Old-Growth Murder (2022) Movie Script

1
[birds chirping]
[outdoor ambiance]
I think his camp was right in this area,
so it would have been very close to this spot.
[slow piano instrumental]
And they had just small parking areas.
And I think it was very close to-- to this spot.
And it was on the road where we came from.
And the-- Again, this road just makes a big loop around.
And so he was clear down in here,
but he wasn't all that far.
If we could see where the campground was
and you can't see through the brush,
he wasn't that far from where the Indians camp was.

[narrator] Alain Malessard, age 26,
hailed from Lons-Le-Saunier,
a small town in the Jura province of France.
He'd save for two years to afford this year long
bicycle tour of North America,
which he nicknamed,
Reve de Jeunesse, a childhood dream.
His history was that he had worked
for the telephone company in France.
His mother and father were educators.
He had read The Call of the Wild
when he was younger.
And he always had this dream of riding across Canada,
dropping down into the United States
along the coast and then riding back
through central United States.
[narrator] He arrived in Montreal on June 29th
and had until October 30th to reach the United States
before his Canadian visa expired.
His plan called for riding through California,
Utah, Colorado,
then east towards Virginia
before returning to Canada,
a trip estimated at almost 10,000 miles.
He, meanwhile, he had ridden all over
France and Europe, building himself up to this.
And hed saved his money.
And then he shipped himself and his bike over to Canada
and had ridden across Canada.
And was heading down the coast when he was, uh, murdered.
[phone ringing]
[beep]
[operator] 9-1-1, whats your emergency?
This case had all the creepiness put into it
that I hadn't seen in any of the other cases I ever did.
We have a Thanksgiving.
You know, it's a holiday.
We have a dead body...
in forested land
where you can't even see any light from the sky.
It fulfilled all the, almost clich of an axe murder case
that you see in a movie.
But on the other hand, it was real life.
It couldn't get any more, um, apparent
how real life and how serious it was.
Wasn't the fact that you could finish
your popcorn and leave.
This was an ongoing type of nasty theater
that was going on and on and on until we got it resolved,
at least from the crime scene.
It was one of the creepiest scenes I ever worked on.
[somber piano instrumental]
[Sgt. Geistwhite] If I could go back a bit,
I can describe the scene a little bit better.
Uh, the tent was silver.
It had green lining that was, uh,
uh, set up near a picnic table.
It was in the southwest corner of that loop of the, uh,
of the campground.
It was a bicycle leaning up against the, uh, picnic table.
It was brutal.
His body had been, uh, drug out from the tent.
His legs were sticking out.
He had socks on.
The tent was ripped.
And when I looked in the tent,
uh, there was uh...
brain tissue, pool of blood,
uh, it looked like he'd, uh, been bludgeoned to death.
You don't often see that much violence in, uh, in homicides.
Uh, it's almost, like, there was passion involved
and it was overkill.
I was at home, being a holiday.
Our detective was off on vacation.
So, I responded to the scene.
The Neskowin area is about 30 miles south of Tillamook
but it's only about 10 miles
north of the Lincoln City area office.
And that's why their, you know, personnel
were first on the scene
is because when the discovery was made
and the body was, uh, found, is that the closest
agency responding would have been OSP from Lincoln City.
And I left out Tillamook to go all the way down there.
And they were already on the scene when I got there.
It had rained the night before.
Uh, and there was no way to tell
exactly when the, uh, one murder occurred.
There was no evidence of anybody else
having camped there in the immediate area.
You know, one of the things that struck me
was how lonely it was.
This guy was out here all by himself
and uh, murdered.
Nobody heard it. Nobody saw it.

[Sgt. Stephenson] So our first inclination at the time
was to secure the scene and see if we could find
anybody in the immediate vicinity.
We didn't know anything about this individual--
If he was alone or if he was, uh, transient or if--
What he was doing in the area,
where he was going, what he had been doing,
who his associates were.
Uh, and so the primary focus
at that point was to secure any evidence
that we could find at the scene or to make sure
that it wasn't contaminated or destroyed or lost.
Um, everything was wet.
So fingerprints were difficult.
Tire shoe impressions were almost an impossibility.
Um, so that was our starting point at that point.
It was probably the most eerie...
uncomfortable crime scene I think I've ever gone to.
Um, the campground is off of the old highway.
So it's a very twisty, windy, very narrow two lane road.
Hardly anyone lives on that road.
Um, very few people travel it,
um, mainly long trucks and loggers, um.
And it's in the middle of the national forest.
It's kind of in the middle of nowhere.
It's about eight miles, uh, south of Neskowin.
And it was these old spruces and uh,
old trees in there.
And it was-- It was very dismal place.
I mean, it was very gothic.

[Skip] I know the campground was closed.
And I believe I unlocked the gate.
I think the rest of the enforcement people
were walking in and out of there
until I got there and then unlock the gate
so we could all drive in.
But-- but I think there was something like
about 20 campsites in it.
Probably three different, uh, restrooms, comfort stations,
whatever you want to call it.
It was just a regular forest service campground,
but I think it might have had water spigots
but that was about it.
Well, we-- I looked at the uh, scene.
I said it was obvious that uh, he was dead.
And uh, uh, from that point on,
you don't want to interfere
with the scene or disturb any evidence.
Uh, I stayed back, away from it,
but as, uh, each individual arrived,
I walked up and pointed things out.
I'd say that probably encompassed
the first 20 or 30 minutes.
And then uh, I uh,
left to contact some people in the areas,
especially the ones that phoned it in.
[narrator] Sergeant Geistwhite first spoke with sisters,
Jennifer and Amanda Morgan and their classmate,
Rosio Crona,
who were walking along Slab Creek Road
and returning to their family farm.
The Morgan Farm was the first property
north of the campground where the body was discovered.
They informed the sergeant that they hadn't visited
the campground since the previous summer,
nor had they recently seen a bicyclist in the area.
On Tuesday, the 24th, Peter Morgan, the father,
had remembered seeing a copper colored 1950-1960
vintage vehicle parked across the road
from the campground.
Sergeant Geistwhite next met the individuals
who made the 9-1-1 call reporting the body.
Floyd Fassett and his girlfriend, Nancy Jones,
her son, Shannon Jones
and his girlfriend, Tanja Unruh.
[Sgt. Geistwhite] They walked from the gate of Neskowin Park
to look at waterfalls that
are to the east of where the tent is.
Uh, they walked by the tent and saw legs out of the tent.
Uh, they walked in the north side
where there's a big rip in the tent.
They saw the body and left.
And then they went to Otis, the Otis store to call 9-1-1.
So they hadn't touched anything
or disturbed anything at the scene.
All they did was walk in and leave once they saw the body.
Floyd said that he uh,
drives by the park daily to get his mail and said
hed, uh, observed a dark brown Ford LTD
with an old boat parked there frequently picking ferns.
And he hadn't seen it in about a week.
And he said, uh, that he'd seen an El Camino
at the park in the past picking ferns
but he hadn't seen it recently.
[narrator] As Sergeant Geistwhite collected
local statements, authorities at the campground
began assembling theories
and formulating a possible motive.
[Sgt. Stephenson] You don't have to prove motive
in most cases, but it's nice to know
because that is one of the things that generate
a point of attack for your investigation.
It can be a crime of passion.
It can be a crime of betrayal, such as in a marriage.
It can be to cover up another crime that has been committed.
Uh, it can be a thrill killing,
such as a sexual assault.
I automatically...
assumed that there was, you know, two or three people.
But I don't know why for sure.
But-- but the thing was, there was no reason
to go to that extent.
I mean, to kill somebody or to steal--
Whatever-- whatever their mission was, you know,
there was no reason to be that violent and--
and destroy a person's...
body like they did,
you know, except for thrill.
But it wasn't a planned crime.
Uh, you don't go find somebody
in the middle of a forest and, uh, murder them
for the things that he had anyway.
I mean, as far as him being a victim of a robbery,
it seemed to have been impromptu.
Or it was a crime that he had angered somebody significantly
and they had exploded on him.
And uh, he suffered the consequences.
It appears as though he was sitting in his dome tent.
He had some candles that were burnt out
when we got there, of course.
And a flashlight that was on
but the batteries were dead.
And he was reading a book on world travel
is what it looked like he was doing.
It was leaned against the dome tent.
So his body would be silhouetted on the tent.
So, whoever came in could see
exactly where he was.
And it just appeared as though that he was struck in the back
of the head with a steel angle, iron type object.
In the roof of the tent, it had a fly or a rain fly
over that but the main tent,
there were these angle iron marks
where they punctured through the-- the, uh, top of the tent
where they were coming up, swinging up
and then coming down.
And you can see the holes in the top of the tent.
So, I mean, it was pretty--
pretty malicious, you know, uh, situation.
[narrator] Medical examiner, Paul Betlinski,
also drove from Tillamook to the murder site.
By the time he arrived at 3:50 p.m.,
it had become much darker.
And he found it difficult
to determine an approximate time of death.
Police notes, however, showed that Betlinski estimated
the victim had been deceased
for a period of a little over 48 hours.
Oregon State Police criminalist, Robert Thompson,
drove from Portland, Oregon,
adding a four hour delay
and getting a crime scene investigator
to the homicide scene.
And I remember, um, the way we typically work crime scenes.
We work from the outside in, picking up bottles and cans
and maybe cigarette butts because they might have
serology evidence, they might have fingerprints,
things like that cause this was a totally
Who did it type of crime scene.
[narrator] By the time he arrived,
Thompson found the campsite engulfed in darkness
and required the local volunteer fire department
to assist with artificial lighting.
So I remember we were very thorough in that.
We picked up pretty much everything
that might even have a chance of evidentiary value.
Um, we took all the bedding, all the clothes.
Basically, we picked up the whole campsite
and had that taken back to the laboratory.
[narrator] The victim was found without any form
of identification,
leaving investigators unable
to positively identify him.
Their best clue was a postcard found among his possessions
of the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Canada.
It was addressed
to a Mr. and Mrs. George Hannah
of Iroquois Falls, Ontario, Canada.
The majority of the evidence collected at the scene
returned to Portland with Robert Thompson,
the crime scene investigator.
