Task Force Assists In Grant County Case No Links Reported To Spokane Killings

The widening search for Spokane’s serial killer spread farther Tuesday when detectives traveled to Grant County to help investigate a mysterious homicide case.

Task force investigators and evidence experts were dispatched to a rural area about 4-1/2 miles off Interstate 90 near the Quincy Lakes chain.

That’s where a hunter discovered skeletal remains Friday. An autopsy determined the victim had been shot in the head.

Grant County authorities asked the Spokane serial killer task force for help late Monday.

“It’s an outdoor crime scene, and the task force has some real expertise there,” Grant County Undersheriff Michael Shay said Tuesday. “We asked them to come over and take a second look to see if we missed anything.”

The area is popular for hunting and fishing, and is only a 15-minute drive off the freeway, Shay said.

“You have to make a couple of turns to get there, but anyone who knows this area wouldn’t have trouble finding it,” he said.

Spokane investigators spent most of Tuesday combing the scene, but there was no report of what was found.

Task force members have traveled throughout the region - from Lewiston, Idaho, to Kitsap County, Wash. - in their 11-month effort to catch a killer suspected of slaying eight women. A ninth woman who disappeared in May - Melody Ann Murfin - also is thought to be victim of the serial killer, although her body has not been found.

Although Spokane detectives are helping in the Grant County case, there is nothing tying the body to the serial killings at this point, said sheriff’s Capt. Doug Silver, task force co-commander.

Because the corpse is so badly decomposed, authorities have not been able to tell whether the small-framed victim was a man or a woman.

Grant County investigators hope to use dental records to identify the body. A forensic anthropologist is being called in to determine gender, Shay said.

The victim isn’t Murfin, Silver said.

“The teeth aren’t right,” he said. Murfin, 43, has dentures. The Grant County body does not.

But the location of the Quincy Lake dump site has Spokane task force detectives curious, Silver said.

Grant County is about halfway between Spokane and Pierce County, which is becoming increasingly tied into the serial killings.

One of the serial killer’s victims was found near Tacoma, and another moved from there to Spokane shortly before her death.

“That’s a concern,” Silver said.

Spokane investigators are still awaiting word on the identity of a woman whose body was found in Pierce County last week. Task force detectives traveled there to examine the body and talk to investigators.

Medical examiners were able to lift a fingerprint from that corpse, said Deputy Ed Troyer, spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

Detectives were running the print through a computer database to see if it matches anyone arrested in Pierce County recently, Troyer said Tuesday. They hope to identify the woman by the end of the week, he said.

That identification will be key in determining whether the woman was a victim of the serial killer, Silver said.

“The scene is similar, and the fact she was shot,” he said, listing the top connections so far. “The lifestyle will be the big thing.”

Most of the serial killer’s victims worked as prostitutes, used illegal drugs or both. Most were shot and dumped in an out-of-the-way location.

One of the victims, 24-year-old Melinda Mercer, was found shot to death in South Tacoma last December. Mercer was found in a weed-covered field not far from an area known for its prostitution and drug trade. She had been shot in the head.

Sunny Oster, another victim, also had ties to the Tacoma area. The 41-year-old woman, who was found shot to death in western Spokane County in February, moved to Spokane from Tacoma in September 1997.

Anyone with information on the serial killings is asked to call Crime Check at (509) 456-2233 or the task force toll-free hot line at (888) 211-4980.

This sidebar appeared with the story: TO HELP The serial killer task force is asking anyone with information on the killings to call Crime Check at (509) 456-2233 or the toll-free hot line at (888) 211-4980.