August 4, 2025 • 32 mins
In scary movies, there’s always that moment—the chase, the panic, the victim just steps away from help when they’re suddenly pulled back into danger. It’s a trope meant to shock us and keep us on the edge of our seats. But in 1970, in a quiet Oregon town, that moment wasn’t fiction. It was real. A young woman, terrified and desperate, made it all the way to the doorstep of help, only for the killer to catch up and drag her away.
In the end two people would be dead, no motive would be established, and all that would be left was puzzle pieces of other unsolved cases, west coast serial killers, and fifty-five years of loved ones left behind without answers.
TIPS: Lane County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Team at 541-682-4513 and reference case # 70-0646, or you may contact the Communications Center at 541-682-4150, then press 1. You may also submit a confidential email to soconfidential@lanecountyor.gov.
Case suggestions: simplertimecrimepod@gmail.com
IG: @simplertimecrimepod
Youtube: https://youtube.com/@simplertimecrimepod?si=OlCWQ2Ky8qFaof02
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@simplertimecrimep?_t=8s31x9iCrNv&_r=1
Music By Universfield: https://pixabay.com/music/mystery-dramatic-atmosphere-with-piano-and-violin-143149/
Source Material:
https://www.lanecountyor.gov/government/county_departments/sheriff_s_office/support_services/cold_cases/julie_and_terry_dade_homicide
https://www.koin.com/news/crime/junction-city-cold-blooded-unsolved-murders-still-haunt-oregon-town-55-years-later/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregon-daily-journal-few-clues-in-do/177568968/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/albany-democrat-herald-jc-buries-two-vic/177587819/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregonian-manwife-beaten-slain/177588037/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregonian-murder-victim-attempted-to/177588333/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-capital-journal-dead-couple-beaten/177588405/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-bulletin-police-search-for-slayer-of/177588542/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregonian-death-of-pair-under-probe/177588689/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-observer-size-of-junction-city/177588811/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-astorian-feb-working-ft-on-c/177590044/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregonian-700-ppl-interviewed/177590164/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/corvallis-gazette-times-progress-on-unso/177590390/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-capital-journal-5-bodies-no-arrests/177590467/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/corvallis-gazette-times-1-year-anniversa/177590822/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/santa-barbara-news-press-domingosedward/178019569/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-astorian-mm-murder/178022944/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/a-simpler-time-true-crime--6665681/support.
In the end two people would be dead, no motive would be established, and all that would be left was puzzle pieces of other unsolved cases, west coast serial killers, and fifty-five years of loved ones left behind without answers.
TIPS: Lane County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Team at 541-682-4513 and reference case # 70-0646, or you may contact the Communications Center at 541-682-4150, then press 1. You may also submit a confidential email to soconfidential@lanecountyor.gov.
Case suggestions: simplertimecrimepod@gmail.com
IG: @simplertimecrimepod
Youtube: https://youtube.com/@simplertimecrimepod?si=OlCWQ2Ky8qFaof02
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@simplertimecrimep?_t=8s31x9iCrNv&_r=1
Music By Universfield: https://pixabay.com/music/mystery-dramatic-atmosphere-with-piano-and-violin-143149/
Source Material:
https://www.lanecountyor.gov/government/county_departments/sheriff_s_office/support_services/cold_cases/julie_and_terry_dade_homicide
https://www.koin.com/news/crime/junction-city-cold-blooded-unsolved-murders-still-haunt-oregon-town-55-years-later/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregon-daily-journal-few-clues-in-do/177568968/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/albany-democrat-herald-jc-buries-two-vic/177587819/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregonian-manwife-beaten-slain/177588037/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregonian-murder-victim-attempted-to/177588333/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-capital-journal-dead-couple-beaten/177588405/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-bulletin-police-search-for-slayer-of/177588542/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregonian-death-of-pair-under-probe/177588689/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-observer-size-of-junction-city/177588811/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-astorian-feb-working-ft-on-c/177590044/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregonian-700-ppl-interviewed/177590164/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/corvallis-gazette-times-progress-on-unso/177590390/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-capital-journal-5-bodies-no-arrests/177590467/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/corvallis-gazette-times-1-year-anniversa/177590822/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/santa-barbara-news-press-domingosedward/178019569/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-astorian-mm-murder/178022944/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/a-simpler-time-true-crime--6665681/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
In scary movies, there's always that one moment, the chase,
the panic, the victim just steps away from help when
they're suddenly pulled back into danger. It's a trope meant
to shock us and keep us on the edge of
our seats. But in nineteen seventy, in a quiet Oregon town,
that moment wasn't fiction. It was real. A young woman,
(00:32):
terrified and desperate, made it all the way to the
doorstep of help, only for her killer to catch up
and drag her away. In the end, two people would
be dead, no motive would be established, and all that
would be left was puzzle pieces of other unsolved cases
West Coast serial killers, and fifty five years of loved
(00:53):
ones left behind without answers. I'm your host, Megan, and
each week on a Simpler Time to Time True Crime,
I cover older unsolved cases and challenge the idea that
a simpler time means a safer time. This week, I'm
bringing to you the unsolved murders of Julie and Terry Dade.
(01:35):
It was around four twenty am on January twenty first,
nineteen seventy, when Jake Whacker and his wife both woke
up and looked at each other. After taking a moment
to orient themselves, they realized they couldn't both be dreaming.
They were both hearing a woman screaming outside. The Whackers
lived at two thirty six Southwest Laurel Street in Junction City, Oregon.
(01:59):
Looking out to see what was going on, Jake Whacker
noticed that the woman was at the front door of
one of his neighbors, mister Don Bodker. Suddenly, Jake watched
as a man came up and grabbed the woman and
started dragging her away from the house as she continued screaming.
At that same moment, a half asleep Don Botker opened
(02:20):
his front door, also awoken by the noise. According to Whacker,
don Botker asked the man if there was any trouble,
and the man replied to him that the girl was
just drunk. As the unidentified man got the woman into
the street, she abruptly stopped screaming, and he threw her
into his vehicle, which was a white station wagon. According
(02:42):
to Jake Whacker, the man then spent several minutes walking
around with a flashlight, apparently looking for something in the street.
After not finding what he was looking for, he got
into the car with the woman and drove south. Minutes later,
the man returned on foot, carrying his flashlight. He searched
the street once more, except this time he picked something up,
(03:05):
put it in his pocket, and walked away. The man
was described as husky, medium height, wearing a heavy jacket
and pants tucked into his boots. As so often happens
in these older cold cases I share with you, the
reporting on what happens next gets a little blurry because
it's not clear if either Don Botker or Jake Wacker
(03:26):
called police. You have to remember that nine one one
wasn't yet established in Oregon, and it wouldn't be for
another eleven years, so they would have had to call
the local police station. Some reporting does indicate that at
least one of them did, or another neighbor did that
was alarmed by the screaming. Whether they did or not,
they certainly came forward with the information they had. After
(03:48):
the next chain of events, first responders were called to
the scene of a fire and explosion just blocks away
at the Trailer Town mobile home park located between Highway
ninety nine South in Prairie Road. The residents of that
trailer park were awoken by the sound of an explosion
at around four forty five a m. When they went
(04:10):
outside to explore, they found a vehicle on fire underneath
the carport at the residence of a man named Ferris Norman.