Sergeant Stephenson held back six pieces of evidence
for the local investigators.
This included the postcard, maps,
the victim's camera with unprocessed film,
the bicycle, a switchblade and candles.
The victim's body was retrieved at 8:05 p.m.
and sent to Portland for the autopsy.
Investigators and personnel left the scene at 10 p.m.
and went to investigate a burned out cabin
a few miles from the campsite on Slab Creek Road.
A few days prior, on Sunday, November 22nd,
at 10:30 p.m.,
authorities had responded to the cabin
concerning an individual unlawfully residing there.
[Skip] And at that time, I mean,
we're grasping for anything.
And we didn't know if it might be the individuals
involved in the crime or, or what.
So we made a plan. It was a vacant place.
It had kind of been burnt out in the lower floor.
And so we made a plan. We went in
and, uh, and more or less just kicked the door in
and went in, checked it out and everything.
And you could see where there was um, transients had been.
That's what-- They were kind of in and out of the place.
But there was nobody there.
[narrator] The suspect identified for illegally
occupying the structure was Kim Alexander Gorman.
His extensive criminal record included felony convictions
for robbery, theft, trespass
and frequent possession of drugs.
And during the month of November,
Gorman had been involved in domestic disputes
with both his girlfriend,
Who was living at 10102 Slab Creek Road,
just a half mile from the campground.
And his estranged wife,
who lived a few miles away in Otis.
In between disputes at these two residences,
he stayed at the burned out cabin
at 7980 Slab Creek Road.
Police reports also handled by Sergeant Geistwhite
noted on Wednesday, November 25th,
Gorman had called and threatened
to kill his wife at 1:15 a.m.
with either a knife or a shotgun.
He wouldn't arrive until 2:30 p.m.
where he'd assault her and steal her car's radio.
He was reportedly seeking drugs.
At his wife's house,
Gorman had left behind a three inch knife,
later described as a folding hunting knife.
On Friday, November 27th, Kim Gorman was arrested
in Lincoln City, Oregon,
for the charges related to his wife's assault.
He was also initially the primary suspect
in the campground murder.
Near the same time,
the unidentified body underwent an autopsy.
[Dr. Lewman] The case of Mr. Malessard
was one of those I remember
after over 40 years in this business
because of the brutality of it.
There are at least two different implements used.
There are at least two
and possibly more individuals involved.
There are uh, injuries to his extremities,
there are injuries to his chest
and there's a massive injuries to his head.
Probably the initial wound is what we call
a defense wound made by a knife
or a sharp object on the right side of his arm.
This is when you raise your arm
to sort of avoid the uh, the contact.
This is not something you'd get from,
the same thing [indistinct] was hit in the head.
Uh, the one-- Severe wound is a deep knife wound
in the right side of his chest that severed four ribs,
one into his liver.
This, I think, occurred before probably the head injury.
This is a crushing type injury.
Its caused by an object that's very heavy.
Has one sharp edge, one blunt edge.
You think of machetes, hatchets, things like this.
This is primarily to the right side of his head
and in-- The right in front of his head,
his orbital's crushed.
There's a crushing, deep injury
to the right side of the head.
There are some other little satellite injuries around,
some of these little star shaped and triangular things,
which I don't know what that is.
Or maybe a separate implement, maybe on the end of a knife.
I-- I don't know.
But it's uh... A very brutal, uh...
brutal case.
[narrator] Following the autopsy,
Dr. Lewman drew fluids from the victim and sent them
to Oregon Health Science University
for routine toxicology testing.
Dr. Lewman also tried
to better determine the time of death,
which the other investigators
were unable to do at the crime scene.
Yeah, the time of death [indistinct] determined
if we knew when he last ate, because there was a full meal
in there consisting of noodles and some meat,
uh, stomach was full.
That's a recently eaten meal.
But I don't know-- I don't know that
the police do know when he ate last.
That would be the best way to determining
the time of death in this case.
[narrator] There was no indication
from the victim's campsite where or how
he'd recently obtained a beef and noodle meal.
There was no packaging for it.
His cooking gear and camp stove
remained in his bicycle saddlebag.
The adjacent fire pit had unburned branches.
The Tillamook investigators would focus their attention
on the Canadian postcard.
Friday of Thanksgiving weekend,
I got a call from, uh, Mike Stephenson.
He told me briefly about the homicide that occurred.
But their biggest problem that they had
is that they didn't know who it was.
They didn't know who the homicide victim was.
And so he said that they'd found a postcard
in the victim's possessions.
And the postcard came back
with an address in Ontario, Canada.
And so what Mike wanted me to do was to do some
follow up and see if we could get this victim identified.
And so what I did is that I took all that information
from Mike Stephenson,
and I called up to Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
And these are just making cold calls
but we have relationships with-- with other entities
outside the United States.
And so I was able to make that call.
And so they eventually got me connected
with an Ontario provincial police.
And, uh, I gave them the information.
And they were able to go out to the house
where this address was to see if they could
create any connection between our murder victim
and find out who he was.
And they were able to do that.
[narrator] Shortly into the tour,
Alain discovered that his seven dollar a day budget
prevented him from affording most lodging.
So he resorted to finding individuals
who'd allow him to camp out
in their pastures and farmland.
He was doing exactly that when he reached a farm
about five miles from Iroquois Falls, Ontario.
There he meant the George and Anne Hannah family.
One July, late afternoon,
he was cycling and he would have seen,
I think, my parents
and uh, their friends
in the hay field collecting hay.
And so he came down the concession to ask
if he could stay for the night.
We did not notice anyone on the highway
because we were so busy in the field,
taking in the hay.
But as we came back into the yard was a full load,
a wagon load that we were going to unload,
there was a young man with a bicycle
standing in our yard.
[Heather] Basically, he asked if he could pitch his tent
in the yard for the night.
And they had a little conversation and said, Sure.
So this was the start of five days
of keeping Alain at our house.
He, of course, had to stay because the first day,
because his bicycle was always giving him problems.
And while he was in town, I think he also went
to the paper mill and had a tour.
She took him to both little newspapers because, you know,
French cyclist coming across North America
would have been big news for our little paper
that came out every two weeks.
Um, so he had a big interview
and then they came out to the house to take the pictures,
um, which you'll see my mother and him
going over a map and so forth.
[Anne] Also, before he left, uh, I said to him,
I'll do your laundry.
So we knew exactly what he carried, uh, with him
because he was just with the bicycle,
um, his little one man tent packed up.
My husband had given him an extra piece of plastic
to cover the tent for extra shelter in the rain.
Um, he had a small camp stove that a can fit on
and small things like that.
Nothing very large.
So what my mother decided to do
is also she um, had these postcards
of the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.
And she addressed five of them to herself and said that,
you know, every time he crossed a province,
he should mail her one and just tell her
how he was doing and so forth.
So I provided him with other addresses.
I had a cousin in Portage la Prairie at the time.
I had a cousin in Calgary.
I had an aunt and uncle
in Parksville on Vancouver Island.
So I gave him all those addresses and said,
I will write to these relatives
and tell them that you're coming.
And you can stay with them.
[narrator] Alain spent the next three months
following Annes suggested itinerary,
staying with the Hanna relatives and mailing back
the pre-addressed Royal York Postcards
as he left each of the Canadian provinces.
Well, I believe I got a telephone call
from my cousin, Anne, and she was saying that
uh, this young man was going to be coming through Calgary
and, uh, would we have a place for him to stay?
He had a tent and he would just pitch a tent in
our yard is what, uh, she said.
She would-- He said, He'd be no trouble.
And we said, Sure, you know, he can stop by and...
And that-- that's how, um, that's how we met Alain.
At that time, we had just purchased a state of the art,
full format video camera when, just after Cline
was about one year old.
So we had had that bout a year.
And, uh, so I-- I was always shooting
little segments of her, basically.
And, uh, so when he was sitting at the table there
and she was kind of
talking to him or whatever,
I, you know, snapped up the camera and uh,
and took a little footage here.
Cline, what are you doing?
[Cline] [speaks indistinctly]
[George] Ah...
[Cline] The pain.
[George] The pain?
[Suzanne] He spent some time on the kitchen table
reading and planning his, his trip.
He was very friendly and he trusted people.
He, you know, he, he would share what he was doing.
Uh, he said,
I need to have my bike repaired while I'm here.
Would there be a bike shop close by?
And um, we made some calls
and, uh, went to the bike shop with him
and he had his wheel repaired.
So, uh, it was a short visit,
but a very pleasant and friendly visit.
When he was leaving, we just, you know, I just thought,
Well, I'm going to, Ill pull out the tape and...
[chuckles] ...roll, uh, a few feet and uh,
as he was leaving.
And-- and never really thinking that, you know, down the road,
it would be something that we would hear, you know,
bad news in the-- In the future.
[low chattering over camera]
[George] Does he know his way out?
-[Clin] Yeah. -[George] Yeah.
[indistinct chatter in French]
[Suzanne] Bon voyage! Bonne chance!
[Alain] [indistinct] Merci, ahn!
[George] Okay!
-[Cline] Buh-bye! -[Suzanne] Wait, buh-bye!
[Suzanne] There might have been a fear of the unknown
when he spoke of, uh, the United States.
So I just, a little, you know,
worried about going into the United States.
He didn't really specify but he did express
that he was, um, concerned about that part of the trip.
[narrator] Leaving Calgary,
Alain bicycled across the Canadian Rockies,
down into southeast British Columbia,
towards Kamloops.
Then, north on Highway 97 to Prince George.
He followed the Skeena River on Highway 16
all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
There, he took a ferry south to Port Hardy.
He spent 48 hours with Anne Hannah's aunt and uncle
in Parksville, British Columbia.
They, too, toured him around their small town.
And Alain was interviewed by the local paper.
This was his last stop
prior to entering the United States.
He sent a final letter to Anne.
The last letter that he did write was from Parksville.
He wrote the letter on one side of the piece of paper.
And my aunt wrote on the other side of the piece of paper.
Occasionally he made a literal translation.
And in this letter that he wrote, he said,
I'm a few afraid instead of saying,
I'm a little bit afraid.
