Warren Forrest

Warren Forrest was born on June 29, 1949, in Vancouver, Washington, the younger of two brothers of parents Harold and Delores Forrest. He attended the Fort Vancouver High School and competed on the school's track and field team, of which he became the captain. After graduating in September 1967, Forrest and his older brother Marvin were drafted during the Vietnam War, where the former served as a fire control crewman for the 15th Field Artillery Regiment at the Homestead Air Force Base in Homestead, Florida. After his discharge, he returned to Vancouver and married his high school sweetheart Sharon Ann Hart in August 1969; they had two children. Shortly after their marriage, they moved to Fort Bliss, Texas, and then to Newport Beach, California, where Forrest enrolled at the North American School of Conservation and Ecology. However, he quickly lost interest in studying and dropped out at the end of the first term. In late 1970, Forrest and his wife moved to Battle Ground, Washington, where he found a job with the Clark County Parks Department. ==Exposure==

Investigation and arrest On October 2, 1974, Forrest was arrested on charges of kidnapping, rape and attempted murder. On the previous day, he had met a 20-year-old woman in Portland, Oregon and lured her into his car under the pretense of doing a photo shoot. Instead, he drove to a city park and assaulted her, raping her several times, torturing her and shooting her with darts from an air-powered dart gun. Forrest then drove her to Camas, Washington, where he stabbed her six times with a knife near Lacamas Lake and attempted to strangle her. The woman fell unconscious after the attack, and as Forrest believed she had died, he completely undressed her and threw her into some nearby bushes. Indictment for murder of Krista Blake On July 16, 1976, two Portland residents went to pick mushrooms and wildflowers in Tukes Mountain near Battle Ground, noticing a small brown shoe sticking out of some bushes. When the mushroomers pulled on the shoe, they saw a skeletal leg and reported the find to the local police, who unearthed the half-skeletonized body of a young woman. Forensic examination of the jaw led scientists to determine that the remains belonged to 20-year-old Krista Kay Blake, a hitchhiker who disappeared from Vancouver on July 11, 1974. During the investigation, police determined that on the day Blake had disappeared, Forrest was not working and had no alibi. His mother claimed that he had spent part of the day at her house, but left early in the evening and did not return home until the following morning. Since Blake's clothes and bones showed no signs of stab wounds or bullet holes, the medical examiner concluded that she had likely been strangled. Forrest was charged on this basis with Blake's murder in 1978. Although he had been detained at a mental institution, Forrest and his attorney Don Greig filed a petition for another examination, claiming that his mental state had improved greatly and that Forrest wanted to represent himself at trial. His request was granted, and Forrest was allowed to stand trial. Initially, four judges that had been involved with Forrest's previous trials were disqualified on the grounds of being potentially biased either in favor of or against him. == Trial for the murder of Blake ==

Forrest's trial began in early 1979, but a mistrial was declared after Forrest's attorney erroneously allowed a second dart gun unrelated to the case to be submitted as evidence. During the proceedings, Forrest pleaded not guilty, claiming that he had been on vacation to Long Beach with his wife and kids. His alibi was confirmed by his mother, who said Forrest had been at home at the time when investigators supposed Blake had gotten into the van. Some of the witnesses' claims were questioned by the defense team, as two of the witnesses had given descriptions of the suspected killer's vehicle that did not match the one Forrest was using. Forrest filed an appeal in early 1982, but it was denied in October of that year. He has filed numerous parole applications over the years, which have been unsuccessful due to the fact he was a suspect in other violent crimes. == Serial murder accusations ==

Since his initial convictions, Forrest has remained a suspect in multiple kidnappings, disappearances and murders committed in Clark County during the early-1970s. He has refused to cooperate with investigators. In 2017, at another parole hearing, Forrest confessed to murdering Krista Blake and to the initial kidnappings. He stated that Blake had been deeply depressed at the time of her murder, as well as severely stressed and suffering from the effects of a mental illness, and claimed that he did not intend to kill her at first, but eventually did so because she attempted to escape. He also candidly confessed to a total of 16 crimes involving women between 1971 and 1974, ranging from voyeurism to murder. Her skeletal remains were discovered on October 12, 1974, in Clark County, eight miles from Tukes Mountain, where Krista Blake's body was found; however, authorities at the time were unable to positively identify Morrison and she was known simply as a Jane Doe. In 2010, Morrison's half-brother submitted a DNA sample to police in Eugene, Oregon. In 2014, investigators began examining physical evidence from Forrest's criminal case to determine if it could be used in unsolved crimes. The trial was scheduled to begin on April 6, but was delayed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The trial resumed in early 2023, and on February 1, a jury found Forrest guilty of Morrison's murder. Sixteen days later, he received another life sentence. == Suspected victims ==

Besides Blake and Morrison, Forrest remains the prime suspect in the disappearances and murders of at least five teenagers and young women. In each case, the perpetrator exhibited a similar modus operandi to Forrest: • Jamie Rochelle Grissim (16) was a student at Fort Vancouver High School who disappeared while walking home from school on December 7, 1971. During the subsequent search for her, policemen found a number of her personal belongings, including her purse and an ID card, in Dole Valley. Since Morrison was later found buried not far from where her personal belongings were found, local authorities have reassessed their conclusions and now believed that Grissim was abducted and killed by Forrest. • Barbara Ann Derry (18) went missing on February 11, 1972. She was last seen on a highway trying to hitchhike from Vancouver to Goldendale, where she had moved to attend college. Her body was discovered on March 29 at the bottom of a silo inside the Cedar Creek Grist Mill. Derry had died from a stab wound to her chest area. Coincidentally, Derry's body was found near the area where a large manhunt had been underway for "D. B. Cooper", an unidentified skyjacker who parachuted from a plane with a $200,000 ransom and whose ultimate fate remains unknown despite extensive investigations. • Diane Gilchrist (14) went missing on May 29, 1974. A ninth grade student at the Shumway Junior High School who had never exhibited problematic behavior, Gilchrist's parents claimed that she had left their home in downtown Vancouver through her bedroom window on the second floor and then vanished into the night. She has never been found, and her fate remains unclear. • Gloria Nadine Knutson (19) was last seen on May 31, 1974. A senior at Hudson's Bay High School, Knutson had been invited to a housewarming party but declined, opting to instead visit a downtown Vancouver nightclub called "the Red Caboose", where she was seen by several acquaintances. One witness told police that Knutson sought his help in the early morning, claiming that somebody had attempted to rape her and was now stalking her. The man claimed that she had asked him to drive her home, but his car was out of gas. Distraught, Knutson decided to walk home and disappeared soon after. Her skeletal remains were discovered by a fisherman in a forested area near Lacamas Lake on May 9, 1978. • Carol Platt Valenzuela (20) went missing on August 4, 1974, while hitchhiking from Camas to Vancouver. A married mother of two infant children, she was not known to be involved in prostitution or to have a criminal record. On October 12, her skeletal remains were discovered by a hunter in the Dole Valley outside of Vancouver, very close to those of Morrison. Due to this, authorities believe that Forrest likely killed both. == References ==