Four-wheelers find missing woman’s body

The body of Catherine Louise Avis was found Sunday in a brush-filled area at the edge of a field southwest of Valleyford.

Police are still trying to figure out how she died. An autopsy was performed Monday, but the results haven’t been released.

Avis was a victim of “homicidal violence,” according to the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office, which has launched an investigation into her death.

Avis would have turned 40 on July 23. The woman’s mother reported her missing June 16, but said she hadn’t seen her daughter since mid-May, according to Spokane Police Department spokesman Dick Cottam.

Detectives believe a vital piece of evidence is the woman’s purse. The cloth bag was found, discarded, on Hangman Valley Road not far from the golf course May 31. Detectives want to speak to the man and woman who found the purse and turned it in.

Detectives hope they can pinpoint exactly where the purse was found, said Sheriff Mark Sterk.

Avis was a sweet woman who loved to joke around, said Janie Whitehead of Ford, Wash. Avis was married for a time to Whitehead’s son, the late Clyde Fuller. After the two divorced, Avis began using drugs and became involved in prostitution, Whitehead said. But Whitehead thought Avis had cleaned up her act.

Sterk said the case has been given utmost priority.

“This will be a homicide we will pursue and it doesn’t matter what this woman was doing,” Sterk said.

The body was found Sunday night by a man and his daughter who were four-wheeling in the area. Avis was identified using her fingerprints.

Whitehead said Avis was not the type of person to have enemies.

“I don’t think anybody deserves to be killed and left somewhere, especially Cathy,” Whitehead said.

Avis’ mother, stepfather and son could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Avis’ mother also told police her daughter was involved in prostitution, Cottam said. Police checked possible leads, but didn’t find any trace of Avis.

In cases where missing people are mixed up in drugs or prostitution, it’s hard to know whether they left the area without telling loved ones or whether there was foul play, Cottam said.

“It’s frustrating for law enforcement because we feel like we should be doing something,” Cottam said.

Avis pleaded guilty in 1993 to four counts of burglary, and she afterward had intermittent problems with drugs and with failing to meet the terms of her parole, court records say. She has two daughters, and records from 1997 show her parental rights were in the process of being terminated.

Deputies are asking that the people who found Avis’ purse or saw her in the days before her disappearance call the sheriff’s investigative unit at (509) 477-4760, or after 4:30, 477-2709.