And he said, I'm a few afraid of the Americans.
I hope they will be friendly.
That was the last letter that he ever wrote to us.
[somber piano music playing]
When Alain was killed
and they found one of the postcards,
the state police that were given the case phoned our OPP,
our Ontario Provincial Police Station in our small town
and asked if they knew us and would they go and ask
if we knew about why this young man
would have a postcard.
[narrator] By Friday afternoon,
Corporal Beatty of the Ontario Provincial Police
determined the origins of the postcard
to the George and Anne Hannah family
in Iroquois Falls, Ontario.
They identified the victim as Alain Malessard,
a French citizen and a recent acquaintance of their family.
Corporal Beatty provided the Oregon State Police
with Alain's parents names
and contact information in France,
including their phone number.
And I remember, because I was with her,
that she emphasized, "Make sure to tell them
that they don't speak any English.
So he would have um, told the police that.
And the uh, the Iroquois Falls Police,
I'm sure, would have offered to phone the um,
the parents because they spoke French.
But apparently the Oregon police said,
No, they would go through Interpol and they declined.
[narrator] The following week, on December 2nd,
the OSP contacted Interpol,
the International Police Agency,
to provide the next of kin notification.
Unbeknownst to the OSP, Interpol's initial request
would never reach the victim's parents.
I think I put a call into the FBI too
because this occurred on federal-- federal land.
And it would also be a federal crime
because homicide on a national forest is a federal crime.
And... not too much interest.
Not too much um, excitement about that.
And so when I started getting the police reports
from the-- from the state police and the crime lab,
I sent them off to the FBI saying,
Well, here's the information," you know.
"And if you can help out
or contact the French authorities or something.
And I never really heard anything back from them either.
I do. I mean, this was a big deal.
This is, this is the biggest case
we had in the office that year, and it was unsolved.
[narrator] With no interest forthcoming from the FBI,
communication with Interpol in limbo
and with their detective, Kent McClain,
on Thanksgiving vacation,
Sergeant Stephenson was clearly the most
seasoned officer to handle such a complicated case.
Nevertheless, it was decided that
a temporary detective would fill in until McClain returned.
My plate was full, and I was advised
that there were detectives out there
that were going to work this and let them do their job.
Um... and I don't have any heartburn with that.
Detective Landwehr was asked to, uh, come down.
He was a District 1 detective
and he was stationed in Astoria.
And uh, he was asked to come down because he was the closest
detective who wasn't engaged in a primary case at that time,
absent that Detective McClain's being on vacation.
[narrator] Between November 28th and December 3rd,
Detective Richard Landwehr conducted interviews
and gathered information from people in Neskowin,
Otis, Warrenton and Lincoln City, Oregon.
He first spoke with Kim Gorman,
the investigators primary suspect
now lodged at the Lincoln County jail.
Landwehr notes indicated that Gorman
wouldn't discuss any pending charges,
nor would Landwehr notice anything of evidentiary value.
This would conclude any formal interview with Gorman,
despite his name included in many of the officers notes
related to the Slab Creek murder.
On Saturday the 28th, Landwehr next met
with Art Duran, who had been alerted of another
campsite only 300 feet from the murder scene.
The campsite had been initially overlooked by police,
likely due to its location and darkness at the time.
The campsite had belonged to individuals picking ferns.
Commercial fern and moss harvesting
were commonplace in the Siuslaw National Forest.
Gatherers could sell the plants to local florists
who would use the greenery in floral arrangements.
Landwehr noted that the campsite included
two small tents, clothing, sleeping bags,
cooking utensils and garbage.
In one of the tents, they discovered
a prescription bottle belonging
to an Alfred Butler dated 5-8-87.
In one of the nearby pit toilets in the campground,
they found a receipt to Franklin Charlie
dated 9-24-87 for payment of ferns by a local greenery.
fern pickers in the area
seemed to corroborate Sergeant Geistwhite's interview
with Floyd Fassett, who discovered the body.
And recalled recently seeing a dark brown Ford LTD
and yellow Chevrolet El Camino
he thought belonged to fern pickers.
No photographs were taken of the campsite,
nor was any evidence from the campsite
collected and analyzed.
And by that Monday evening, November 30th,
the season's first major rain and windstorm
hit Tillamook County, leaving any possible evidence
at the site soaked or destroyed.
Without any positive identification of the body
from the family, there was little to report.
And only a few small newspaper articles
appeared over the Thanksgiving weekend.
Most were buried in the back pages
between holiday advertisements.
I think I did a press release.
I know I did a press release on this.
But the local paper, that was it.
I mean, they didn't-- They didn't follow up,
they didn't do...
They didn't have the reporter call me
a week or two later saying, Well, what's going on?
I mean, they didn't care.
[narrator] Detective Kent McClain
returned from vacation on Wednesday, December 2nd
and began his investigation by first interviewing
Kaline Klaas, a teacher at Neskowin in Valley School,
who recalled seeing Alain
on the afternoon of Tuesday, November 24th.
[Kaline] I had parked up top rather than
in the parking lot that day; I don't remember why.
So I was actually parked up on Slab Creek Road.
So, and we were heading to Portland
to be with family for Thanksgiving.
So we were on our way, and as we came out, Alain,
at the time, I didn't know who he was,
was coming by on a bicycle.
And stopped and wanted to ask, you know,
we greeted him and, and we talked a little bit.
And his question was, um, whether or not there were any
campgrounds or any places that he could stay.
And it's been so many years that I don't remember
all of what I said to him, but I do remember
telling him about the campground further up.
You know, nice, little easy campground
just a mile or so up the road.
And that I thought that would be fine.
And as far as I knew, I didn't think there was
even any fee that he had to pay.
And he was very gracious,
and we talked a little bit about Thanksgiving and that,
what that meant as a holiday in the United States.
And it was brief and cordial and-- and that was it.
[narrator] Slab Creek resident, Karen Goodrich,
also observed a bicyclist with similar features of Alain
in the vicinity of the school on Wednesday, November 25th,
between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.
The male was having mechanical problems
with his bicycle, which had been typical of Malessard.
McLain next spoke to the investigation's
prime suspect, Kim Gorman.
Kim Gorman had a girlfriend that lived just up the road
a ways, a short distance from this, uh, this campground.
I never did quite understand other than that,
why they focused on him.
I contacted him in jail.
He was very straightforward.
And there's no reason that he would even
go down in there from the road.
There's no way you can see where the victim was camped.
Uh, the brush is so heavy and so dense
and so thick, you cannot see in there.
And so he would have had no reason
at all to go down into that campsite.
[narrator] On December 4th, Robert Thompson examined
the knife Kim Gorman had left behind at his wife's residence,
and detected no presence of blood.
That would be the final time authorities would attempt
to link Kim Gorman to Malessard's murder.
The following day on December 5th,
McClain inspected the fern campsite
that Detective Landwehr had located a week earlier.
There he discovered a secret entrance to the campsite
off Slab Creek Road that somehow escaped
the attention of the other investigators.
I had seen about 20 yards south
of where the gate entrance was on-- on the road.
In the very heavy brush, there was kind of
a little bit of a turn out where you could see
where cars had pulled off the main road and parked.
And in that brush, very, wasn't really noticeable.
It was this 8-track tape that said Bad Company on it.
And when I talked to Franklin Charley,
he said that he was the person that had put
that tape there to show where you could go
through the brush to get to the, get to this campsite.
You could not see-- The campsite was only,
maybe 20 yards off the road.
But the, the foliage and the brush is so thick,
there's no way you could see in that-- In that far.
So they used that as-- as a marker.
[narrator] By this time,
nine days since the discovery of the body,
the small tents, clothing, cooking utensils
and sleeping bags Landwehr had reported, had all been removed.
Only garbage was left behind.
During a survey of the area, McLain also found a well-worn
path between the fern campsite and the Malessard campsite.
Still, no photographs were taken,
nor evidence collected at this time either.
Instead, on December 8th, McLain turned his attention
to the individuals who had been at the fern campsite.
He visited the Hebo Ranger station
and examined the records for recent fern and Moss permits.
They had record of who had the permits.
And these people had permits that adjoined,
abutted that campground.
And so, uh, I found out that they had
had a camp and who would come to the camp.
And uh, I kind of led off in that direction.
[narrator] Alfred Butler, the individual who had left
behind his prescription bottle, had been issued a fern permit
for the immediate area around the fern campsite.
Franklin Charley, who had put up the Bad Company 8-track
and had left a receipt for ferns in a pit toilet
in the Neskowin Creek campground was with Alfred.
McLain also discovered moss permits
for the immediate area had also been issued to Cynthia Thomas,
Arthur Butler, Alfred's brother, and Robert Vanpelt.
They were all acquaintances.
On December 11th, now nearly two weeks
since the homicide, McClain returned to the campsite
with Mark Hathaway, an OSP game officer,
to conduct another search of the fern campsite.
This time, McLean took photographs.
Photographs show the pit toilet where the Franklin Charley
receipt had been found was visible
from both the fern campsite and where Malessard
was camped in the Neskowin Creek Campground.
McLain felt the close proximity between
both campsites could have been how occupants
from the fern campsite had seen or met Alain.
[McLain] One of the things and what, what led me to think
that Malessard would have maybe gone over
if there was somebody in that camp, was the fact
that I had talked to some people up in Canada
that were familiar with him, and they said that
Alain was very curious and talking to different people
and finding out about their culture and the nature
as he took his trip across Canada and the United States.
And so I'm sure that he would have seen their fire
over there at that campground, gone over and talked to them.
They would have found out that he was from France
and that uh, hes by himself and that
he more than likely had some money with him.
And so I think that was probably one of the main
motives why he was-- He was killed.
[narrator] Although by December 11th, mostly garbage
was left behind at the fern campsite.
There were similarities to items also photographed
at the Malessard campsite on November 26th.
Similar juice containers, similar sized aluminum cans,
egg cartons and containers.
The campfire wood.
Similar style clothing at the fern campsite
looked similar to something Malessard would have worn.
The most curious discovery was a triangular shape
found in and around the fern campsite.
These marks were left behind on a cardboard box and trees
and resembled the type of marks found on Alain's body.
