January 27, 2022 • 39 mins
Ralph Otto’s accounts of what happened the night his wife disappeared changed with each retelling. Ralph’s allies had explanations for why Patricia Lee Otto would suddenly abandon her two young daughters in the middle of the night. Patty’s family, though, is certain that Ralph killed her and hid the body. As this story begins, you’ll hear what some of the earliest police reports said and what was found inside the Otto home.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This podcast contains intense subject matter.Listener discretion is advised. I'm just worried
that there's a lot of things thatI don't remember well. The case number
(00:28):
of nine one six five four.At or about four o'clock PM, September
seventh, nineteen seventy six, SergeantRigney and myself went to the Ralph Otto
residence thirteen oh eight twenty ninth Streetto question him concerning the disappearance of his
wife, Patricia Otto. Ralph wasn'thome when we arrived. While we were
(00:50):
at the residence, we observed andexamined a large tarp to the west side
of the residence spread out in thelawn. We looked at the tarp to
determine whether they or not there wereany signs of blood, hair, or
other physical evidence where a body couldhave been transported in the tarp. Lewis
and Idaho police detectives were looking intothe disappearance of twenty four year old Patricia
(01:14):
Lee Otto, a married mother oftwo young girls. The first voice you
heard belongs to retired police detective TomSelene. Then you heard a portion of
his actual nineteen seventy six police reportread by one of our colleagues. Patty,
as most people called her, wasreportedly last seen alive by her husband,
(01:38):
Ralph, late in the evening ofAugust thirty first, nineteen seventy six.
He told people the two had aheated argument and went to bed in
different rooms to cool off. Neighborsdidn't hear this particular fight, but they'd
heard plenty of fights before. Pattyand Ralph's young daughters woke the next morning
(02:02):
and began looking everywhere for their mom. She was nowhere to be found.
Ralph didn't report Patty missing, though, he told everyone that Patty had threatened
to leave the kids with him before, just so he would know what it
was like to raise them on hisown. He said Patty had simply walked
(02:23):
into the night without packing a bag, leaving a note, or even taking
her car, which was parked rightoutside. The youngest daughter remembers seeing part
of a scuffle between her parents thatnight. Her sister told her it was
just a bad dream. This isthe story about the decades long search for
(02:47):
the girl's mother. It's a storyabout outlaws and in laws, police detectives,
suspects and potential accomplices, blatant lies, conspira theories, reams and reams
of circumstantial evidence, and a mindboggling lack of concrete proof. Ralph found
(03:09):
out that she was working as aprostitute. I think they put it into
humage, having real received information thatthere was a secret room in the basement
that was all paneled off. Ithink that we broke up the mafia rain
in this city. But it wascommon knowledge that they were running a call
girl Rady, you know East Temberwhere you want the big deal here at
(03:30):
very dangerous people. What happened toPatricia Lee Otto? This is also the
story of a woman whose body wasfound almost exactly two years after Patty disappeared.
Her remains are still waiting to beidentified. It's the mystery of who
(03:52):
that woman was, what happened toher, and whether or not she could
be Patty Otto. In the ageof DNA, how can we not be
sure? And if it's not Patty, then who and who killed her?