He had been asleep in his trailer when the fire began,
but then immediately ran outside. The neighbors rushed to summon
firefighters while Ferris Norman grabbed his fire extinguisher and tried
to douse the blaze, and when he got close enough,
(04:32):
he noticed something far more sinister than just a car
on fire. Underneath it, there was a woman's body burning.
By the time firefighters arrived, the woman's body was badly
burned beyond recognition, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
The vehicle that had been burning was a white nineteen
(04:53):
sixty two station wagon. This scene was almost unbelievable to
those investigations. It don't be fooled by the city in
its name, because nestled between bigger cities like Eugene and Corvallis.
Junction City was and still is a place with a
small town feel. It had just twenty three hundred residents
(05:13):
in nineteen seventy and was known to be quiet and safe,
so this was not a typical call for firefighters or police.
As police began preliminary investigations, the unidentified woman's body was
taken away for an autopsy, and in the meantime, they
knew that the most important thing they had to do
next was figure out who this woman was. She had
(05:36):
no identification on her and it was hard to even
give a description of what she looked like because of
how severely burned she was. So they started canvassing the
nearby neighborhoods in Junction City to see if anybody had
witnessed or seen or heard anything. They were able to
connect with Don Botker and Jake Whacker at this point,
(05:56):
and before long they encountered a few people with the
same that they had heard screams coming from the Maples
apartment complex in the early morning hours. Now rest assured,
I'll have maps for you on the Instagram page at
simpler time Crime Pod, But just to give you a
better sense of the geographic layout of all of this,
the Laurel Street location where the man and the woman
(06:19):
were seen struggling, that is slightly more than a block
south and east of the Maple Street apartment complex, and
then going back to that Laurel Street location where the
struggle was taking place. That is approximately four blocks south
to get to the trailer park. So, like I said,
I'll have maps, but just it's not all of this
is fairly close together. Police made their way over to
(06:43):
the apartment complex to go door to door. This complex
still exists today under a slightly different name, and it's
pretty small as far as complexes go, just a few
buildings all close together, with around forty total units. As
they talk to one neighbor person, they learned that there
was the sound of a baby crying pretty consistently from
(07:05):
unit eleven, and as police approached, they got a feeling
that something just wasn't right. They too heard a baby
crying and saw that the front door was slightly ajar. Cautiously,
they made entry and made their way to the first bedroom,
where they made a horrible discovery. There was a man
(07:27):
covered in blood, clearly dead, lying sprawled across the bed.
Early reportings stated that this person had been shot in
the face with an undetermined high caliber weapon. Over in
the second bedroom was the first sign of any good
news the officers had encountered on this tragic Wednesday. There
(07:48):
was a baby unharmed in his crib. Officers learned that
the people on the lease for this apartment were twenty
year old Julie Dade and nineteen year old Terry Dade.
They had just moved in with their infants on Mark
about six weeks prior, and Mark had just celebrated his
first birthday the day before. Before long, the victims at
(08:11):
both scenes were confirmed to be Terry Dade in the
apartment and Julie Dade blocks away at the trailer park.
These beginning answers only gave way to more questions. Who
were Julie and Terry Dade, who targeted them that night,
how did this evening play out? And why did it
all happen. Julie Dade was born to mister and Missus
(08:45):
Henry Thompson on August eighth, nineteen forty nine, and lived
her early childhood in the community of Bonners, Ferry, Idaho.
Julie was the oldest, and she had a sister, Annette,
who was two years younger than her, and a brother,
Henry James, who was four years younger than her. The
family moved to the city of Eugene, Oregon, in nineteen
(09:06):
sixty two. She graduated from North Eugene High School in
nineteen sixty seven and was said to be very popular
and well liked. Along the way, she met Terry Lynn Dade.
He was a year younger than Julie, born August twenty first,
nineteen fifty, and he had spent his whole life in
Junction City. One of five children. The couple married in
(09:30):
nineteen sixty eight, and Julie gave birth to their son,
Mark in August of nineteen sixty nine. Since they had
just moved into the complex recently, they didn't have much
interaction with their neighbors, but the neighbors who police interviewed
said that the couple was quiet and introverted and kept
to themselves. Julie was a homemaker. She stayed home with
(09:52):
the baby, and Terry worked the three to eleven shift
at a place called American Can Company Plywood Mill. The
preliminary autopsy on Julie revealed that she had been strangled
and hit over the head with a large object. The
killer had then placed her body underneath this vehicle in
the carport, punctured the gasoline tank, likely with a screwdriver
(10:14):
type object, and then set fire to the fuel as
it dripped onto Julie Dade. The autopsy indicated that Julie
Dade was already dead when she was placed under the vehicle,
but had been killed very recently. Terry's autopsy was surprising
because remember when I told you he had been shot
in the face. Well, that's what police initially thought because
(10:38):
of how horrific his face looked. But as it turns out,
he was beaten to death and bludgeoned with some sort
of very heavy blunt object, none of which could be
found at the crime scene itself. With a small town
in a panic, investigators told the media in concerned community
that they were dedicating full time officers around the clock
(11:00):
to the investigation, but that any piecing together of events
and what happened would be only speculation at this point,
so they wouldn't do it. Initially, the wife of Elaine
County Sheriff's deputy who lived nearby, cared for baby Mark
while they tried to do notifications to the families. Soon,
baby Mark would be in the custody of Julie's parents.