Still, McLain nor Hathaway now on the OSP's third visit
to the fern campsite, wouldn't gather any evidence.
[Det. McLain] I wish I would have been--
been at the at the crime scene when it was discovered.
Because I-- They gathered up
all of that stuff before I could really see it.
I saw a few pictures of it, and I had a couple of descriptions,
But that's a lot different than you actually either
hands on or being able to see something, you know?
I would have, I know personally, made a little bit
larger circle out in the brush looking for maybe
the discarded instrument they'd killed him with.
Uh, and to my knowledge, that just didn't happen.
[narrator] On December 11th, prior to investigators
leaving the fern campsite, Arthur Butler drove by the area
and stopped Mark Hathaway, who had been assisting McLain.
Arthur asked Hathaway about the progress
of the murder investigation.
And confirmed that the fern campsite belonged
to his brother, Alfred, and friend, Franklin Charley.
Arthur told Hathaway that they had been cutting ferns
in the area and used the camp as a base of operation.
Alfred Butler said he quit using the campsite
around the first part of November.
Franklin Charley thought it was closer to late September.
Alfred Butler had last visited the fern camp between
November 17th and 18th prior to having a hernia operation
at a McMinnville Hospital on November 19th, 1987.
He had been recovering from the surgery since.
McLain, meanwhile, had assumed any communication
between Interpol had already reached Alain's parents
because nearly three weeks had elapsed.
It had not.
What had reached Alain Malessard's parents
in France were sympathy cards and a care package
sent by the Hannah family from Canada.
[Heather] So they opened this bundle and they see all this,
you know, newspaper clippings and so forth from my mother.
But then they see the mass card.
And um, they had not heard from Alain in a while
and they were getting a little bit worried.
They told us this later.
[narrator] Alain's parents, oblivious to the news
of their son's death, reached out first
to the Iroquois Falls Church
from where the sympathy cards originated from.
The church then called Anne Hannah at work.
Therefore, I left school immediately,
went right over to the police station.
Fortunately, the same sergeant who had come to the house
and interviewed my husband about the case was on
and said, My goodness. I said, What's going on?
They have a body in three weeks
and they haven't contacted the parents.
I even gave them the phone number.
So he was also upset and he had the number,
of course, of the police in Oregon who had phoned him.
And he phoned right then and there
while she was at the police station.
And said, Listen, whatever arrangement
that you made, it didn't work, and the parents weren't told.
And they just found out right now.
So you better do something because you have two hours.
Their excuse was they had turned the case
over to Interpol, and I said that day,
You better find someone who speaks French.
And call these poor parents and tell them
what's happened to their son.
[narrator] Interpol tried to send a second telex
from Washington, DC to France on December 14th.
McLain, however, wouldn't wait any longer.
On December 17th, exactly three weeks
from the discovery of the body, he contacted
the nearest French consulate in San Francisco.
The consulate eventually contacted
Alain's parents through the local police in France.
On December 23rd, the OCP received correspondence
from Alain's father, Mr. Jean Malessard,
including six photographs to assist
with the positive identification.
In a recent letter to his parents, Alain had also
indicated he had withdrawn $350 from his bank account
on November 16th, 1987, in Tillamook, Oregon.
In addition to Alain's missing money and identification,
his parents and the Hannah family
helped the OSP to determine that one or more
of his flags from his bicycle were missing.
As well, his travel journal describing
his trip and the people he had met.
McLain and state medical examiner,
Larry Lewman, met on December 24th
and confirmed positive identification.
On January 6th, the Tillamook, Oregon Headlight Herald
finally identified the homicide victim
as a French citizen, Alain Malessard.
Now, six weeks after the homicide,
this would be the last article written
about the crime in any Oregon newspaper.
This was in stark contrast to what Canadian
newspapers reported, in part because of Anne Hannah
and her family's effort the previous summer
to introduce Alain to their local papers.
Canadian papers featured longer articles and photographs
about the case with in-depth reporting.
In the January Arrowsmith Star, a follow up article noted that
Oregon authorities had identified three suspects
who were in the woods picking moss and ferns.
McLain was quoted as saying, These three people
had been arrested for murder before but weren't convicted.
Although Alfred Butler and Franklin Charley
each had a connection to the fern campsite
and had extensive criminal records,
authorities trusted their alibis.
McLain zeroed in on three other individuals:
Darrell Dino Butler, Gary Butler and Robert Vanpelt.
[McLain] I had talked to Arthur Butler.
And uh, he had told me that Dino Butler, Gary Butler
and Vanpelt were-- they were doing ferns in that area.
And that they would stop in at that campsite and hang out.
This was not uncommon.
[narrator] They were also well-known by local
law enforcement authorities
and had extensive criminal records,
including being charged with a 1981 murder
45 miles south of Neskowin
in the small town of Toledo, Oregon.
Robert's charges were later dropped.
And Dino and Gary were acquitted of the crime
in a 1985 trial.
Although not related, Dino, Gary and Robert
had all been raised by Dino's parents
and were often referred to as brothers and or cousins.
So they-- they ended up being kind of high
on my uh, list of people to look at.
[narrator] McLain's suspicions of their involvement
with Malessard's murder were heightened
following an anonymous tip through 9-1-1.
[phone ringing]
[operator] 9-1-1, whats your emergency?
[man] I know youre tapin' and I have a message for ya.
[operator] Okay.
[man] Slab Creek murders.
Check into the Butler brothers down there in Lincoln City.
At that time, I don't think they had the capability
of finding-- Tracing back the number.
But it was never found out who made the call.
And it was simply that regarding the murder down
on Slab Creek Road, the Butlers, look into the Butlers.
At that time, we had-- I was already looking
very hard at the Butlers.
[narrator] In trying to place the three at the crime scene,
McLain returned to Neskowin to speak with the residents
who had reported seeing vehicles
on Slab Creek Road the week of the murder.
McLain began at the Morgan Farm,
where Sergeant Geistwhite had reported that Peter Morgan,
the father, had seen a 1950s or 60s vintage vehicle
parked near the campground on Tuesday, the 24th.
But McLain would find this police record was incorrect.
It was Peter Morgan's wife, Virginia, who had seen a car
along Slab Creek Road at 4:30 on Tuesday, November 24th,
after a dental appointment in Portland.
She thought it was mustard to brown in color.
It had no fins and was of the late 60s to early 70s vintage.
I'd found out from uh, one of the Lincoln County policemen
that I knew down there that Dino had a car similar to that.
[narrator] Dino Butler drove a 1973 Dodge,
four door sedan, brown in color.
But when McLain showed Morgan photographs of Dino's car,
she said that the car in the photos appeared too clean.
She didn't remember the top being white
and said the body was a different color.
This discrepancy also begs the question:
Who then saw the 1950s-60s vintage vehicle
that Geistwhite incorrectly reported
Peter Morgan seeing on the road the same week?
In a May 2017 interview with Sergeant Geistwhite,
while reviewing his notebook from the Malessard crime scene,
he identified his witness statement
as actually belonging to Maury Gass.
Maurys a-- a school bus driver.
And uh, he has a separate-- Chevron station in Cloverdale.
And he said uh, he might have seen somebody on the road.
Uh, Tuesday, he observed an older automobile,
copper colored 50 or 60 model
across from Neskowin Campground.
After I talked to him?
Hm. I would expect that uh...
Because I gave everything that I had to...
To uh, Stephenson, I would have expected
uh, that they'd have been interviewed at some time.
[narrator] Maury Gass wasn't interviewed by McLain
nor any other investigator, as this information
from Geistwhite's notebook to his police report
was unintentionally credited to Peter Morgan.
So what about the other cars seen
on Slab Creek Road prior to the murder?
An officer had also taken photographs outside
of Arthur Butler's residence in Lincoln City.
These photographs seem to corroborate
a number of the eyewitness accounts.
A 1954 Chevrolet pickup, likely the copper colored
1950-60 vintage vehicle Maury Gass spotted.
A 1967 Plymouth Valiant Signet sedan,
matching closer to Virginia Morgan's
description of a four door mustard
in color American-made beater that was dirty.
This was also the car Arthur Butler
drove by the campground asking
Officer Hathaway about the homicide.
And in the driveway was a 1970 yellow El Camino,
similar to one of the vehicles Floyd Fassett
saw prior to the murder,
which he felt belonged to the fern pickers.
Nevertheless, these photos didn't generate
any further investigation by McClain or the OSP,
nor any follow up with Arthur Butler or Floyd Fassett.
McClain next turned his attention to Gary Butler.
Gary Butler had a job with the tribe in Siletz,
uh, distributing, uh, federal, uh, commodities,
cheese and that sort of thing to-- to the tribal members.
[narrator] Garys job as the manager of the Siletz Tribe
Food Distribution Center linked him
to the U.S. Department of Agriculture
and likely to the USDA boxes found around the fern campsite.
Right after this murder, Gary quit his job with the tribe.
When I talked to him about that, he said that
uh, he was under a lot of stress and uh, he just quit.
And he was having problems with his wife and she had taken off.
And so he was under a lot of stress
and so he just quit his job.
[narrator] An even better link connecting Gary Butler
to the murder emerged in January of 1988.
Three cows in the Blodgett, Oregon area,
90 minutes southeast of Neskowin
were found shot and killed.
Only the head, spine and entrails remained.
An informant with the Lincoln County
District Attorney's Office provided the name
of three suspects in the cow killings.
Chuck Fisher, John Sanchez and Gary Butler.
Authorities discovered in a nearby pasture,
an axe described as a lathing hatchet
with an improvised handle made from a piece of furniture.
This was the type of weapon detectives
and the medical examiner theorized
was one of the instruments in Alain Malessards murder:
A lading hatchet with an axe on one side
and a hammer on the other side,
possibly explaining the triangular marks
found at the fern campsite and on Alain's body.
On January 7th, 1988, John Sanchez told authorities
he had no knowledge of the cow killings
but admitted the axe originated from Gary Butler's property.
McLain's request for a lab analysis
of the axe was dated the following week on May 24th.
The axe, however, was sent by US mail
and the crime lab didn't report of its receipt until July 12th,
nearly six months since it was first obtained by the OSP.
