FBI searches for body of man killed in ‘91
A confessed killer took FBI agents this week to a remote spot on the Colville Indian Reservation where he claims he disposed of his cousin’s body in 1991.
After a three-day search with cadaver dogs, FBI agents said Friday they found “some items of evidentiary interest,” but wouldn’t be more specific.
Now it will take scientists at the FBI’s forensic laboratory in Quantico, Va., to determine if those bits of evidence are related to the disappearance of Edwin “Eddy” Pooler. That process is expected to take weeks, if not months, authorities say.
This week’s search was part of the deal James H. Gallaher Jr. struck on May 25 when he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Spokane to involuntary manslaughter for the April 14, 1991, death of Pooler on the 1.4-million acre Indian reservation in northeastern Washington.
On Tuesday, the handcuffed and shackled Gallaher was driven from Spokane to Keller, Wash., after drawing a map and describing the area where he dumped the body, authorities said.
“With information he provided, we were able to narrow the search to a fairly specific area off Cooper Creek Road,” said Frank Harrill, supervisory agent in charge of the FBI’s Spokane office.
After Gallaher pointed out the area, a two-dozen member FBI Evidence Recovery Team was assembled and converged on the site Wednesday.
The FBI team, composed of agents from the Seattle Division, which includes Spokane, Wenatchee and Yakima, was joined by detectives from the Washington State Patrol, Colville Tribal Police detectives and an agent from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The area searched was approximately 300-by-300 yards, in steep, heavily wooded terrain, Harrill said.
After dividing the search area into grids, searchers moved fallen trees and cleared away brush in an attempt to search the forest floor, Harrill said. They also used three specially trained cadaver dogs
“We recovered some items of evidentiary interest, but we can’t comment on the type or nature of those items,” the FBI supervisor said.
“We’ll get an official word back from our lab at some point and likely will make a further statement at that point,” Harrill said when asked if bone or clothing fragments were among items recovered.
The victim’s family, including his sister, Lynda Tonasket, of Keller, was notified of the search. They were kept out of the area during the search but watched from an adjoining mountainside, authorities said.
Tonasket has been looking for her brother since he vanished in April 1991, leading her and other family members to believe he was a murder victim.
The 45-year-old victim was killed after he splattered on Gallaher’s 11-month-old daughter while urinating in the living room of a house in Keller during a drinking binge, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Whaley was told during the hearing.
Even without a body, FBI agents cracked the cold case and obtained a grand jury indictment in December 2005, largely based on incriminating statements Gallaher made to various witnesses.
To avoid going to trial on a first-degree murder charge, Gallaher struck a plea bargain and agreed to plead guilty to the lesser manslaughter charge. As part of the deal, he agreed to take FBI agents to the spot where he disposed of Pooler’s body.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Harrington said the U.S. attorney’s office agreed to the deal in the belief that it would be difficult to convict someone of murder without a body or physical evidence.
It is believed the indictment against Gallaher is the first time in the Eastern District of Washington that a murder charge has been filed without recovery of a body.