The Seattle home where the Emery brothers have lived since 1962 has a new wooden fence. Lindsey Baum (center) went missing in 2009. Her remains were found in 2017. While the Emery brothers have been investigated in connection with her disappearance and murder, no charges have ever been filed for this case.

In the summer of 2017, Charles Emery had been diagnosed with dementia. Doctors felt it was no longer safe for the 82 year old to continue living in the two story Seattle home he’d been sharing with his brothers for more than 50 years.  His niece was named his legal guardian, and she began the process of gathering Charles’ belongings so she could move him to an assisted living facility.

The three Emery brothers never married.  Charles, the oldest, had worked for decades at Seattle Children’s Hospital.  His younger brother, 80 year old Thomas, had a variety of jobs over the years.  And his youngest brother, 78 year old Edwin, had been a long time Boeing employee.  They were reclusive, largely staying holed up in their home in the exclusive Green Lake neighborhood that was filled to the brim with things they’d collected over the years.

Newspapers and books lay alongside handwritten manifestos detailing the rape and murder of children.  Old pots and pans were piled up along with items of children’s clothing, including dirty underwear. Even in the crawl space, there was stashed a pink child-sized hat partially buried in the ground.

When Charles’ niece came across a child-sized penny loafer that contained a tiny bottle of vodka with her initials written on it, she knew it was time to call the police.

“There is a subculture that thinks incest is a good thing, a very normal thing, that there’s nothing wrong with it. These guys were one of those families,” explained Seattle Police Captain Mike Edwards.

Would the Emery women ever get justice? Did the brothers crimes extend beyond their own family? And what connection do they have with several missing girls whose cases remain unsolved to this day?

If you have any information on the criminal activity of the Emery brothers or the murder of Lindsey Baum, please contact the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit of the Seattle Police Department.

A similar poster was found in the Emery brothers’ Seattle home.

Acme, Washington. A very pastoral landscape where cows were more common for cutting grass than lawnmowers.

Mary Stavik was a hardworking single mom, a school bus driver, who had carved out a nice life for her three children and herself on a country property. Mandy Stavik was Mary’s middle child. In high school, many called her the All American Girl. She was smart, beautiful, athletic.

In 1989, Mandy was just 18 years old and a freshman at Central

Washington University. She came home for the Thanksgiving holiday and November

24th was just like any other day. Mandy often went for a run on her usual route

– from home to the river with the faithful family German Shepherd, Kira,

totally absorbed in the music blasting from her Sport Walkman.

It was a five mile run there and back. That was her routine.

So, several hours later when the dog returned without Mandy, her family’s worry

quickly ratcheted up to panic. Law enforcement and the community searched night

and day for Mandy. Helicopters and locals on horseback, on foot, and in their

own vehicles joined the search, but there wasn’t a trace.

Several days later, Mandy’s body would be found floating in the south fork of the Nooksack River.

What happened to Mandy Stavik?

That question would haunt not only the family, but law enforcement and the tight knit community of this idyllic, hardworking, slow down and smell the roses town for the next 30 years. The investigation would eventually pry open the crypt of something sinister, or rather someone, that would not only test the stamina of the community, but question the very framework of small town America where nothing bad ever really happened.

At 70 years old, Patrick Fleming was in the prime of his life. 

A Navy veteran, Patrick had earned two Purple Hearts for heroic actions in Vietnam. He was proud of his medals and of his rare and valuable coin collection, which he kept stored in his apartment at the Four Freedoms House, a senior living complex in Seattle. 

And Patrick had just met the love of his life, Rosemary Garnett. They first started chatting in the laundry room, passing the time between loads, and quickly grew very fond of each other. They even started talking about marriage. Both were surprised and delighted to find love so late in life.  Rosemary and Patrick would often make dinner together, then watch the evening news.

One evening in December of 2011, the couple had just finished up their usual routine. It was getting late and was time for Rosemary to take her nightly medication. It was just a short walk back to her apartment. She lived at the Four Freedoms as well.

When she went to take her pills, she reached into the fridge and realized she’d left her orange juice at Patrick’s place. She gave him a call. But, there was no answer. Strange, since she just left him only minutes earlier. By the time Rosemary walked back over to Patrick’s apartment, it was too late.

“He was pretty bloody. There was a lot of blood on the floor, blood around the room, and he had vicious wounds to his throat near the point of decapitation,” recalled Detective Cloyd Steiger. “It was a violent, violent death.”

Victims of the Hillside Stranglers

In just four months, the hillsides around LA had become

infamous. Between October 1977 and February 1978 the bodies of 10 young women

and girls were discovered naked and positioned in lascivious poses with

ligature marks around their feet, ankles and neck.

A tidal wave of fear crashed down on the City of Angels. Media

dub the killer The Hillside Strangler. Hysteria reached a fever pitch when the

bodies of five women were found the week of Thanksgiving and law enforcement

was frustrated by the lack of evidence.