They found traces of animal blood in-- in the handle,
between the handle and the hatchet head.
And I had them try and match the curvature
of the hatchet to the injuries
in Malessards head-- Skull that they knew about.
And they did not match.
[narrator] However, he reported that the axe blade could not
be absolutely excluded as having produced those marks.
McLain still seized upon the opportunity to interview
Gary Butler during the cow killing investigation.
And uh, he told me that he never even went to that.
He knew about that site but he never even went to the site.
And that there's another Gary Butler
that lives in Grand Round that's an Indian.
And every-- Everybody always confuses the two of em.
But when I talked to Franklin Charley
about that, Franklin Charley had told me,
Yeah, I know both Gary Butlers.
And Gary Butler, Dino's brother, half brother
is the one that was at the site.
So he-- He had lied to me about it,
but, but again, there was no physical evidence.
[narrator] McLain next looked at Robert Vanpelt's
connection to the crime scene.
Vanpelt had recently been issued
a moss permit for the immediate area.
And was also picking ferns with Dino Butler
adjacent to Alfred Butler and Franklin Charley's area.
Multiple witnesses claimed
he was a frequent visitor to the fern campsite.
But the week of Alain's murder, Robert had been arrested
on that Tuesday, November 24th at 8:16 p.m.
at the Circle K in Newport, Oregon,
approximately an hour drive south from Neskowin.
He wasn't released from jail until 9:30 p.m. that evening.
Vanpelt could have returned from Newport
to Neskowin that evening or the following day
and been involved in the murder on Wednesday, November 25th,
or the morning of Thursday, November 26.
But McLain had built his case on that Alain was murdered
on Tuesday, November 24th based on the following:
Sergeant Stephenson's police notes claim
the medical examiner had Alain being deceased
for a period of a little over 48 hours,
which both the medical examiner and crime scene investigator
were unable to confirm.
And ignoring Karen Goodrich's eyewitness account of seeing
a male with dark brown hair fixing his bicycle
on that Wednesday, the 25th, between 3:30 and 4 p.m.,
which would have Alain alive
until Wednesday evening after he had eaten.
McLain stood by his theory, however,
yet would never locate Robert Vanpelt to interrogate
or investigate him for the murder.
Vanpelt, Dino and Gary, they had no--
These people have no permanent residences.
They just live around.
And so they're very difficult to try and find.
And especially that they lived in an-- Outside of my area.
And they rarely came up into Tillamook County.
[narrator] In the first part of February 1988,
McLain received Alain's toxicology report.
The sample showed a blood alcohol level
of 0.08 at the time of his death.
This was a major development, as no alcohol
containers were found at Malessards campsite.
And investigators learned that Malessard
wasn't known to drink alcohol.
On February 18th, now, 12 weeks since the discovery
of the body, McLain returned to the fern campsite
and collected 18 bottles strewn about the area.
When I found out that he did in fact have alcohol
in him, I, uh, gathered up all these bottles
and uh, took them over to the ID bureau
in hopes of finding fingerprints on them
that I could place Malessard at that campsite.
And the weather during this time,
it was just constantly wet, heavy rain.
So these bottles would have been out, exposed to the--
To the elements for-- for a long time.
[narrator] The bottles were photographed
and sent to the Bureau of Criminal Identification,
along with some of the crime scene property originally
retained by the Tillamook station on November 26th.
In May of 1988, the property was checked
against the fingerprints belonging to Dino Butler,
Gary Butler, Robert Vanpelt, Alfred Butler,
Franklin Charley and Arthur Butler.
No latent prints that contained a sufficient amount of clear
ridge detail were found suitable for identification.
In fact, no fingerprints were ever detected
on any of the evidence seized by Thompson.
Because of the wet and the rain we didn't have fingerprints.
Um, couldn't-- There was nothing to collect.
But we didn't have any weapon
to, um, collect fingerprints from.
So, we couldn't find anything at the scene
that-- that could be identified with someone else.
We also really didn't have a motive.
We just didn't have enough to even
go get a search warrant.
And we couldn't really identify what
we'd be looking for anywhere.
[narrator] Unable to connect Dino,
Gary or Robert to the Neskowin crime scene
or any of the aforementioned suspects,
McLain resorted to speaking
to their various associates and family members.
Although most were reluctant or wouldn't talk on the record.
We were considered outsiders.
They're suspicious.
And to some extent, they were frightened.
People are reluctant to speak outside
of that particular community, which with they have--
With which they have an alliance
and also a certain amount of fear.
[narrator] Finally, McLain spoke with Dino's parents,
Chester and Rose Butler, on July 22nd, 1988.
Chester had a greenery permit to an area
adjoining Alfred and Franklin's fern campsite
that Dino and Robert Vanpelt had been working.
Chester confirmed that Dino had been living with them
picking ferns, but had left in October to Los Angeles.
They told McLain that they'd have Dino contact him
the next time that they spoke to or saw him.
And when he-- When Dino came back
into the area after his time down in California,
uh, he got a hold of his attorney and the attorney
got a hold of me and said, Don't ever talk to him.
Don't talk to the family anymore,"
uh, "Stay away from him.
[narrator] This concluded any further investigation
into Darrel Butler's possible role
in the murder of Alain Malessard.
McLain was now left with little to work with and no new leads.
Unanswered case update requests extended into the fall of 1988.
When Ken and I would get together once in a while
and we would, we would chew it over
like, Well, well, where are we at?
What do we got? Where do you want me to go?
What do you want to go look at? What do you think?
And um, we just kept running into dead ends
and we just didn't have much to go on.
I mean, it's still an eerie feeling I get.
I mean, the other day, I-- After our-- After you
and I talked, I drove by there again.
And it was still a disturbing memory for me.
Very unsettling.
And, um, here you are,
out on a nice four to six month trip
across North America,
you're a young man,
you're having a great adventure.
And you camp one night in a deserted campground
and you end up being brutally stabbed to death.
That-- I'm-- I'm still disturbed by this.
I mean, this is-- this is an-- I'd like to have it solved.
[narrator] On November 29th, 1988,
a special agent working with Interpol
reached out to Kent McLain.
He had been in contact with the parents
of Alain Malessard and learned that Alain
had written them twice.
On November 7, Alain reported
that he was camping at Cape Lookout,
25 miles north of Neskowin.
and that he had met and become friendly
with an American cyclist who planned to go down
to California with him.
On November 16, Elan said that he was disappointed
because his American cyclist friend
had left him because of business.
McLain wouldn't check with the Cape Lookout Park Ranger
until December 30, 1988.
He learned that any records of Cape Lookout visitors
prior to January 1988 no longer existed.
There would be no records establishing
that Malessard had stayed there,
and if so, with whom.
[McLain] In my mind, I was very sure
that Dino and Van Pelt
and Gary were probably responsible.
If not, there may have been even others
that might have witnessed it or knew about it,
but they were so intimidated by the Butlers
and that-- there's no way that they're going to say anything.
And not to be able to find any physical evidence
to be able to arrest them.
I looked through a lot of piles of trash
up in the woods where people just throw their--
their stuff off-- off the logging road somewhere,
and could never find anything.
That was kind of my-- one of my last hopes.
[narrator] A heinous murder committed around Thanksgiving
had occurred in a forested campground
alongside a creek.
It had taken weeks to identify the body.
There was a lack of hard evidence,
and what evidence had been gathered
had been indifferently collected
and inadequately analyzed.
There was a pronounced lack of communication
between law enforcement officials
during the murder investigation.
There were other suspicious characters
floating around the case.
Why had McLain focused singular attention
on Dino Butler, Gary Butler and Robert Van Pelt?
What about this 1981 murder
that they had been associated with
in Toledo, Oregon
made Detective McLain so certain
that they had been involved with Alain's?
[ebbing sentimental music]

[narrator] In 1981, Dino, Gary,
and Robert became entangled in one of Oregon's
most complicated and darker crimes,
the murder of Donald Pier.
Pier, a 43 year old Toledo mill worker,
was among a group of men accused of digging up
Native American graves in the Siletz
and Logsden Oregon area and selling the artifacts.
[E.A. Schwartz] Well, as I understand it,
because I wasn't there,
but back in the early 70s
somebody was building a gas station.
And so that's when, of course, they dug down there
to put the tanks in.
And in the process of doing this,
they found Indian graves.
And there was gold in the graves.
And a light goes on in somebody's mind.
Oh, there are graves up in Siletz
with stuff in them, that you can sell.
Trade beads, all kinds of things.
So that's where it started,
and there wasn't really any law that applied.
[narrator] Another complication was that
most of these gravesites had been constructed
during the forced relocation of tribes
to the Central Willamette Valley
in the 19th century,
and were now on private property.
Most had no formal gravestone,
marked with only a shrub or plant.
Gary Shearer of the Oregon State Police's
Salem office was assigned to investigate the crimes.
If I didn't see anything
that looked like it may have been
a grave where they'd planted a shrub
or a tree, or something,
then I've moved on.
But when I found that,
then I took my probe and I started looking
and lo and behold, I found places
that I thought had been disinterred.
[narrator] David Needham was identified
as one of the more prolific grave robbers
who had a history of digging graves
beginning as early as the 1970s.
Needham admitted to his wrongdoing
with authorities and would turn over
a number of artifacts to Clayton Lane,
a member of the Siletz tribe,
who had first learned of the robberies
through the Toledo mill.
[narrator] Needham also provided Lane another name,
Donald Pier.
Trooper Shearer reported that in previous years,
Pier had been caught digging
by the Oregon State Police.
Pier proclaimed his interest in Native American culture
stemmed from his work
with the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission
and had only visited gravesites
in hopes to one day write a book.
[Dawnell] My dad, what I remember of him,
he often times,
in the summer months growing up
our summers were spent going over to eastern Oregon,
uh, eastern Washington, up into Canada
to, um, desert lands.
Uh, most of the artifacts
that he would find were arrowheads,
but it is usually-- just usually
old Indian campgrounds
and there-- they were just on the surface,
it was usually just
sifting through the top layer of the soil.