And why? A cadre of volunteerresearchers and people who loved Patty are all
(04:15):
asking those same questions. More thanforty five years later. They're still waiting
for answers, still waiting for justice, still waiting for peace from the pages
(04:46):
of the reporter's notebook. This isstill season two. I'm your host,
Arie Anderson. I don't believe sheleft at all. I believe that he
(05:40):
somehow killed her, and then somehowby himself or with others, and something
with her body. Everything else afterand in between is him trying to protect
his lebrities. That's retired Detective TomSelene again. He was the primary investigator
(06:01):
looking into Patty's disappearance. He's convincedthat Patty's husband, Ralph Otto, killed
her that night. Throughout this season, you'll hear from Selene. You'll also
hear the text from many of hisand other investigators reports, and you'll listen
in as my colleagues and I,Christine Hughes and Karen Shaw Anderson read through
(06:26):
transcripts from taped police interviews and portionsof handwritten notes from some of the people
surrounding this investigation. Most importantly,you'll hear the actual voices of Patty's family,
people connected to Ralph, and thevolunteer sleuths who have devoted years of
their lives to solving these cases.We couldn't have put this season together without
(06:48):
the tireless work and relentless determination ofso many people. We will carefully comb
through the documented facts and let youmentally sift out half truths, rumors,
concealed circumstances, and seemingly far fetchedtheories. Most of the facts lead us
(07:10):
straight back to Ralph as the causeof Patty's disappearance the night of August thirty
first, nineteen seventy six. Butsome of the details of this case also
appear to contradict our assumptions. It'scertain that some of the information we've been
given was designed to send us scurryingafter shadows. How much of it should
(07:33):
we actually believe? After you hearthis tangled story, will be curious to
know what you think. You maycome to a different conclusion than we did
we first learned about this case.Actually these two cases. In the summer
(07:56):
of twenty twenty one, Patty Auto'syoungest daughter, the one who remembers seeing
her parents fighting that night in nineteenseventy six, was scrolling through social media
late one evening. She froze afterseeing an image that looked an awful lot
like herself. I sat straight upin my bed and I'm like, that's
(08:18):
my mother. This guy drew mymother. Who is this guy? Can
I start messaging like crazy? Whoare these people? How did they get
my mother's picture? Who is thismissing person? The image was posted by
volunteer investigators trying to identify a JaneDoe found in nineteen seventy eight in a
(08:41):
remote area of Oregon. The imagewas a forensic anthropologist's rendering of what that
woman may have looked like based onher skeletonized remains. Law enforcement working on
the case back then estimated she hadbeen dead for at least two years when
she was found. It appeared thatshe had been strangled. Elk hunters hiking
(09:05):
through a wooded trail had stumbled acrossher shallow grave. Animals had helped unearth
her skull. In the grave,pieces of clothing were found, scraps of
cloth seemed to be from a pairof red pants and a white top.
(09:26):
Law enforcement spent months comparing her clothing, hair color, body size, and
teeth to records of missing women fromacross the Northwest, but they still had
no idea who she was. Recordsindicate that they did compare her to Pattiotto
and ruled her out as a match, but there are questions about how those
(09:48):
comparisons were made, which will discussin detail later. If it was indeed
Pattiotto, the mystery remains how shegot there. The location where she was
found is a treacherous three hour drivefrom her home in lewis And, Idaho.
(10:13):
In the taped interview Ralph gave topolice investigators on September seventh, he
said that Patty disappeared sometime between elevenpm August thirty first and mid morning September
first, nineteen seventy six. Herparents know that she was alive shortly before
eleven pm. That's when she lefttheir house, so that time is confirmed.
(10:37):
We also know Ralph started telling peoplethe next afternoon that Patty had left
him. Ralph told police that Pattycame home with the children. He and
Patty fought, and she left.He said he heard her leave after he
went to bed, and he didn'tgo up to check on her, but
he did say he looked in onhis daughters, who were sleeping in a
(10:58):
basement bedroom. At about one thirtythe next afternoon, Ralph called Patty's younger
sister, Alice Mills, and toldher he couldn't find Patty. He asked
Alice if Patty was there with her, and then he asked Alice to watch
his daughters while he searched for hiswife. The girls were much too young
(11:18):
to be left home alone. Natalie, the oldest, hadn't even turned five
yet, Dlice, the younger daughter, was still just two years old.