(11:21):
As they made their way down after hearing the most
unimaginable and painful news any family could hear, the couple
was laid to rest that Saturday, the twenty fourth, in
front of friends and family, and the funeral was conducted
by the same minister who married the couple less than
two years prior. One thing you've probably put together at
(11:52):
this point is the station wagon connection. The witnesses to
Julie Dade being forced into a vehicle stated it was
a white station wagon, and the vehicles that belonged to
Ferris Norman at the trailer park was also a white
station wagon. So if you're like me, when I was
first encountering this, I assumed this was probably or even
(12:13):
likely the same station wagon, because what are the odds? Well,
apparently a lot higher back in nineteen seventy, way more
so than twenty twenty five. Station wagons have been replaced
by SUVs and crossovers in modern years, but this was
a hot item at the time, and officers even described
(12:33):
it as finding a needle in a haystack when talking
about trying to locate the white station wagon. Plymouth, Chevy,
and Ford all had their own variety of station wagons,
and they accounted for one out of every five cars
sold in nineteen seventy, with white being one of the
most popular. Colors. Still, investigators said that the station wagon
(12:56):
that was set on fire was not the same one
that the perpetrator used to abduct Julie. Farris Norman was
said to have been awoken out of his sleep as
a loud noise and was not the person who set
the fire to his own vehicle. Now, I don't know
what alibi was established or how Farris Norman was investigated
to corroborate his story, but I do know that Lane
(13:17):
County said they had ten to fifteen officers working sixteen
hour days interviewing, going through all the evidence, and they
seemed to feel that Ferris's story was legit. And that's
how it appears. The investigators determined that they needed to
look for a secondary white station wagon, the one that
was actually used to abduct Julie. And as I bring
(13:37):
up Ferris Norman here, I just want to be clear
that I'm not trying to make him out to be
a suspect at all. We know that eyewitnesses to the
abduction saw the suspect for themselves twice, and according to
the source material, police were bringing in potential suspects and
having the eyewitnesses tried to make an identification so it
would make a lot of sense that Ferris Norman was
(13:58):
shown to the eyewitnesses early, and that was part of
the way he was ruled out as well. In fact,
in early reporting by The Oregonian, it was stated that
authorities said they had no solid suspects but had to
trace her out on one automobile. The owner of the
station wagon under which missus Dade had been found was
not connected to the case. Official said, My thought process
(14:23):
led me in a slightly different direction. I was thinking,
is it possible that Ferris Norman had nothing to do
with the crime, but that his vehicle was used in this.
I'm troubled by the fact that a white station wagon
is seen abducting Julie Dade. Her body is then placed
beneath a white station wagon that is then set on fire,
(14:43):
and then this suspect is seen returning to the original
abduction scene on foot minutes later. Oftentimes on this podcast,
I talk about people keeping their doors unlocked, but also
people have done things like leave keys under their seat
or just sitting in their vehicle unheard of it all,
and all of this took place in the middle of
the night when most people were sleeping. The car was
(15:05):
parked about forty feet from the trailer, but it's hard
to say if maybe the owner would have woken up
or not. I can't say. Another thought was did the
suspect realize that he had been seen by witnesses in
the station wagon and found another one to try to
frame the owner of it. If so, I would still
think he'd have to have a connection to that trailer
(15:27):
park in some way, either as someone who lives there,
which would be very risky, or someone who visits there
and knew that there would be a white station wagon
sitting there in the car port. Because this all happened
in a pretty short period of time, I mean four
twenty is when Julie shows up to the door of
Don Baker screaming, and then at four forty five that's
(15:48):
when the explosion happens. No matter what I believe the
suspect were turning on foot and the station wagon, it's
all significant. As overwhelming of a task as it was,
especially without computerized DMV databases, police did their best to
track down station wagons. They did traffic stops and stopped
(16:08):
at people's homes, and one person they were led to
was a local homeless man living out of his white
station wagon and he was brought in and released due
to the fact that witnesses were unable to identify him,
and this was the case with a few others as well.
Investigators painstakingly went over the crime scene to try to
figure out what the series of events were and here's
(16:31):
what they believe happened that night. It was established that
Terry Dade worked the three to eleven shift the evening
prior he arrived home, and the dads probably went to
bed sometime after midnight. Based on evidence found at the
scene and information provided by the neighbors about the screams
they heard, it's believed that Julie Dade opened the door
(16:53):
to someone sometime between two and three thirty am and
was immediately struck unconscious or the very least stunned. Terry
Dade was still asleep in bed and was likely bludgeoned
to death with a heavy blunt object just moments later.
The suspect then abducted Julie Dade and kept her in
(17:13):
his vehicle for some period of time. At around four
twenty blocks away from her home, Julie somehow got free
from the station wagon and made a run for help.
She made it all the way to the door, screaming
before she was pulled away, and then puzzlingly, she abruptly
stopped screaming when she got dragged into the street, but
(17:35):
before she reached the car. She then complied and stayed
in the vehicle while the suspect searched around for something
with a flashlight outside, the vehicle takes off. Julie is
killed almost immediately after this. Placed under the white station
wagon at the trailer park. The suspect punctures the gas
(17:56):
tank and lights the fire, which then leads to the explosion.
The suspect then returns on foot, finds whatever it was
he was looking for, and leaves. So, with all of
that established, and said, there's just some bizarre things about
this case. So I want to take a moment to
go through what jumps out to me. First, let's talk
(18:18):
about the start of this crime. I am surprised that
Julie was the one to answer the door, and her
answering the door I think is a huge key to
this case. Loved Ones were interviewed and friends said that
Julie was afraid to open the door to strangers and
very safety conscious. This is also nineteen seventy, and Julie
(18:39):
and Terry are taking on very traditional roles of him
being the working provider and her being the stay at
home housewife. And it struck me as odd that Julie
would be the one to open the door. Did she
know who was on the other side? Was she expecting
this person? Had she been up with the baby recently
and just happened to hear the knock at the door
(19:00):
and then recognize the person? All questions we don't know,
but I think are important. The next thing I wonder
is what was happening between the time Julie was brought
to the car and then when she made that run
for it. There seems to be depending on when you
think he showed up, because there's some sense that maybe
(19:21):
it started closer to two am, some closer to three
point thirty, but it was very close proximity that she
ran to that neighbor's house, and that wasn't until around
four fifteen in the morning, So even if you're on
the later end of it, that still leaves a pretty
big gap. So was there a sexual assault? What was
(19:43):
his endgame here before Julie tried to run away, because
he hadn't taken her very far. The time gap is confusing,
especially because once she did try to run, he killed
her and disposed of her body very quickly. Another puzzling
piece is the item in the street that the suspect
was looking for. He risked coming back to the scene
of the abduction, where he knew he had already been seen,
(20:05):
and he came back on foot to look for it again,
and then he found whatever it was. It was small
enough to throw in his pocket and important enough to
take a big risk. It seems that it was either
sentimental in nature or identifying in nature, and I personally
lean towards the latter. At first, you could consider it
(20:25):
was something like a driver's license, but I feel like
it would have been pretty easy to spot that with
a flashlight the first time around. But what about something
like military dog tags? Small easy to miss when you're
searching for them with a flashlight on the street in
the middle of the night, and possibly could have been
broken and lost in the road during that physical altercation.
(20:49):
They also would be extremely identifiable to the suspect, so
definitely worth taking that risk for if you're the perpetrator.
Another unanswered question is why Julie did suddenly stopped screaming
in the road and then stayed in the car while
he searched for items. Was he able to stun her
in some way and then drag her back into the vehicle.