A pattern quickly emerged. The Hillside Strangler would wash

the bodies before dumping them. Based on that lack of evidence, it appeared the

victims hadn’t put up a struggle. Detectives worried that the killer could be a

person of authority, like a police officer or someone posing as law

enforcement.

Another thing that kept investigators up at night was the

semen in the body and the placement of bruises. They led investigators to

believe these heinous murders were the work of two people, not just one, which

meant they were looking for not just one serial killer, but two working

together.

Without a doubt, the autopsies pointed the finger at a cruel

hand. Not only had the victims been sexually assaulted, the ligature marks told

a cruel tale. The killer strangled his victims as slowly and painfully as

possible for one purpose: to make him feel powerful.

And then in February, just as quickly as the killings had

begun, they stopped.

It would take two more murders over 1,000 miles away to

finally unmask the Hillside Strangler.

It was a Sunday morning in the spring of 2012. A small, one

story home in North Bend was on fire. Firefighters wanted to get inside to

figure out the best way to fight the flames and to ensure there were no

victims. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be one of those textbook situations.

First, the front door was blocked. There was something inside barring them from even cracking it open. They found a side door off the car port and went in that way. As they started searching the home they noticed the gas cans, which appeared to be full, scattered throughout different rooms of the house. And they found the victims. 41 year old Lynnettee, still lying in her bed. Her 18 year old daughter Kaylene also seemed to have died in her sleep.

But was it the smoke that consumed them or something even

more sinister? And, who lit the match?

“If he had been as good an arsonist as he was a murderer and builder, then we may not have found him.”

Rocha Family Scholarship at Seattle Central

The Rocha Family has created this scholarship to honor the memory of their granddaughter/niece, Kaylene Keller whose life was un-expectantly cut short in 2012. Kaylene, a North Bend, Washington resident, was a vibrant and creative young woman who had a dream of becoming a video game designer with a focus on character design and development. With this scholarship the Rocha Family hopes that other young women who share Kaylene’s passion can fulfill their dreams.

Impact

To inspire women to follow their dreams in programming. Particular women with aspirations of studying gaming and avatar design, which was a passion of Kaylene’s

Videos of Peter Keller on our YouTube Channel

The holidays, a magical time filled with joy, laughter and

tradition. Something Judy Anderson and her husband, Wayne, were looking forward

to celebrating with three generations of their tight knit family. Little did

they know that for more than half of their clan, this Christmas would be their

last.

It was Christmas Eve 2007 and, like clockwork, the Anderson

family gathered for an annual celebration at their Carnation home. A heavily

wooded property, a large metal gate ran the length of a private driveway. It

was closed and secured with not only a chain, but several padlocks. Keeping

family in… and strangers out.

A steep dirt road led up to the Anderson property, that

looked more like a homestead. The main house, a modest rambler surrounded by

towering evergreens, flanked by gigantic sword ferns. A quarter mile from the

main house, around the bend of the dirt road, was the single wide mobile home

Judy and Wayne’s 29 year old daughter, Michelle, had been living in for the

past six months with her boyfriend, Joe.

Everything was prepared for their annual gathering. Judy,

she was ecstatic. All would be in attendance. Judy and Wayne’s three adult

children, Mary Scott and Michelle, along with their partners and the

grandchildren. Both Mary and Scott were bringing their little ones, the apples

of Judy’s eyes. Never could she have imagined that six people would lose their

lives that evening in what would become one of the most horrendous family

massacres in Washington State history.

But some wonder if the outcome could have been different. If

only the Sheriff’s deputies who responded to the first 911 call had scaled the

padlocked metal gate and made that long trek up that steep private road on foot…

instead of driving away.

For more than eight years, a cabin hidden amongst the trees

of the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest kept its wicked secret. Perched

about 10 feet off the ground on a wooden platform, what would come to be known

as the Fairy Cabin had mud brown shingles surrounding several sets of glass

windows. There were wooden shutters, a steep pitched roof, and what looked like

runes of the occult carved into the walls and floor of the structure

To the few who found it, the cabin looked like the

gingerbread house out of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale. Beautiful and magical,

but also eerie and mysterious. Snuggled amongst towering evergreens, it had

become covered in the same blanket of plush green moss that also covered every

tree, bush and boulder.

It was almost like the Fairy Cabin had always been there. Like

it belonged there. In this old growth forest Douglas fir, hemlock and western

red cedar grow skyward, shoulder to shoulder, their branches weighed down by

thick tendrils of hanging moss.

From the Canadian border down to Mount Rainier, the forest

covers nearly 2 million acres. For most of it, you won’t find a paved road, a

gravel path, or even a dirt trail. It took a park ranger with an intimate

knowledge of the forest and an insatiable appetite for justice to finally rid

this place of the evil that had been born there, and perhaps to see the Fairy Cabin

burned to the ground

“I was looking into this expecting something kind of

whimsical and weird. And now I was looking at it and saying, Oh my God, this is

a crime scene. And I was just absolute shock. I couldn’t believe it,” shared

Trail Steward CJ Jones.