. He stayed in jail, but his image was presented into a courtroom via a live television feed. The reason was that DDA Haroldson was keeping this preliminary hearing withi
n a grand jury setting. That meant that the media and even Evans’s defense attorney could not be present to have input into the matter. It was the grand jurors alone who would decide if there was enough evidence against Evans to hold him over for trial. And when they came back with their decision, Aaron Evans was charged with attempted kidnapping, attempted sexual abuse, menacing, and harassment.

  In a vast understatement, the Gazette-Times reported, Thursday, September 29th, was a seemingly busy day for Evans. He appeared in a Linn County Circuit Court that afternoon and was arraigned on a charge of public indecency stemming from an August 20th incident in which he allegedly fondled himself while talking to a woman in the parking lot of a Mervyns store in Albany. He also is a suspect in a September 4th incident in which he approached a seventeen-year-old girl in the parking lot of Albany’s Heritage Mall and masturbated in front of her. He called the court on September 29th to say that his wife was in the hospital having a baby.

  The police checked out this story of Evans’s wife having a baby and found out that it was true. When she learned about all of Aaron’s misdeeds, she promptly filed for domestic separation in a Linn County court. Fondling himself and masturbating in public were the least of Aaron’s problems—if the police could prove he had something to do with Brooke Wilberger’s disappearance.

  Investigators on the Brooke Wilberger Task Force from the CPD, BCSO, and the FBI began looking at Evans’s work records for May 2004. They noticed that he had been working for a roofing company in Albany that sometimes did roofing jobs in Corvallis. Evans had quit work for the roofing company by May 24, but he definitely knew the Corvallis area.

  Portland television station KATU sent a reporter to speak with Evans’s stepsister, Jessica Caywood. She told the reporter, “The possible connection of him to Brooke Wilberger gave me a sickening, sickening feeling. It actually made me throw up at one point.” Caywood said that Aaron had a habit of disappearing for days on end and not saying where he had been. Then she related that around the time of Brooke’s disappearance, she saw him looking battered and bruised.

  Caywood related, “He had a blackened eye that was swollen completely shut. A bruised nose, bloody lips, scratches on his chest, neck, and hands. After I had heard about Brooke disappearing, I thought back and that was the nail in the coffin for me. I knew it then and there!”

  Then in a statement that took everyone by surprise, Caywood added that she had a good hunch where Brooke was located. And by that, she didn’t mean that Brooke was still alive, but rather dead and buried. Caywood said she planned to tell detectives what she believed in this regard.

  In fact, Aaron Evans’s name had come up in the flood of tips concerning Brooke Wilberger during the previous month. It did so after he exposed himself and was arrested in Albany. But at the time Evans’s name was just one more in a list that numbered into the hundreds, and he was still a low priority at that point.

  A press conference took place after Evans’s arrest to address this latest revelation, and eight television news crews showed up, along with a legion of print reporters. Benton County undersheriff Diana Simpson read a statement to the press that began, “‘The investigation of Mr. Evans is the same level of response that is given to all persons of interest. At this time there is no information directly linking Evans to Wilberger. The task force is very disappointed in the KATU story linking Evans to Wilberger without contacting local law enforcement to verify the information first. This affects the Wilberger family by putting them on an emotional roller coaster, which is very unfair to them.’”

  Then Simpson related that the task force had spoken with Jessica Caywood after KATU’s story had aired. Detectives searched the North Albany home that Caywood and Evans had shared. Particular investigation was done in the basement area, where Caywood believed Evans might have buried Brooke. Nothing of evidentiary value was found, even when a cadaver dog was used, but Diana Simpson made one mistake in the press conference. She referred to the basement of the residence as having a dirt floor, when, in fact, it was cement. And soon a war of words went back and forth between KATU and the task force.

  KATU’s news director was not happy about his station being “lambasted” as he put it by Simpson at the news conference and he stuck by the story. He also pointed out to other news media that the basement in the house that was searched did not have a dirt floor. In fact, it had a cement floor, and one area of that cement had apparently been removed and then covered over with new cement. That was what had set off alarm bells in Jessica Caywood’s head regarding Aaron Evans. She imagined that he had murdered Brooke Wilberger and had buried her body there.

  Lieutenant Noble admitted to the media that the basement floor was cement, not dirt, and added, “It’s definitely been cut up. It may be alarming, but it doesn’t mean we can go in there and tear up the floor. There are other things we are doing to determine when changes were made to the floor and by whom.” Noble stuck by Diana Simpson’s statements and said that whether the basement floor was dirt or cement was not a big issue.