At about two that afternoon, Ralphdropped the girls off at Alice's house and
said he was going to drive tothe town of Winchester, Idaho, about
forty minutes southeast of Lewistown, tolook for Patty. When he arrived at
(11:43):
Alice's house, it was apparent toAlice that Ralph had been drinking, and
he was complaining that he couldn't findone of his handguns. In the recorded
interview with police, Ralph later describedgoing to Winchester that day and looking for
Patty at a bar called the woodShed because he believed Patty hung out there
often. He said he didn't findher there, but did he really even
(12:07):
look. Each time Ralph talked topolice about what happened in the minutes before
Patty's disappearance, the specifics changed alittle, usually with new details. In
the earliest versions of his story,Ralph said they had simply argued. He
said he suggested that they go tobed in different rooms to cool down.
(12:30):
Later, he said Patty slapped him, but he denied hitting her. Sometimes
he mentioned hearing a horn honk outsideand a door slam as Patty left the
house. Other times he said hedidn't hear anything at all, or that
he wasn't sure how far away thecar was that honked. It could have
been in a nearby park, andhe wasn't certain what he heard was even
(12:52):
that night. In his first statementto police, Ralph said she took her
purse with her. In a lateraccount, he said he saw five one
hundred dollar bills in her purse shortlybefore she disappeared. Ralph's family said she
packed a suitcase, but there's noreference in official reports about belonging she may
(13:16):
have taken other than her purse orthe clothes she was wearing red pants and
a white sleeveless blouse. Ralph Ottowas requested to come to the Lewiston Police
Department to be questioned concerning the disappearanceof his wife, and that was done
(13:37):
at five o'clock PM. A statementwas taken from Otto. The statement ended
approximately five thirty or shortly thereafter.President in the office is one Ralph s
Otto and myself Sergeant Selene. Thisconversation is being recorded by dictaphone. During
(13:58):
that interview, Ralph didn't explain topolice his rationale for believing his wife would
hang out at a bar forty minutesfrom their home, but we do know
that his story about going to Winchesterwas a lie. He also told police
about going to a different bar inLewiston called Van's Club that day. Police
(14:20):
were able to verify that he didindeed go to Van's Club, but his
visit there was actually on August thirtyfirst, a few hours before Patty vanished,
not September first, as he hadtold detectives. The bartender had called
police after Ralph showed up there witha handgun tucked into his waistband and demanded
(14:41):
to see a man named Randy.Ralph believed that the man he was looking
for worked at the bar. We'lltalk more about that storyline soon. I
will tell you, though, that, aside from making a number of phone
calls in the weeks that followed,we are certain that Ralph never physic he
searched for Patty beyond his own yard. I'll also tell you now that the
(15:05):
tarp police saw in Ralph's yard didn'treveal any clues. That first day of
September, instead of actually driving southeastto the bar in Winchester, Idaho,
Ralph headed west, taking a bridgeacross the Snake River. He then drove
a few miles south to the smalltown of a Sotan, Washington, to
visit a woman named Bonnie's shop.Beell, we heard from Bonnie, and
(15:28):
you'll hear what she told us asthe story unfolds, Ralph had been spending
quite a bit of time with Bonniein recent days, including on the day
of his wife's disappearance. We learnedthat Ralph had spent most of the day
on August thirty first with Bonnie beforehe went to Van's Club in Lewiston with
(15:50):
a gun, and he took hisdaughters back to Bonnie's house the morning of
September first, before calling Alice thatPatty had left him. We have to
wonder if a man who had justmurdered his wife would expend so little effort
concealing his lies. Did he reallythink investigators wouldn't check his story. Ralph
(16:18):
had spent the better part of aweek helping Bonnie finish packing up her house
she was moving away to California.After spending the morning with her and then
dropping his daughters off with Alice,sometime in the afternoon of September first,
Ralph went back and picked up Bonnieto take her shopping to buy a new
outfit. He also had dinner withher and her parents that evening, and
(16:41):
returned to Bonnie's parents house for breakfastthe next morning. On September second,
he stayed and visited with the familybefore Bonnie followed him back to his house.
On the way out of town.At Ralph's house, he checked her
car's fluid levels, and then shedrove away for California. Late in the
evening on September second, Patty's sister, Alice Mills, and her parents Tom
(17:06):
and artist O'Malley, who everyone calledToots, contacted police to report Patty missing.