(21:11):
That would explain how he overpowered her immediately upon going
into her home too, if he was able to stun
her but then she came to at some point, or
also did he threaten to harm baby Mark if she
didn't stop, or if she tried to escape again or
make any more noise. A mother will do almost anything
to protect her child. Lastly, for now, what does the
(21:35):
killer returning to the scene on foot just moments later
tell us? He either had to park his car nearby
but out of view and then walk And maybe he's
doing that so that because he already knows he's on
the neighborhood radar, and maybe he doesn't want people seeing
his license plates or something like that. Or it's possible
he lived nearby and then returned on foot to the scene.
(21:57):
Did he retreat back to his car or to his home?
Where did he go? And those are all really important
questions in identifying this man and his proximity to the
day residents and where Julie was found. Detectives couldn't find
any motive for the murder of this young couple. There
(22:17):
didn't seem to be any enemies, any weird financial issues
going on, and based on what's been released, nothing seems
to indicate that there was any sort of extramarital affair.
But the murders of these two seemed so brutal and personal.
As leads died out, investigators grew frustrated. Chief Deputy Ron
(22:38):
Eggelson said to the paper quote were burning up a
lot of man hours on the case. He also said
they were trying to figure out whose work schedule might
have put them in the area, but that was kind
of grasping at straws and seemed to go nowhere. Rewards
were offered for information, but nobody had any bites. Investigators
(22:59):
had to consider were there any other cases that shared similarities,
and believe it or not, there were a couple. As always,
I wanted to take a moment to thank you for
(23:19):
tuning in this week, and I wanted to share something
new I'm really excited about. I've created a new subscriber
space where I can offer bonus content for those of
you who'd like a little more. I've been thinking about
it for a while, and thinking about the stories I
don't always get to tell in the main feed, such
as solved cases that still fit the theme of this
podcast that the so called good old days weren't always
(23:41):
so good. Some of these cases changed the course of
law enforcement, they shifted how we think about personal safety,
or they've impacted the way society responds to danger. They're
important stories too, and I've already started putting together a
few I think you'll find interesting and that tie in
many of which you may have never even heard of.
This space will also give me the flexibility to cover
(24:03):
more recent cases or share other types of content I've
been wanting to explore. If you'd like to support the
podcast and get access to all that extra content, just
click the link in the show notes that says become
a supporter of this podcast. I'm just starting it now
in August of twenty twenty five, but I'm looking to
quickly build it up, and your support truly helps me
(24:23):
keep doing this work, and I'm so grateful to have
you here. Now back to the show. I just want
to warn you before I get into these cases that
none of these seem like a total home run to me.
(24:44):
They are all cases that have been discussed when Julie
and Terry's case comes up, but there's nothing about them
that stands out so much where you're like, yes, absolutely,
these are connected. So just forewarning you first, we have
to back up to November of nineteen sixty three. High
school sweethearts in Santa Barbara, California. Eighteen year old Robert
(25:07):
Domingos and Linda Edwards were enjoying a romantic night at
the beach the night before graduation. The pair was seemingly ambushed,
gunned down, and then set on fire. Their case has
never been solved, and sometimes their names pop up on
Zodiac Killer forums as a possible early victim of the
Zodiac Killer. He was known to attack couples in romantic
(25:29):
spots like lovers lanes, and he even attacked a couple
relaxing near the water at Lake Barriessa. The only thing
that really has any overlap with Julie and Terry Dade
is the fire aspect. So personally, I think this one
is a stretch, but I wanted to mention it. Jumping
ahead a year after the date's homicide, a young woman
was murdered at her place of work. Just as a
(25:51):
content warnering this one gets a little graphic. In August
of nineteen seventy one, Gene Malico worked as a receptionist
for a company called the Regal Map Company, and earlier
in the day there was this man that was already
harassing women in the area, and one woman was chased
by him until she eluded him by running into another
(26:12):
area business. A short while later, what is thought to
be the same man that was terrorizing women in the
neighborhood entered Miss Malicot's place of work, stabbed her over
one hundred times, doused her inflammable liquid, and set her
on fire. This took place in San Jose, California, which
is nowhere near Junction City, and again beyond the fire
(26:34):
there aren't a lot of overlaps, but Lane County Sheriffs
actually have a link to the article about the Malicot
homicide on their cold case website for the dates, so
I still felt it was important to mention it in
case they found some additional connection that I'm just not
privy to. And then as we move back closer geographically
(26:54):
to Junction City, there are a couple that don't have
the fire connection, but do have some sort of proximity
or other overlap. So, in March of nineteen seventy, a
fifty seven year old woman named Maureen Malvay was gunned
down alongside her twenty seven year old son, Charles Morse.
They were sitting at a picnic table at Puma Creek
Campground in Eugene. Because this was a double homicide relatively
(27:18):
nearby and close to the same timeframe, it was briefly
considered that it was connected to the Dade homicide. However,
that next year, a seventeen year old named Charles Lawrence
ended up pleading guilty to that case, and it was
thought to be not connected anymore. So then the last
possible connecting case is one that took place in nineteen
(27:39):
sixty nine in Eugene, and that's the murder of Janet Shanahan.
And I'll be honest, of all of them, this is
the one that seems to have the most connection. It
was spring of nineteen sixty nine. Janet Shanahan was twenty
two years old. Honestly, in her pictures she has a
similar look to Julie Dade. In my opinion, I'll have
(28:00):
pictures of her on my Instagram, and on that evening
of April twenty first, Janet went to her family's home
in West Eugene to celebrate her brother's fifteenth birthday, but
after the party, she never made it back to the
apartment she shared with her husband, Christopher, near campus. Christopher
claimed she never came home, and by the next day,
Janet was officially reported missing. Two days later, on April
(28:23):
twenty third, a grim discovery was made. That morning, Christopher
reached out to Janet's sister, asking her to help him
drive around and look for Janet's car, a nineteen fifty
one Plymouth Sedan, and it didn't take very long. Within
ten minutes, they spotted the vehicle partially in a ditch
off Cross Street near Roosevelt Boulevard and Maple and back
(28:43):
then that part of Eugene was an industrial zone, not
somewhere you'd expect to find an abandoned car. But what
they found next would be even more shocking. Christopher opened
the trunk and found Janet's dead body in the trunk.