[narrator] In a June of 1980 police interview,
Don Pier claimed a number of his artifacts
he obtained legally in eastern Oregon were donated
to the Lincoln County Historical Society in Newport.
Furthermore, Pier denied
having ever dug into graves.
In June of 1980, Oregon State Police
and the Lincoln County District Attorney's Office
opted not to prosecute any of the men
due to the weak laws at the time.
Only misdemeanors.
Um, I can't recall the exact particulars of it right now,
but there were problems with effective dates of statutes,
the terms of statutes, statutes of limitations,
and just proof in terms of where things
might have come from
and when they were taken from graves,
if they were taken from graves.
In the end, I concluded that
it would have had to involve
the actual collusion of Mr. Pier himself
to simply come in and waive
any number of legal objections or barriers
and submit himself to the jurisdiction
of the court voluntarily.
And I decided against doing that.
Oh, I could only speculate.
They viewed the Indians as being the other.
And it wasn't their problem.
That pretty much summarizes it.
[Sr. Trooper Gary Shearer] They wanted it stopped,
first of all, they didn't want
any more graves disturbed.
And they wanted, um,
that stuff that had been taken from the graves,
they wanted it returned.
So that it could be reburied.
But the grave robbers,
they would have to be, uh, killed.
Their throats would have to be cut
in the graveyard, at the graves
so that their blood would go
into the disturbed soil where the spirits were,
and that would appease the spirits.
[narrator] Near this time, information obtained
by the Oregon State Police
revealed that members
of the American Indian Movement,
AIM, had also learned of these robberies.
[narrator] AIM was a Native American grassroots movement
founded in 1968
to address a number of critical issues
for the native communities,
including the preservation of indigenous cultures
and police brutality against Native Americans.
Dino Butler was among their membership.
[E.A. Schwartz] Well, he was like a lot of guys who,
they end up in prison, they end up in trouble,
and they-- they start out in trouble.
As soon as they're big enough to get in trouble,
they get into it and the system
never lets loose of them afterwards.
And that was his situation.
It-- his involvement with AIM
started out very casually.
Somebody needed somebody to go with him,
so he went with him.
And first thing you know,
he's interested, he's involved.
He's found something
that is bigger than himself,
that is bigger than the stuff he's been involved in.
[narrator] An early leader of AIM.
Dino was acquitted of charges
of aiding and abetting the deaths
of two FBI agents
who died in a 1975 shootout
on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
A Native American man also died in the shootings.
[newscaster] A federal court jury
in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, today acquitted two leaders
of the American Indian Movement of murder charges.
The defendants Robert Robadoe and Daryl Butler
have been charged with killing two FBI agents
on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
in South Dakota last summer.
The defense maintained
the Indians acted in self-defense.
[narrator] Dino's acquittal provided him
with a bit of notoriety
and a platform to become a vocal critic
of mistreatment of Native Americans
at the hands of the FBI.
AIM made Pier public enemy number one
for his alleged association to these heinous crimes.
[narrator] At 10:30 p.m. on January 21st, 1981,
Pier was confronted by three men in his home,
alongside his 19 year old son, Paul,
and girlfriend Leslie.
Leslie was held at gunpoint
in a back bedroom, while Don was tortured
and pistol whipped in the living room
while Paul watched.
The three men wanted Pier to turn over stolen artifacts
and provide additional names of grave robbers,
neither of which he did.
During the confrontation,
Leslie escaped out the back of the house
to find help next door.
[narrator] Don died at the bottom
of his front stairway.
Paul survived his wounds.
[Dawnell] We'd gone to bed and it was probably
2 o'clock in the morning that we got the phone call
that my father was dead
and Paul was in the hospital
and we needed to go pick him up.
So we quickly threw on our clothes and--
and drove to Toledo
to the hospital to get Paul.
And, oh, it was horrible.
It was--
it was heart-wrenching just to know.
It was-- we were all just stunned.
We were just numb and stunned.
But then to know that your brother,
who's such a good guy,
had to watch and had to be a part of this
and to see
how my father was so brutally beaten,
and killed, in front of him,
and then they left him.
I do remember that we had
suspects in mind rather quickly.
Um, I-- I believe
uh, that there was, um,
information from an informant
that gave us some help
with identifying suspects.
I think we also had
the description from Donald Pier's son.
And piecing all of that together,
I think rather quickly,
we identified the named individuals
that we were thinking
were probably involved.
[narrator] With the help of Clayton Lane,
authorities quickly identified three suspects.
Dino Butler, Gary Butler and Robert Van Pelt.
Although the initial sketches and descriptions
by Paul and Leslie looked nothing like them.
Yet Paul would recall in his first police interview
that one of the suspects had the distinction
of being part Native American
with long, fair colored hair,
which was a detail that matched Gary Butler.
Gary's fingerprint was also found in a break in
at a cabin, just outside Toledo, Oregon,
within 24 hours of the Pier murder,
where wet clothes were left behind
that also matched Paul's description.
Some critics, however,
thought the authorities might be
singling out Dino Butler
due to his American Indian Movement affiliation.
They had not given good descriptions at all,
very vague descriptions.
And nothing like what the Toledo police put out.
So you got to wonder where the Toledo police
got these descriptions, or if they're just going
on the assumption that they know who did it,
and they're going to describe
the people who they know who did it.
Uh, in other words, Dino Butler.
[narrator] To better assist Paul and Leslie
with identifying the three men,
the Lincoln County District Attorney Office
and the Toledo Police Department
conducted two hypnosis sessions
to help with Paul and Leslie's memories,
and relieve their post-traumatic stress.
Um, they'd been through a traumatic episode,
and we suspected that
in a relaxed atmosphere,
um, you would be able to remove some of the trauma
and other barriers to recollection
and perhaps get a bit more detail
about the event and about the identities,
um, the facial features
of the people who'd been involved.
[newscaster] This is Kingsway in Burnaby.
In February 1981,
police chased a car down this street.
A gun came out of the side window
and fired at the police.
[narrator] Then a major break occurred
for the investigators.
On February 23rd, 1981.
Dino and Gary were arrested
400 miles away in Burnaby, British Columbia,
following a shootout and car chase
with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Authorities found in their possession
a number of the artifacts Lane had recovered
from David Needham.
As well as the two guns that matched the Ruger
used to shoot at Paul
and the Colt Lawman used to torture Don,
that now had missing wood pieces in the grip
that matched to broken pieces
found at the crime scene.
The Ruger was traced to a burglary
from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
that occurred five years before.
On March 3rd, 1981,
Paul Pier traveled to Canada and identified
both Dino and Gary in their prison cells,
and stated Gary had stabbed his father
and Dino had shot at him.
The murder of Don Pier seemed
like a clear-cut case for conviction,
but delays ensued.
Dino and Gary ultimately spent
more than three years in the Canadian prison system,
having both been found guilty of firearms charges,
but then having their case overturned
on a long, drawn out appeal.
[newscaster] Three years and 11 months later,
two men accused of the crime
sit in a prisoner's box in New Westminster,
Gary and Darrelle Butler.
They are American Indians,
cousins from Oregon.
They fired their court appointed lawyers
and say they will not participate in the trial.
As the accused tell the judge,
we will not take part in your charade.
They both want to be extradited
to the U.S. where they face murder charges.
But they say that Canada is cooperating
with the U.S. government by keeping them in prison here
because they told the judge,
that the charges against them in the U.S. are not valid.
[cameras shuttering]
[journalists] Ask you couple questions?
How does it feel to be free?
[indistinct muttering]
Dino?
[narrator] Gary and Dino didn't return to Oregon
until December of 1984
to stand trial for Pier's murder.
By this time, Lincoln County would hire
an outside prosecutor and given only a few months
to prepare for the complicated case.
I first became aware of the case
in general terms,
probably in late November
or early December of 1984,
and then, certainly, was aware that, uh,
they were going to be coming down
by the time things had taken place
up in Vancouver.
[narrator] Dino and Garry, however,
were represented by a number of top attorneys,
including Bruce Ellison,
one of the key lawyers from Dino's Pine Ridge case,
who had been involved with their Canadian trials.
In a pretrial motion,
the defense argued that the Butlers couldn't receive
a fair trial in the more conservative Lincoln County
and had it moved to the more liberal Multnomah County.
Although the hypnosis sessions up to this point
had been allowed by the Lincoln County judge,
the Multnomah County judge threw out these procedures,
citing irregularities and contamination
in the recording process.
Thus, everything that followed the hypnosis,
including the crucial Canadian prison I.D.
by Paul Pier in Canada, was inadmissible.
I don't know if I was shocked. I certainly was troubled.
I felt, uh,
he had given, I believed,
fairly clear statements before the hypnosis.
And it seemed that very relevant testimony
was being taken away from the jury,
um, on grounds that
I-- to this day would disagree with,
but of course, was not the judge.
So the prosecutors were left in the position
of trying to put together a prosecution,
having lost the most relevant testimony in the case.
[narrator] Robert Van Pelt, whose whereabouts
during Dino and Gary's time in Canada were unknown,
ultimately turned himself in just prior
to the start of the trial.
Because the state's witness,
who could implicate Van Pelt
had been improperly apprehended in California,
the state was forced to drop Van Pelt's charges
without prejudice, and focus on Dino and Gary.
The state, now without the third suspect,
the hypnosis, Paul's Canadian prison I.D.,
and stuck with primarily circumstantial evidence,
had to regroup.
They employed Clayton Lane,
now an informant, to serve as
the state's key witness against the Butlers.
There were some things that Clayton remembered
uh, in terms of statements made by Gary Butler
and, at least, some implicit acknowledgment
by Dino Butler that they were
at the scene of the-- of the murder.
And that was evidence that we needed to have,
particularly after the hypnosis testimony
was disallowed.
[narrator] Clayton Lane had a considerable
criminal history and to complicate the matter,
the car that Dino and Gary were found in, in Canada
was registered to Clayton Lane's wife, Patricia.
But by 1984,
Lane was in need of the state's help,
as much as the state needed him.
Clayton, due to his background,
was involved in a child custody issue,
which the state fixed,
as well as provided him
an income more than $12,500
to help pay his bills in exchange for his testimony.