  The Gazette-Times soon had an article about how Brooke’s investigation was wearing on the task force, the media, and the public in general. The article spoke of the task force’s own roller-coaster ride every time a new lead or person of interest popped up, only to have no connection to Brooke’s abduction. It quoted Diana Simpson in the flap with KATU, about how the television news story made members of the task force stop the important work they were doing and go off on a wild-goose chase. Law enforcement knew about Jessica Caywood before the story even broke, and apparently she had canceled three meetings with them before she spoke with KATU. Diana Simpson said, “Every time an incident occurs similar to the story of Evans, it results in a tremendous workload for this task force. This then limits investigators from priorities established on the Wilberger investigation.”

  Whether there was a link between Aaron Evans and Brooke Wilberger remained to be seen, and the task force was looking very closely at it in their own way and at their own pace. What was certain was that Aaron Evans was back in the Benton County court on October 11 for the assault of the OSU student on September 29. And as if he didn’t have enough troubles, his wife was in court as well, asking that the judge allow no visitation of their children, if Aaron was released on bail.

  By this point more information about what had occurred on September 29 was revealed to the media as well. The charges noted on September 29, 2004, that Evans had attempted a Kidnapping in the Second Degree, to interfere substantially with Rachel’s personal liberty and to secretly confine Rachel in a place where she was unlikely to be found. Another charge was Attempted Sexual Abuse in the First Degree: Aaron Evans did unlawfully and intentionally attempt to subject Rachel, by means of forcible compulsion to sexual contact by touching sexual and intimate parts of Rachel. There was also a misdemeanor charge of menacing to place Rachel in fear of imminent serious and physical injury.

  In addition to the charges, there were revelations in court documents about what had occurred in relation to Aaron Evans during the investigation.

  Benton County DA’s Office investigator John Chilcote wrote about these developments in a document and noted that Rachel had been walking down a sidewalk on Western Boulevard, just east of Twenty-sixth Street, around six-thirty in the morning on September 29. She saw a young man in front of her on the sidewalk and hurried her footsteps to get past him. The area was dark, deserted and next to some tall bushes.

  As soon as Rachel got past the man, he ran up and grabbed her from behind. But she was ready for him, already having placed a can of Mace in her hands. As soon as he grabbed her, she wheeled around and sprayed him in the face. He let go of her and took off running back toward the bushes. Rachel ran in the other direction, across the street and to a motel, where she told employees what had just occurred. It was from there that the police were contacted.

  Chilcote noted, Rachel was distraught, very nervous, scared and fearful. She was still highly affected eigh
t hours after the incident occurred when I talked to her. Chilcote also related that around 8:30 P.M. that same day, Corvallis PD responded to a Timberhill Shopping Center on Walnut Boulevard in North Corvallis. The report was about a white male adult harassing and stalking a female shopper. They learned that the individual wore a distinctive set of clothes, and they soon detained and spoke with Aaron J. Evans, born on March 27, 1983. He was five-six and weighed around 140 pounds. Taken in for questioning about this incident, the questions soon went over to matters concerning Rachel as well. Evans denied having anything to do with that; after several hours of questioning, he was released.

  Overnight, however, officers learned that Evans’s alibi about Rachel did not hold up. At 1:15 P.M., Chilcote went to Aaron Evans’s residence in Albany. At first, Evans once again denied having anything to do with Rachel. But as time went on, he finally admitted that he’d had “contact” with her in Corvallis, and she had sprayed him with Mace.

  Chilcote took a pair of Evans’s black pants, and an FBI agent named Joseph “Joe” Boyer already had Evans’s black jacket. Agent Boyer let Chilcote know that there was residue on the jacket consistent with Mace. Because of all this information, Chilcote arrested Evans and he was taken to the jail in Corvallis.

  One incident seemed to follow another in rapid succession that autumn in the Willamette Valley. On October 10, a man in a Toyota Camry followed a group of young women to a 7-Eleven convenience store in Corvallis and watched them intently as he sat in his vehicle. He made them so uneasy, that they phoned the police from the 7-Eleven. By the time the officers arrived, the vehicle was gone; but forty-five minutes later, they spotted it and the driver, and pulled the car over. Once the vehicle was pulled over, a CPD officer discovered that the driver had placed masking tape over the license plates. The plates should have read 455BEX, but appeared as 455BLX, with the tape on the plates.