She had been strangled to death. Yes, this is another
unsolved case in the area. Over the years, detectives have
(29:05):
continued to work the case, interviewing and reinterviewing people from
Janet's life and today, investigators are still working on it
and they believe that she knew the person responsible, but
it's unsolved, just like the Dade's case because of the strangulation,
because of her similar appearance to Julie and her being
found in and around a vehicle, it seems similar to
(29:27):
Julie's death at least a little bit. Still, we could
just be grasping at straws. Julie and Terry Dade's murders
have been called for decades, but Junction City has still
(29:47):
not given up on what is referred to as their
most haunting cold case. Retired cold case detective David Solano
has been revisiting the case and taking another shot at
it alongside a team of other tired investigators. He said, quote,
we like to keep our eyes open and our blinders
off and be open to any possibility because it could
(30:08):
be something completely different than what we're thinking. In an
interview with Koian News for the fifty fifth anniversary of
the crime this year, Julie's brother Henry discussed the pain
he still lives with. He told them quote, we had
their wedding at the Christian Church in Junction City, and
fifteen months later, after they said their vows and walked out,
(30:30):
they were right back in there in caskets. Detective David
Solano is open to possibilities. He told Koian that it's
possibly a person who had a mental illness who had
become obsessed with Julian was stalking her, and he added
that sometimes it just takes a set of fresh eyes.
Even though so much time has passed, it's hopeful to
(30:51):
know that seasoned investigators are taking a new look and
seeing what they can do differently after all of these years,
and in the meantime the family's wait. Julie and Terry's
parents have both died, and Julie's parents died only six
years ago. They waited nearly fifty years for answers and
went to their graves without them. But I'll end with
(31:13):
a quote from Julie's brother. In thinking about his sister's
final moments on earth, Henry said, quote, the fear that
was in her gets to me, you know what I mean,
she was running for her life. It just gets to me.
I want her to know I'll never forget her. If
(31:34):
you have any information on the unsolved murders of Julie
and Terry Dade, please contact the Lane County Sheriff's Office
Cold Case Team at five four one six eight two
four five one three and reference case number seventy dash
zero six four six. You can also contact their communications
center at five four one six eight two for one,
(31:58):
five zero and then one, and you can also submit
a confidential tip to SOO Confidential at Lane countyoar dot gov.
This has been another episode of a Simpler Time True Crime.
Your word of mouth, recommendation of the podcast, social media engagement,
(32:20):
and leaving five star reviews helps this podcast get discovered
by new audiences so that these cold cases can be
heard by more people. Please consider doing any or all
of those things to show support, and don't forget to subscribe.
Thank you so much for listening, and I'll be back
with another case next Monday
In scary movies, there's always that one moment, the chase,
the panic, the victim just steps away from help when
they're suddenly pulled back into danger. It's a trope meant
to shock us and keep us on the edge of
our seats. But in nineteen seventy, in a quiet Oregon town,
that moment wasn't fiction. It was real. A young woman,
(00:32):
terrified and desperate, made it all the way to the
doorstep of help, only for her killer to catch up
and drag her away. In the end, two people would
be dead, no motive would be established, and all that
would be left was puzzle pieces of other unsolved cases
West Coast serial killers, and fifty five years of loved
(00:53):
ones left behind without answers. I'm your host, Megan, and
each week on a Simpler Time to Time True Crime,
I cover older unsolved cases and challenge the idea that
a simpler time means a safer time. This week, I'm
bringing to you the unsolved murders of Julie and Terry Dade.
(01:35):
It was around four twenty am on January twenty first,
nineteen seventy, when Jake Whacker and his wife both woke
up and looked at each other. After taking a moment
to orient themselves, they realized they couldn't both be dreaming.
They were both hearing a woman screaming outside. The Whackers
lived at two thirty six Southwest Laurel Street in Junction City, Oregon.
(01:59):
Looking out to see what was going on, Jake Whacker
noticed that the woman was at the front door of
one of his neighbors, mister Don Bodker. Suddenly, Jake watched
as a man came up and grabbed the woman and
started dragging her away from the house as she continued screaming.
At that same moment, a half asleep Don Botker opened
(02:20):
his front door, also awoken by the noise. According to Whacker,
don Botker asked the man if there was any trouble,
and the man replied to him that the girl was
just drunk. As the unidentified man got the woman into
the street, she abruptly stopped screaming, and he threw her
into his vehicle, which was a white station wagon. According
(02:42):
to Jake Whacker, the man then spent several minutes walking
around with a flashlight, apparently looking for something in the street.
After not finding what he was looking for, he got
into the car with the woman and drove south. Minutes later,
the man returned on foot, carrying his flashlight. He searched
the street once more, except this time he picked something up,
(03:05):
put it in his pocket, and walked away. The man
was described as husky, medium height, wearing a heavy jacket
and pants tucked into his boots. As so often happens
in these older cold cases I share with you, the
reporting on what happens next gets a little blurry because
it's not clear if either Don Botker or Jake Wacker
(03:26):
called police. You have to remember that nine one one
wasn't yet established in Oregon, and it wouldn't be for
another eleven years, so they would have had to call
the local police station. Some reporting does indicate that at
least one of them did, or another neighbor did that
was alarmed by the screaming. Whether they did or not,
they certainly came forward with the information they had. After
(03:48):
the next chain of events, first responders were called to
the scene of a fire and explosion just blocks away
at the Trailer Town mobile home park located between Highway
ninety nine South in Prairie Road. The residents of that
trailer park were awoken by the sound of an explosion
at around four forty five a m. When they went
(04:10):
outside to explore, they found a vehicle on fire underneath
the carport at the residence of a man named Ferris Norman.
He had been asleep in his trailer when the fire began,
but then immediately ran outside. The neighbors rushed to summon
firefighters while Ferris Norman grabbed his fire extinguisher and tried
to douse the blaze, and when he got close enough,
(04:32):
he noticed something far more sinister than just a car
on fire. Underneath it, there was a woman's body burning.
By the time firefighters arrived, the woman's body was badly
burned beyond recognition, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
The vehicle that had been burning was a white nineteen
(04:53):
sixty two station wagon. This scene was almost unbelievable to
those investigations. It don't be fooled by the city in
its name, because nestled between bigger cities like Eugene and Corvallis.
Junction City was and still is a place with a
small town feel. It had just twenty three hundred residents
(05:13):
in nineteen seventy and was known to be quiet and safe,
so this was not a typical call for firefighters or police.