He was also granted immunity from prosecution.
The trial began on September 25th, 1985,
and lasted seven weeks.
The defense exposed gross contradictions
in Lane's testimony,
as well as poor forensics collection
and handling by the Toledo Police Department
and the Oregon State Police.
[E. A. Schwartz] So all that was really left was...
the wood chip evidence.
Tiny piece of wood with a spot of blood on it.
Supposedly.
This was never entered
into the evidence journal in the first place,
where it was until it was later located.
We don't know.
It never struck me as being very good evidence.
It always struck me as being something
that could be manipulated.
[narrator] Although in one particular revealing moment,
OSP officer Mark Hathaway testified that
a knife found at the Butler's Fern campsite
in the Sampson Creek area
just prior to the Pier homicide
matched the style of knife
found outside of the Pier home.
The campsite included a standard style tent
and a teepee style tent.
Various knives and a machete were in plain view.
Only a few years later,
Officer Hathaway would point Detective McLain
in the direction of the Butlers
during the Malessard murder investigation.
The jury deliberated for 16 hours,
over the course of three days.
[E.A. Schwartz] Now, I had covered other murder cases...
but I was never
personally involved.
And I guess you could say
I wasn't exactly personally involved in this,
but I did have a pretty strong opinion by that time.
And so when the jury came back in,
the room was electric.
And of course, it was an enormous relief
when they
found them not guilty.
[detective] I was not at all surprised
that it was a not guilty verdict.
The prosecution was handicapped
from the very moment that the testimony
of the son was excluded.
And it was no surprise whatsoever
to see that these,
um, defendants were, um, acquitted.
And if you're the prosecutor,
you feel responsibilities to the public,
because that's your job,
is to present the best case you can.
And even though we did that,
we didn't get the outcome that we were hoping for.
And we felt bad for Paul Pier...
and for Leslie Oakland because they did
the best they could as well.
[narrator] In the end, the Butlers were acquitted
of the Pier homicide
and the case still remains unsolved.
Shortly after the conclusion of the case,
Gary pled guilty
to the burglary of the Toledo cabin
and was sentenced to community service.
Dino walked away free.
He now had evaded conviction in his third major trial.
[Dawnell] One thing that we didn't talk about was
why we didn't pursue a civil suit.
And this goes to why I didn't...
is that my dad wouldn't have done it.
He would've been the first person to forgive
because he was so sympathetic towards the Native Americans.
He...
he would have acknowledged the fact
that they've made-- they made a mistake
with the person that they targeted
this heinous crime to.
But he would have forgiven 'em.
[somber tones]
[tones speeding up]
My mother maintained
a correspondence with the Malessards.
She would send them a Christmas, uh,
calendar of scenes of Canada.
She sent them that year end
for probably at least ten or 15 years
after his death.
And they wanted, as sort of to repay for,
you know, hosting their son.
And they always wanted to repay my parents
and they intended, you know,
for my parents to come over to France.
But my father's not one to travel.
As it turned out, James and I
were going on a honeymoon trip,
driving across Europe in 1990.
So we said that we would go
and we would stop in Lons-le-Saunier.
So we agreed to go, to at least...
put a-- a human face to the people who'd helped Alain.
We were planning on a relatively short visit,
but we ended up staying five days,
and I-- I believe
it was a bit therapeutic for them
that they had someone to speak to
because they had, uh, they had no one else
to discuss this subject with.
Now, the-- um, the mother,
Mrs-- Mrs. Malessard
was the more-- more grief-stricken.
Mr. Malessard said
when we'd-- um,
visited Alain's grave that,
you know, Alain is not really here.
You know, he's in our hearts,
but he's not-- he's not lying there
in a-- in a tomb.
So I believe he would've been
willing to move on.
But for the sake of his wife...
you know, they both clung to this idea
of just preserving everything
that he had done, and that they did so
quite meticulously.
They had a giant map of Canada
in their cottage,
on the wall,
and it had different little pins,
I believe, of where he was
or where he mentioned he was.
[Heather] And upstairs, oh, it was--
she showed us his room,
which hadn't changed at all.
She had kept it, I guess,
just as it was prior to him leaving,
with his posters of
movie stars and other things.
And I think that she often would go in there
and probably sit and-- and cry.
She certainly was tearful in showing it.
And James thought that
if they maybe came to North America
and saw where he had been,
that maybe this would help to bring some closure.
By their own accounts,
they had never been farther than
a couple hundred kilometers from where they lived...
in their entire lives.
So the idea of going to Oregon was...
seemingly impossible for them.
So I was available
and I was more than willing to help.
So they flew into Toronto from France out of Paris,
and he accompanied them to Portland.
They did have a connection in Portland who met them,
it was the niece of a friend, I believe,
of Mrs. Malessard's.
So she accompanied them and took them to visit
the detective in Tillamook
who had been in charge of the case.
And James filmed,
videotaped all the trip
that Alain would have taken
down into the Tillamook area where he was found.
By that time, I'd found out
a little bit more about where his--
his-- how his course was
when he came into Oregon and how he went down the coast.
And so I drove down the coast with--
I met the parents.
I drove down the coast
with Suzanne as the interpreter.
[Suzanne translating]
We were very fortunate
when we went by the Neskowin school.
The teacher that had actually talked
to their son was out
and we contacted her
and she was able to talk through the interpreter--
to their son, and she was actually
the last person that had seen him alive.
It was a holiday for the school,
we had half a day.
[Suzanne translating]
And so we were leaving about noon...
[Suzanne translating]
and we were parked up by the fence.
[Suzanne translating]
And we were getting in our car,
and your son was on his bike,
-passing by. -[Suzanne translating]
And he asked if there was a campground anywhere nearby.
Oh, he didn't know about the campground?
No, no.
[Suzanne translating]
And I told him about that campground.
When they came, it was a beautiful spring day.
We were out, I was on recess duty,
and we were out on the playground
and the detective
who had been involved with that murder
approached me and told me that
his parents were here
and they wanted some resolution,
or they just wanted to see the last place
and talk to the people who had possibly been
the last people to speak to their son.
And the juxtaposition of that idyllic,
beautiful May day
and the setting being so innocent
and-- and rural and pastoral,
you know, to be...
close to this brutal death
was, you didn't,
you know, I was aware of it.
We then went down to the scene and walked around.
Of course it has-- it was closed off.
The campground was closed off at that time,
and it's never opened since then.
And they had gotten the rhododendron.
They'd ask what-- what might survive
the environment down there.
And so we'd gotten a rhododendron and--
and planted the rhododendron at the site.
And it all became quite real
when they were standing
on the very spot where Alain's tent was located
and-- um,
and where he last died.
She's still worried about him dying
and not-- not feeling any pain and dying right away.
-[Suzanne translating] -I think it happened,
I think, uh.
I think the boy first...
-it was real quick. - Tout suite.
I think what you glean from the video
when you-- when you listen to the--
to the French parts,
it was all exceedingly pedestrian
the way it was handled, you know?
Whereas they'd lost their only son.
They were also concerned about whether, uh,
they would continue working on the case.
And he-- he persuaded them that...
they would continue to do so.
[lips smacking]
This one was really tough, because emotionally,
that was a very emotional time
when I met the mom and dad,
because they were so traumatized by it,
and that they'd spent their money to come over
just to see where their son was--
had been murdered, uh,
that that would be very difficult for people.
And so that takes a little bit out of the investigator,
also, when that happens,
when you're-- when you're having to deal
with the victim's parents, it's very traumatic.
And it just rips a little piece
of your heart out
and you think you lock that stuff away,
but it's-- oh, it's always there.
No.
[Sgt. Stephenson] Regardless of his origin,
being a French national didn't matter.
If you are the victim of a crime,
you deserve to have your crime investigated
and you deserve to have justice.
And I don't think Alain Malessard--
has not received that in any way, shape or form.
So that's the sort of thing
that I am disappointed with.
Not that we might not have an idea who did it,
but we simply don't have enough evidence
to prosecute it.
I mean, maybe I'm to blame, too, because,
you know, I was a fairly new prosecutor.
I mean, I think that's frustrating,
but maybe in 1987, we did the best we could.
I still feel responsible to that family.
That I wasn't able to give them an answer.
And so I don't think I brought closure to them.
And I didn't-- and I think that's probably
a big part of my frustration, is that family...
still today doesn't have an answer.
Whenever I'd be reminded of it, yeah, I wonder why.
Why hasn't there been anything more to that?
It's a small community, it happened,
it made a real impact in that community.
You would think something might have shaken loose by now.
And looking at everything de novo,
brand new,
using the most advanced techniques of fingerprinting,
DNA, hair and fiber analysis,
all the trace that could be there,
and, um,
and looking for evidence that'd crack it.
I mean, it's one of these situations
in forensic science
that you don't know until you start searching.
If you don't search, you'll never find it.
And sometimes when you're searching,
you're just collecting.
And it's that one thing that you've collected
that you didn't realize was that important,
becomes the most important thing in the case
and breaks it wide open.
[phone call crackling]
[operator] 9-1-1?
[caller] This is the Alibi Tavern.
We were just robbed at gunpoint.
[operator] And what's your address there?
[caller] Uh, 616 Northwest 7th.
[operator] Okay, which way did the, uh, suspect go?
[caller] Um, [exhaling]
they were headed towards
Wallaceburg, I'm not sure
I'm not sure which direction,
I believe someone's shot outside.
[in background] He needs an ambulance!
[caller] But we need an ambulance also,
someone's been shot.
Oh, my God.
[narrator] On December 23rd, 1993,
Dennis Anderson,
a husband and father of two,
was shot and killed following a holdup
at a Salem, Oregon, tavern.
The gunman was identified as Robert Van Pelt,
now residing in Salem, Oregon.
And the getaway driver, Mark Labonte.
They both pled guilty to the robbery and murder.
Van Pelt was sentenced to 11 years and two months
and Labonte to five years.
McLain learned of the Salem murder.
But instead of taking the opportunity
to meet with Van Pelt,
he instead opted to work
with a jailhouse informant about Alain's murder.
[McLain] And so I'd gone over there,
I actually got a hold of this guy.
