No Regrets

after the body’s immersion in water, there were no other signs of scratches or contusions on the inner thighs which usually accompany forcible rape.
    Multnomah County Chief Deputy District Attorney Des Connell assigned a photographer from the Department of Public Safety to take pictures of the dead child for identification purposes and for possible press releases. Robert Zion from the Scientific Investigation Unit did his best to make the photographs something that would be suitable to appear in the media. The child’s wounds were covered with makeup and the resulting photos showed only a pretty little girl who appeared to be asleep.
    Shortly after two that afternoon, Zion was summoned again to the ME’s office. Search parties on Sauvie Island had made another grisly discovery. Deputy Ernie Thompson of Columbia County, who had spent much of the morning rowing back and forth through the chill waters of the Columbia, had hooked onto a white pillowcase with an object inside. It was a woman’s head. It was brought to Dr. Brady’s office, and there was no question that this head belonged to the body found the night before. Zion waited while the head was prepared and made up for photographs.
    The woman appeared to be between twenty-five and twenty-seven. She had dark brown hair which was short and curved around her ears, with bangs. Her complexion was slightly rough as if she had suffered acne as a teenager. Still, in life, she had probably been attractive. Now, a large, reddened contusion on the left temple area extended backinto her hairline. Someone had dealt her a powerful blow to the head, fracturing her skull.
    The head had been wrapped in six pillowcases slipped one inside the other to make a relatively thick bag. The white case with a purple and green trim which actually encased the head was heavily soaked with blood.
    The decapitated head was not the only item retrieved from the river. A thermal undershirt, large beach towel, white terry cloth bathrobe, pink and white striped blanket, two bags of costume jewelry, and a green and blue checked dress (cut up the back and through each sleeve) were also marked and tagged for evidence. It was beginning to look as if the killer, whoever he was, had used almost the entire contents of an average family’s linen closet to cover up his bloody crime. Why had he thrown away the costume jewelry? Perhaps he feared it would haunt him, and he never wanted to see the pieces again.
    Christmas Eve came and still no police agencies had reports of missing persons whose descriptions matched the dead woman and child. Portland papers and television stations cooperated with police by showing the photographs of the victims. Headlines cried out: “Do You Know This Woman and Little Girl?” It was not a happy Christmas feature, not the kind of heartwarming news that city editors seek on the most sentimental holiday of the year, but it had to be done.
    Detectives felt sure that somewhere there was a Christmas tree waiting for the small girl whose body had washed up on the island. Yet they received no calls regarding the published pictures. They could only assume that the victims had come from some distance away from Portland, outside the normal circulation of city newspapers and TV stations. Or perhaps there was a father somewhere, and he,too, might have been a victim of murder—one not yet discovered.
    Finally the publication of the pictures struck a nerve with someone. A young woman who lived with her parents in a suburb southeast of Portland was stunned when she opened her paper. Judy King stared at the face of the Jane Doe, whose hair had been combed neatly, whose eyes were closed, but who was no longer alive. Judy didn’t want to acknowledge the similarities to one of her closest friends and to the friend’s small daughter. She even tried to tell herself she was being influenced by the power of suggestion. But she knew better. She recognized her friend Carol Ann Hamilton and her daughter, Judith Ann Hamilton. Filled with horror, she stared at the two photographs in the
Oregonian.
    Judy King was twenty. Her mother, Gladys King, had befriended Carol Hamilton and her husband, Richard, many years before. At that time the couple were not yet married; they were students attending the Warner Bible School in Portland. Both Carol and Richard had come from out of state and they had no relatives in Oregon. Mrs. King had “sort of adopted” them into her family. Although Carol was a few