As police began preliminary investigations, the unidentified woman's body was
taken away for an autopsy, and in the meantime, they
knew that the most important thing they had to do
next was figure out who this woman was. She had
(05:36):
no identification on her and it was hard to even
give a description of what she looked like because of
how severely burned she was. So they started canvassing the
nearby neighborhoods in Junction City to see if anybody had
witnessed or seen or heard anything. They were able to
connect with Don Botker and Jake Whacker at this point,
(05:56):
and before long they encountered a few people with the
same that they had heard screams coming from the Maples
apartment complex in the early morning hours. Now rest assured,
I'll have maps for you on the Instagram page at
simpler time Crime Pod, But just to give you a
better sense of the geographic layout of all of this,
the Laurel Street location where the man and the woman
(06:19):
were seen struggling, that is slightly more than a block
south and east of the Maple Street apartment complex, and
then going back to that Laurel Street location where the
struggle was taking place. That is approximately four blocks south
to get to the trailer park. So, like I said,
I'll have maps, but just it's not all of this
is fairly close together. Police made their way over to
(06:43):
the apartment complex to go door to door. This complex
still exists today under a slightly different name, and it's
pretty small as far as complexes go, just a few
buildings all close together, with around forty total units. As
they talk to one neighbor person, they learned that there
was the sound of a baby crying pretty consistently from
(07:05):
unit eleven, and as police approached, they got a feeling
that something just wasn't right. They too heard a baby
crying and saw that the front door was slightly ajar. Cautiously,
they made entry and made their way to the first bedroom,
where they made a horrible discovery. There was a man
(07:27):
covered in blood, clearly dead, lying sprawled across the bed.
Early reportings stated that this person had been shot in
the face with an undetermined high caliber weapon. Over in
the second bedroom was the first sign of any good
news the officers had encountered on this tragic Wednesday. There
(07:48):
was a baby unharmed in his crib. Officers learned that
the people on the lease for this apartment were twenty
year old Julie Dade and nineteen year old Terry Dade.
They had just moved in with their infants on Mark
about six weeks prior, and Mark had just celebrated his
first birthday the day before. Before long, the victims at
(08:11):
both scenes were confirmed to be Terry Dade in the
apartment and Julie Dade blocks away at the trailer park.
These beginning answers only gave way to more questions. Who
were Julie and Terry Dade, who targeted them that night,
how did this evening play out? And why did it
all happen. Julie Dade was born to mister and Missus
(08:45):
Henry Thompson on August eighth, nineteen forty nine, and lived
her early childhood in the community of Bonners, Ferry, Idaho.
Julie was the oldest, and she had a sister, Annette,
who was two years younger than her, and a brother,
Henry James, who was four years younger than her. The
family moved to the city of Eugene, Oregon, in nineteen
(09:06):
sixty two. She graduated from North Eugene High School in
nineteen sixty seven and was said to be very popular
and well liked. Along the way, she met Terry Lynn Dade.
He was a year younger than Julie, born August twenty first,
nineteen fifty, and he had spent his whole life in
Junction City. One of five children. The couple married in
(09:30):
nineteen sixty eight, and Julie gave birth to their son,
Mark in August of nineteen sixty nine. Since they had
just moved into the complex recently, they didn't have much
interaction with their neighbors, but the neighbors who police interviewed
said that the couple was quiet and introverted and kept
to themselves. Julie was a homemaker. She stayed home with
(09:52):
the baby, and Terry worked the three to eleven shift
at a place called American Can Company Plywood Mill. The
preliminary autopsy on Julie revealed that she had been strangled
and hit over the head with a large object. The
killer had then placed her body underneath this vehicle in
the carport, punctured the gasoline tank, likely with a screwdriver
(10:14):
type object, and then set fire to the fuel as
it dripped onto Julie Dade. The autopsy indicated that Julie
Dade was already dead when she was placed under the vehicle,
but had been killed very recently. Terry's autopsy was surprising
because remember when I told you he had been shot
in the face. Well, that's what police initially thought because
(10:38):
of how horrific his face looked. But as it turns out,
he was beaten to death and bludgeoned with some sort
of very heavy blunt object, none of which could be
found at the crime scene itself. With a small town
in a panic, investigators told the media in concerned community
that they were dedicating full time officers around the clock
(11:00):
to the investigation, but that any piecing together of events
and what happened would be only speculation at this point,
so they wouldn't do it. Initially, the wife of Elaine
County Sheriff's deputy who lived nearby, cared for baby Mark
while they tried to do notifications to the families. Soon,
baby Mark would be in the custody of Julie's parents.
(11:21):
As they made their way down after hearing the most
unimaginable and painful news any family could hear, the couple
was laid to rest that Saturday, the twenty fourth, in
front of friends and family, and the funeral was conducted
by the same minister who married the couple less than
two years prior. One thing you've probably put together at
(11:52):
this point is the station wagon connection. The witnesses to
Julie Dade being forced into a vehicle stated it was
a white station wagon, and the vehicles that belonged to
Ferris Norman at the trailer park was also a white
station wagon. So if you're like me, when I was
first encountering this, I assumed this was probably or even
(12:13):
likely the same station wagon, because what are the odds? Well,
apparently a lot higher back in nineteen seventy, way more
so than twenty twenty five. Station wagons have been replaced
by SUVs and crossovers in modern years, but this was
a hot item at the time, and officers even described
(12:33):
it as finding a needle in a haystack when talking
about trying to locate the white station wagon. Plymouth, Chevy,
and Ford all had their own variety of station wagons,
and they accounted for one out of every five cars
sold in nineteen seventy, with white being one of the
most popular. Colors. Still, investigators said that the station wagon
(12:56):
that was set on fire was not the same one
that the perpetrator used to abduct Julie. Farris Norman was
said to have been awoken out of his sleep as
a loud noise and was not the person who set
the fire to his own vehicle. Now, I don't know
what alibi was established or how Farris Norman was investigated
to corroborate his story, but I do know that Lane
(13:17):
County said they had ten to fifteen officers working sixteen
hour days interviewing, going through all the evidence, and they
seemed to feel that Ferris's story was legit. And that's
how it appears. The investigators determined that they needed to
look for a secondary white station wagon, the one that
was actually used to abduct Julie. And as I bring
(13:37):
up Ferris Norman here, I just want to be clear
that I'm not trying to make him out to be
a suspect at all. We know that eyewitnesses to the
abduction saw the suspect for themselves twice, and according to
the source material, police were bringing in potential suspects and
having the eyewitnesses tried to make an identification so it
would make a lot of sense that Ferris Norman was
(13:58):
shown to the eyewitnesses early, and that was part of
the way he was ruled out as well. In fact,
in early reporting by The Oregonian, it was stated that
authorities said they had no solid suspects but had to
trace her out on one automobile. The owner of the
station wagon under which missus Dade had been found was
not connected to the case. Official said, My thought process
(14:23):
led me in a slightly different direction. I was thinking,
is it possible that Ferris Norman had nothing to do
with the crime, but that his vehicle was used in this.