And he was involved in a meeting
with the Butlers prior to the Pier murder.
The Butlers were going to go take revenge on Pier,
and he told me that he did not want them
to do that, that maybe if they went
and roughed the guy up a little bit,
that would be okay, but he did not want them
to go over and murder Pier.
And so he has had friction
and falling out with the Butlers since then.
I'd asked him if Van Pelt would be--
that he would be coming to the state penitentiary,
and then if he came there and started bragging
about the homicide on Malessard,
would he get a hold of me?
But he never did call me, and so it never happened.
[narrator] Police notes, however,
disclosed that one of Van Pelt's cellmates
informed Salem authorities
that Van Pelt had discussed his involvement
with the Donald Pier murder.
This potentially incriminating information
was never passed on to McLain.
Nor from the Polk County DA,
where Anderson was murdered
to the Lincoln County DA,
where Pier was murdered.
Additionally, this case had
two other strange discoveries
that could have, or should have, had investigators
take a closer look at
in regard to Malessard's murder.
First, was the Canadian-style
maple leaf pin
found outside the Alibi Tavern,
where Van Pelt had shot and killed Dennis Anderson.
Van Pelt was known to wear a hat with pins in it.
Alain Malessard also wore a hat
with pins that he had collected
along his North American trip.
At Malessard's crime scene inside the tent,
investigators found his hat and pins
near a bandana, similar to what was reported
to be worn by Van Pelt
at both the Toledo and Salem, Oregon homicides.
[Leslie] He had a ponytail.
[narrator] In the rear seat of Van Pelt's car
was an AgriPac employment card
for Mark Labonte, the getaway driver.
Coincidentally, the two large cans
found at the Malesard campsite
had both been AgriPac products
and were similar in size to the cans found
at the Franklin Charlie
and Alfred Butler Fern campsite.
Mark Labonte was also the son of Butch Labonte,
who Franklin Charlie was living with
in Rose Lodge, Oregon
at the time of the Malessard murder.
Butch was also identified as helping to clean up
the campsite following the OSP's discovery of it
on November 28th, 1987.
Franklin Charlie had also revealed to Detective McClain
that Butch Labonte's wife, Crystal Curl,
had cut herself at the campsite
with a butcher knife
near the time of the Malessard murder.
So where might an official re-investigation
of Alain's murder start today?
One might start from the beginning
with the three individuals who found Alain
at the Neskowin Creek campground.
[dramatic orchestral music playing]
[Shannon] I wouldn't say it looked brutal.
I-- I-- you know,
it just was-- it just was a calm day,
you know?
It was Thanksgiving Day, it, uh, um...
just-- and you know-- and what I remember, you know,
was my pops, you know.
We'd seen some feet hanging out of a--
halfway out of a-- out of a tent.
And so...
we didn't see any activity.
So Pops yelled-- yelled up and said,
"Hey," you know, and--
and so Pops yelled again, "Hey, mister!
Anybody--"
You know, and then-- So no response.
So we walked up to the tent...
and, you know,
that's where we'd seen the fellow hanging
halfway out of his tent.
You know, some of the things
that I remember was it was neat.
You know, the-- the clothes
on the picnic table were folded.
Um, like somebody had put them there neatly
and a bicycle was there.
Uh, the tent was, you know-- was intact.
Uh, like the guy was hanging,
you know, like-- like he had sat down
in the doorway of his tent.
And, uh, so his legs were halfway out.
And I remember the hair parted on his legs...
and I just saw his forehead with, uh--
looked like a hole in his forehead.
And I thought to myself, maybe an ax
or a pick-ax or something and--
And we went around to the side of the tent,
the tent was cut open...
um, and you could see in there pretty well.
You know, it was scary,
but it wasn't-- it wasn't threatening.
I didn't feel like, you know, somebody was lurking
and [indistinct] or anything,
But, you know, we [indistinct]
we'd left there, you know.
Went down to Otis gas station.
Uh, I made the initial call to 911.
I don't know, um...
That looks a lot more brutal than I remember.
I mean, the tent damage, um...
I don't remember the huge hole in the back of the tent.
I remember the side one,
but I don't remember exactly how it was.
I remember you could see right in there.
Um, and the pile of clothes...
on the table is a lot different
than I remember because...
like, if we would have saw that mess...
that would have been a little bit different
than what-- than what I saw.
This is a lot different.
Um, it almost looks like...
it was tore up after we left, um...
Oh, yeah, I'm sure of it.
I'm sure of it.
[narrator] With cold case files routinely being solved today
through DNA,
what evidence might be left
from the Malessard crime to re-examine?
And what is the quality of evidence?
The Oregon State Police wouldn't comment
on any of the case's evidence,
or its whereabouts that still pertain
to the Malessard murder.
What is known that in 1988
Alain's bike, central to the investigation
was sold at a public auction for $40.
Even though authorities speculated that his bike
might have instigated or provoked the attack.
As I recall now, there was, um, I think,
a Canadian flag on his property
somehow or somewhere,
and that he may have been mistaken for a Canadian.
I guess, as the investigation
proceeded, um, there was speculation
about-- since the Butlers had animosity
towards Canadian authorities
that-- that may have fueled
part of their passion in this--
in thinking that he was a Canadian.
[narrator] Today, only Alain's front saddlebags
have been recovered.
But having left police custody
over 30 years ago,
they no longer provide any usable evidence.
A case like this also needs a champion
within the legal community.
Bill Porter,
the District Attorney of Tillamook County,
after Lemrie's departure,
is the key player to reopening this case
with vigorous investigation.
But to complicate matters,
Porter married the daughter
of the OSP Tillamook Station Commander Glen Cyphers,
who had overseen the Malessard investigation
and made a number of key decisions.
Including to pull Stevenson from the case,
insert Detective Landwehr
and wait for McLain's return
the following week.
Political.
It was the station commander.
He didn't have much use for the criminal division
and he didn't have much use for the--
for the game division.
He was hard core traffic.
And it always kind of stuck in my craw that--
that he was not allowed
to be more involved in it, but he was not.
And that's primarily a station commander's decision.
[narrator] And finally, there is the 911 call.
[caller] I know you're taping, I have a message for you.
[operator] Okay.
[caller] Slab Creek murders.
Check into the Butler Brothers down here in Lincoln City.
[narrator] Was the caller really trying
to implicate Dino, Gary and Robert,
or was he instead
pointing the authorities in the direction
of Alfred and Arthur, who were actual blood brothers
and the only two to actually reside
in Lincoln City in 1988?
[caller] Slab Creek Murders,
check into the Butler Brothers down here in Lincoln City.
[narrator] Furthermore, it was Arthur's residence,
where three of the cars recently seen
on Slab Creek Road were parked nearby,
which still produced no follow up.
And in another strange coincidence,
Arthur's residence was just a mile
from the Big "O" Tavern
where authorities found and arrested Kim Gorman,
the initial suspect,
the day after the discovery of Malessard's body.
But still, no follow up.
Hindsight is 20-20,
particularly when it reveals
Detective Kent McLain clearly inherited
a botched investigation.
But the authorities single-minded efforts
to try and put Dino Butler
at the Neskowin campground crime scene
undoubtedly took priority
over so many other substantial clues and leads.
Did this stubbornness undermine
or ultimately prevent solving the murder
of Alain Malessard?
Even today,
nearly 35 years from the murder,
the state of Oregon has a Alain Malessard
recorded as a missing person,
not a homicide.
This isn't an honest mistake...
but a reminder to Oregonians that there is zero interest
or attention to detail to ever solving this crime.
Only Alain's family, some 5,000 miles away,
and his Canadian friends hold out hope
that his murderers will someday be found
and brought to justice.
I can remember standing in the driveway the last day,
still in my housecoat as he pulled away.
And I started to cry.
And I'll still do it.
Because of what I-- [coughing]
What I said to George...
and he said, "Why are you crying?"
I said, "We're never going to see him again."
I figured he was coming into Ontario,
in southern Ontario,
going home to France, and we'd never see him again.
Never thinking that the reason
I would never see him again
is that he was going to be killed.
[narrator] To help with the grief,
Anne Hannah's family continued a correspondence
and travel exchange program
with Jean and Andre Malessard
well into the 2000s.
It was in 2008, and like I said,
I got into these classes where we were going to Rome.
So I was actually in Italy for a month.
And then I was going to tag this on to my trip
and go to France after.
And so my mom, she must have contacted Anne
to get, uh, their phone number.
And then she called them up and-- and they said,
"Yeah, you know, please do.
Like, come visit," right?
'Cause I was-- I'm the girl in the video
that they had seen, right?
So they had this little kitchen.
And when I got there,
we sat there and they were bringing out food and--
and it was right on the wall
beside the kitchen table from what I remember...
and it was all the places he had traveled.
And that was the first thing they started talking about.
Like, "Oh, you-- look at all the-- this
that he went to all these places,"
and, like, they were really proud, you know,
they wanted to tell me all about him
'cause when I was there, I would have been his age
when he was in Canada.
And, um, yeah, they were just so happy
to share, like, just talk about him.
They talked about him a lot when I was there.
Especially his mom, she got very emotional
because she-- she just talked about him
and when he left
and I think the last--
like, when they'd heard from him
and stuff like that, so she got very emotional,
I remember.
Yeah, and they brought me to all these, um,
like, the city hall or the town hall
and they'd brought me to all these very famous,
kind of places that they thought were,
"Oh, this is a good place, or we have to go there."
Like, they had a whole list of places to take me.
They wanted to just show me all the--
the really good places.
So I got a lot of really beautiful pictures.
[emotional orchestral music fades]
I think it was probably right in here
where we planted with the Malessards--
Mr. and Mrs. Malessard,
where they planted their memorial rhododendron.
I think it died, probably,
'cause there wasn't enough light
that gets down in here.
Pretty-- pretty bright in here today.
But when it gets overcast,
starts to rain...
uh, it gets-- it gets very dark back in here.
But very quiet.
Secluded from a road that's very rarely used.
So good-- good place to camp.
It's not likely that somebody
driving down the road would stop and come in here
and commit the crime.
[sentimental piano music]








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