Ralph still hadn't returned to Alice's houseto pick up his daughters. If
Ralph had indeed killed Patty sometime overnightbetween August thirty first and September first,
(17:26):
he didn't have much time to hidethe body. We do know, though,
that he called at least two friendsthat night saying he was in trouble
and needed help. Both friends saidno, but didn't ask what sort of
trouble Ralph was in. Did hecall someone else who did agree to help.
We'd really like to know that answer. Toasty out here. It's getting
(18:04):
warm, isn't it. My colleaguesand I met Patty's sister, Alice at
her home in Idaho to talk aboutPatty's disappearance on what would have been Patty's
sixty ninth birthday, August fourth,twenty twenty one. This is my uncle
Van Nier Rank you, Garry,Christine and Alice. Hi. Hi,
(18:30):
I'm Karen. Alice still lives inLewiston and hasn't changed her phone number in
case Patty is somehow still alive andwants to reach out. This is Alice
talking in a recorded phone call weeksafter that first meeting. We were asking
about Alice's relationship with her sister andPatty's life before she disappeared. She said
(18:52):
they talked every day and usually saweach other too. Alice said that Patty
never left the girls in Ralph's carebecause he would often drink until he passed
out. Oh no, I hadthe kids a lot. It's not messing
Babyson. I would just she'd comeup with the kids. There weather a
lot of when she went to school. When with Babyscorse, she never believed
(19:15):
the kids of rap by himself.He never he never watched the kids.
So she had an appointment or something. First moment Mom was and so I'd
watched him. But it was alwaysusually family, Yeah, watching him mom,
dad or me. According to documentationwe've obtained, Ralph was also taking
(19:36):
more than twice the standard maximum doseof valum. The valume was prescribed by
a Lewiston doctor who was trying tohelp Ralph with nervousness and trouble sleeping while
attempting to quit drinking, but Ralphoften swallowed the valume with whiskey. Alice
told us that Patty was fed upwith Ralph's drinking, which had led to
him more than one separation for Pattyand Ralph. Ralph had gone into treatment
(20:00):
for alcoholism several times, but hehadn't successfully sobered up. There was also
the issue of Ralph's involvement with otherwomen. Patty knew he was seeing that
Bonnie. We've seen him together.She had seen him together, and then
when Matt Bonnie had that baby,but he thought it could be his,
and he was always wanting to buythings and go visit Stephanet really bothered Patty.
(20:25):
Do you think that's part of whatthe fight was about the night she
disappeared, was Bonnie? No,I don't think so. It could be
just everything coming up. I thinkthe night that the last night I got
into I think for the last drive, Ralph knew that Patty had went out
was Randy, and there's no wayanybody's going to have anything that belongs to
(20:48):
Ralph. Patty and Ralph met whileshe was still in high school. She
(21:23):
was eighteen when they married in nineteenseventy. He was a divorced thirty five
year old who had worked as amechanic and owned heavy road equipment, which
he sometimes leased out. Ralph's incomewas good when he earned contracts from the
state or Forest Service to clear roadscovered by mudslides, but he had also
(21:45):
lost money on other business ventures,including a plan to crush rock into gravel
on a Clearwater River island he anda business partner had purchased. Ralph and
Patty's marriage was having ups and downstoo. They went through their longest split
in late nineteen seventy five, whilethey were separated, Patty hooked up with
(22:06):
a man named Randy Benton. Randyis a musician whose bands sometimes played at
Vans Club. You'll hear from Randyin an upcoming episode. Ian Patty knew
each other from school, and theysaw each other again when he was playing
(22:29):
one night at Vans. Truth BeTold. It sounds like Patty seduced Randy
that night to get back at Ralphfor his relationships with other women. Patty
told Ralph about her one night's standwith Randy when she and Ralph decided to
give their marriage another try in thespring of nineteen seventy six, Ralph said
he forgave Patty, but he couldn'tforget about that tryst. Ralph later admitted
(22:52):
to police that he intended to killRandy when he went to Van's Club with
a gun the night Patty disappeared.He told police that he was the only
man Patty had ever been with beforeshe hooked up with Randy. Ralph said
Patty's affair with the musician was moreabout her desire for new sexual experiences than
revenge for his unfaithfulness. Patty andRalph had often argued about Randy. They
(23:19):
also argued about Ralph's history with otherwomen and his drinking. Occasionally, the
squabbles turned violent, and not juston Ralph's part. He had hit and
choked Patty. She had fired agun into the ceiling. It was the
same gun Ralph had threatened to killRandy with. This is Ralph's sister Marcy
(23:42):
Smith talking about Patty and Ralph's relationship. Marcy ended up raising Patty's daughters after
she disappeared. She was a sweet, loving person. She could have a
temper, and Ralph tried it morethan once. You know, Marcy said,
(24:03):
Patty would get upset about the otherwomen in Ralph's life, past and
present. Patty knew about all ofthem. He was always up friend and
they had a good marriage. Asthe longer it went, there were ups
and downs, and some of them. I wasn't proud of my brother.