I'm troubled by the fact that a white station wagon
is seen abducting Julie Dade. Her body is then placed
beneath a white station wagon that is then set on fire,
(14:43):
and then this suspect is seen returning to the original
abduction scene on foot minutes later. Oftentimes on this podcast,
I talk about people keeping their doors unlocked, but also
people have done things like leave keys under their seat
or just sitting in their vehicle unheard of it all,
and all of this took place in the middle of
the night when most people were sleeping. The car was
(15:05):
parked about forty feet from the trailer, but it's hard
to say if maybe the owner would have woken up
or not. I can't say. Another thought was did the
suspect realize that he had been seen by witnesses in
the station wagon and found another one to try to
frame the owner of it. If so, I would still
think he'd have to have a connection to that trailer
(15:27):
park in some way, either as someone who lives there,
which would be very risky, or someone who visits there
and knew that there would be a white station wagon
sitting there in the car port. Because this all happened
in a pretty short period of time, I mean four
twenty is when Julie shows up to the door of
Don Baker screaming, and then at four forty five that's
(15:48):
when the explosion happens. No matter what I believe the
suspect were turning on foot and the station wagon, it's
all significant. As overwhelming of a task as it was,
especially without computerized DMV databases, police did their best to
track down station wagons. They did traffic stops and stopped
(16:08):
at people's homes, and one person they were led to
was a local homeless man living out of his white
station wagon and he was brought in and released due
to the fact that witnesses were unable to identify him,
and this was the case with a few others as well.
Investigators painstakingly went over the crime scene to try to
figure out what the series of events were and here's
(16:31):
what they believe happened that night. It was established that
Terry Dade worked the three to eleven shift the evening
prior he arrived home, and the dads probably went to
bed sometime after midnight. Based on evidence found at the
scene and information provided by the neighbors about the screams
they heard, it's believed that Julie Dade opened the door
(16:53):
to someone sometime between two and three thirty am and
was immediately struck unconscious or the very least stunned. Terry
Dade was still asleep in bed and was likely bludgeoned
to death with a heavy blunt object just moments later.
The suspect then abducted Julie Dade and kept her in
(17:13):
his vehicle for some period of time. At around four
twenty blocks away from her home, Julie somehow got free
from the station wagon and made a run for help.
She made it all the way to the door, screaming
before she was pulled away, and then puzzlingly, she abruptly
stopped screaming when she got dragged into the street, but
(17:35):
before she reached the car. She then complied and stayed
in the vehicle while the suspect searched around for something
with a flashlight outside, the vehicle takes off. Julie is
killed almost immediately after this. Placed under the white station
wagon at the trailer park. The suspect punctures the gas
(17:56):
tank and lights the fire, which then leads to the explosion.
The suspect then returns on foot, finds whatever it was
he was looking for, and leaves. So, with all of
that established, and said, there's just some bizarre things about
this case. So I want to take a moment to
go through what jumps out to me. First, let's talk
(18:18):
about the start of this crime. I am surprised that
Julie was the one to answer the door, and her
answering the door I think is a huge key to
this case. Loved Ones were interviewed and friends said that
Julie was afraid to open the door to strangers and
very safety conscious. This is also nineteen seventy, and Julie
(18:39):
and Terry are taking on very traditional roles of him
being the working provider and her being the stay at
home housewife. And it struck me as odd that Julie
would be the one to open the door. Did she
know who was on the other side? Was she expecting
this person? Had she been up with the baby recently
and just happened to hear the knock at the door
(19:00):
and then recognize the person? All questions we don't know,
but I think are important. The next thing I wonder
is what was happening between the time Julie was brought
to the car and then when she made that run
for it. There seems to be depending on when you
think he showed up, because there's some sense that maybe
(19:21):
it started closer to two am, some closer to three
point thirty, but it was very close proximity that she
ran to that neighbor's house, and that wasn't until around
four fifteen in the morning, So even if you're on
the later end of it, that still leaves a pretty
big gap. So was there a sexual assault? What was
(19:43):
his endgame here before Julie tried to run away, because
he hadn't taken her very far. The time gap is confusing,
especially because once she did try to run, he killed
her and disposed of her body very quickly. Another puzzling
piece is the item in the street that the suspect
was looking for. He risked coming back to the scene
of the abduction, where he knew he had already been seen,
(20:05):
and he came back on foot to look for it again,
and then he found whatever it was. It was small
enough to throw in his pocket and important enough to
take a big risk. It seems that it was either
sentimental in nature or identifying in nature, and I personally
lean towards the latter. At first, you could consider it
(20:25):
was something like a driver's license, but I feel like
it would have been pretty easy to spot that with
a flashlight the first time around. But what about something
like military dog tags? Small easy to miss when you're
searching for them with a flashlight on the street in
the middle of the night, and possibly could have been
broken and lost in the road during that physical altercation.
(20:49):
They also would be extremely identifiable to the suspect, so
definitely worth taking that risk for if you're the perpetrator.
Another unanswered question is why Julie did suddenly stopped screaming
in the road and then stayed in the car while
he searched for items. Was he able to stun her
in some way and then drag her back into the vehicle.
(21:11):
That would explain how he overpowered her immediately upon going
into her home too, if he was able to stun
her but then she came to at some point, or
also did he threaten to harm baby Mark if she
didn't stop, or if she tried to escape again or
make any more noise. A mother will do almost anything
to protect her child. Lastly, for now, what does the
(21:35):
killer returning to the scene on foot just moments later
tell us? He either had to park his car nearby
but out of view and then walk And maybe he's
doing that so that because he already knows he's on
the neighborhood radar, and maybe he doesn't want people seeing
his license plates or something like that. Or it's possible
he lived nearby and then returned on foot to the scene.
(21:57):
Did he retreat back to his car or to his home?
Where did he go? And those are all really important
questions in identifying this man and his proximity to the
day residents and where Julie was found. Detectives couldn't find
any motive for the murder of this young couple. There
(22:17):
didn't seem to be any enemies, any weird financial issues
going on, and based on what's been released, nothing seems
to indicate that there was any sort of extramarital affair.
But the murders of these two seemed so brutal and personal.
As leads died out, investigators grew frustrated. Chief Deputy Ron
(22:38):
Eggelson said to the paper quote were burning up a
lot of man hours on the case. He also said
they were trying to figure out whose work schedule might
have put them in the area, but that was kind
of grasping at straws and seemed to go nowhere. Rewards
were offered for information, but nobody had any bites. Investigators
(22:59):
had to consider were there any other cases that shared similarities,
and believe it or not, there were a couple. As always,
I wanted to take a moment to thank you for
(23:19):
tuning in this week, and I wanted to share something
new I'm really excited about. I've created a new subscriber
space where I can offer bonus content for those of
you who'd like a little more. I've been thinking about
it for a while, and thinking about the stories I
don't always get to tell in the main feed, such
as solved cases that still fit the theme of this
podcast that the so called good old days weren't always
(23:41):
so good. Some of these cases changed the course of
law enforcement, they shifted how we think about personal safety,
or they've impacted the way society responds to danger. They're
important stories too, and I've already started putting together a
few I think you'll find interesting and that tie in
many of which you may have never even heard of.
This space will also give me the flexibility to cover
(24:03):
more recent cases or share other types of content I've
been wanting to explore. If you'd like to support the
podcast and get access to all that extra content, just
click the link in the show notes that says become
a supporter of this podcast. I'm just starting it now
in August of twenty twenty five, but I'm looking to
quickly build it up, and your support truly helps me
(24:23):
keep doing this work, and I'm so grateful to have
you here. Now back to the show. I just want
to warn you before I get into these cases that
none of these seem like a total home run to me.
(24:44):
They are all cases that have been discussed when Julie
and Terry's case comes up, but there's nothing about them
that stands out so much where you're like, yes, absolutely,
these are connected. So just forewarning you first, we have
to back up to November of nineteen sixty three. High
school sweethearts in Santa Barbara, California. Eighteen year old Robert
(25:07):
Domingos and Linda Edwards were enjoying a romantic night at
the beach the night before graduation. The pair was seemingly ambushed,
gunned down, and then set on fire. Their case has
never been solved, and sometimes their names pop up on
Zodiac Killer forums as a possible early victim of the
Zodiac Killer. He was known to attack couples in romantic
(25:29):
spots like lovers lanes, and he even attacked a couple
relaxing near the water at Lake Barriessa. The only thing
that really has any overlap with Julie and Terry Dade
is the fire aspect. So personally, I think this one
is a stretch, but I wanted to mention it. Jumping
ahead a year after the date's homicide, a young woman
was murdered at her place of work. Just as a
(25:51):
content warnering this one gets a little graphic. In August
of nineteen seventy one, Gene Malico worked as a receptionist
for a company called the Regal Map Company, and earlier
in the day there was this man that was already
harassing women in the area, and one woman was chased
by him until she eluded him by running into another
(26:12):
area business. A short while later, what is thought to
be the same man that was terrorizing women in the
neighborhood entered Miss Malicot's place of work, stabbed her over
one hundred times, doused her inflammable liquid, and set her
on fire. This took place in San Jose, California, which
is nowhere near Junction City, and again beyond the fire
(26:34):
there aren't a lot of overlaps, but Lane County Sheriffs
actually have a link to the article about the Malicot
homicide on their cold case website for the dates, so
I still felt it was important to mention it in
case they found some additional connection that I'm just not
privy to. And then as we move back closer geographically
(26:54):
to Junction City, there are a couple that don't have
the fire connection, but do have some sort of proximity
or other overlap. So, in March of nineteen seventy, a
fifty seven year old woman named Maureen Malvay was gunned
down alongside her twenty seven year old son, Charles Morse.
They were sitting at a picnic table at Puma Creek
Campground in Eugene. Because this was a double homicide relatively
(27:18):
nearby and close to the same timeframe, it was briefly
considered that it was connected to the Dade homicide. However,
that next year, a seventeen year old named Charles Lawrence
ended up pleading guilty to that case, and it was
thought to be not connected anymore. So then the last
possible connecting case is one that took place in nineteen
(27:39):
sixty nine in Eugene, and that's the murder of Janet Shanahan.
And I'll be honest, of all of them, this is
the one that seems to have the most connection. It
was spring of nineteen sixty nine. Janet Shanahan was twenty
two years old. Honestly, in her pictures she has a
similar look to Julie Dade. In my opinion, I'll have
(28:00):
pictures of her on my Instagram, and on that evening
of April twenty first, Janet went to her family's home
in West Eugene to celebrate her brother's fifteenth birthday, but
after the party, she never made it back to the
apartment she shared with her husband, Christopher, near campus. Christopher
claimed she never came home, and by the next day,
Janet was officially reported missing. Two days later, on April
(28:23):
twenty third, a grim discovery was made. That morning, Christopher
reached out to Janet's sister, asking her to help him
drive around and look for Janet's car, a nineteen fifty
one Plymouth Sedan, and it didn't take very long. Within
ten minutes, they spotted the vehicle partially in a ditch
off Cross Street near Roosevelt Boulevard and Maple and back
(28:43):
then that part of Eugene was an industrial zone, not
somewhere you'd expect to find an abandoned car. But what
they found next would be even more shocking. Christopher opened
the trunk and found Janet's dead body in the trunk.
She had been strangled to death. Yes, this is another
unsolved case in the area. Over the years, detectives have
(29:05):
continued to work the case, interviewing and reinterviewing people from
Janet's life and today, investigators are still working on it
and they believe that she knew the person responsible, but
it's unsolved, just like the Dade's case because of the strangulation,
because of her similar appearance to Julie and her being
found in and around a vehicle, it seems similar to
(29:27):
Julie's death at least a little bit. Still, we could
just be grasping at straws. Julie and Terry Dade's murders
have been called for decades, but Junction City has still
(29:47):
not given up on what is referred to as their
most haunting cold case. Retired cold case detective David Solano
has been revisiting the case and taking another shot at
it alongside a team of other tired investigators. He said, quote,
we like to keep our eyes open and our blinders
off and be open to any possibility because it could
(30:08):
be something completely different than what we're thinking. In an
interview with Koian News for the fifty fifth anniversary of
the crime this year, Julie's brother Henry discussed the pain
he still lives with. He told them quote, we had
their wedding at the Christian Church in Junction City, and
fifteen months later, after they said their vows and walked out,
(30:30):
they were right back in there in caskets. Detective David
Solano is open to possibilities. He told Koian that it's
possibly a person who had a mental illness who had
become obsessed with Julian was stalking her, and he added
that sometimes it just takes a set of fresh eyes.
Even though so much time has passed, it's hopeful to
(30:51):
know that seasoned investigators are taking a new look and
seeing what they can do differently after all of these years,
and in the meantime the family's wait. Julie and Terry's
parents have both died, and Julie's parents died only six
years ago. They waited nearly fifty years for answers and
went to their graves without them. But I'll end with
(31:13):
a quote from Julie's brother. In thinking about his sister's
final moments on earth, Henry said, quote, the fear that
was in her gets to me, you know what I mean,
she was running for her life. It just gets to me.
I want her to know I'll never forget her. If
(31:34):
you have any information on the unsolved murders of Julie
and Terry Dade, please contact the Lane County Sheriff's Office
Cold Case Team at five four one six eight two
four five one three and reference case number seventy dash
zero six four six. You can also contact their communications
center at five four one six eight two for one,
(31:58):
five zero and then one, and you can also submit
a confidential tip to SOO Confidential at Lane countyoar dot gov.
This has been another episode of a Simpler Time True Crime.
Your word of mouth, recommendation of the podcast, social media engagement,
(32:20):
and leaving five star reviews helps this podcast get discovered
by new audiences so that these cold cases can be
heard by more people. Please consider doing any or all
of those things to show support, and don't forget to subscribe.
Thank you so much for listening, and I'll be back
with another case next Monday
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.