(24:30):
He was married and had children,but he just thought that was a privilege
and he never felt guilty for it. Marcy said Ralph had a temper.
She remembers two specific childhood incidents thatcould have ended tragically. The first time
(24:51):
was when Ralph threw an axe andhit Marcy in the head with it.
She was severely injured. Another time, Ralph and his older brother Jerry went
after their younger brother Ray. Heliked to pick on Ray, and I
was spending most of my life defendingRay and protecting him from I stopped him
INtime one time, and they wereMy two older brothers were going they were
(25:17):
playing cowboys and Indians, and theywere going to hang Ray. And I
was terrified because I knew that itmight happen. I went in and got
Daddy so fast, and I thought, boyd now the boys are going to
beat up on me. But Ididn't care. And I think if it
would have been left up to Ralph, I don't know. So this was
(25:42):
Ralph and Jerry. Yeah, Ralphand Jerry. Yeah, I don't know.
I think Jerry might have stopped him. But to this day I knew
that Ray's life was in danger.In the hours before Patty and Ralph fought,
(26:07):
the evening of August thirty first,Patty had gone to a night class
at the Valley Business School, alittle more than three miles from her in
Ralph's house. Patty had been takingclasses at the school for more than a
year and a half and She hadregistered for a new daytime class that would
start on September seventh. She wastraining to become a secretary. Was she
(26:33):
taking steps to start a new life. Ralph's family thinks so and earnestly believes
she's still alive. They have manytheories about why she hasn't been found.
On the other hand, Patty's familyis certain that Ralph killed her. Before
(26:57):
going to school that night, Pattyhad dropped off her daughters at her parents
house after class. She made aquick stop at Alice's house before going to
her parents' place to pick up thegirls. Patty stayed at her parents' house
to talk and sit beer for anhour or two before heading home. We
(27:18):
know Patty made it home with thegirls after leaving her parents' house at about
eleven pm. The girls were safein their basement bedroom when the sun rose
on September first. This is Patty'ssister Alice again. She came to our
house after she got done with school. She came by to tell me she
was going to make my birthday cake. And she didn't stay long because mom
(27:41):
and dad had the kids, soshe was going to go get the kids
and go home. And that isthe last. I mean, she probably
wasn't there more than ten minutes,but she wanted to make sure that.
She told me she was going tomake my birthday September second, So she
was going to make my birthday cake, and she was going to go kids
at for mom and dad and gohome. And that's that was a last
(28:07):
right there that I saw. Andthen he called me the next morning and
asked me where Patty was. DidI know where Patty was? And I
said no, And I just startedthis. I can still remember this feeling,
that just feeling inside myself, andI'll never forget that feeling. I
knew something was wrong. And assoon as I got off the phone,
(28:29):
I called my dad and I said, I know something's wrong. I said,
Rolph's going to bring me the girls. Would you come over you watch
the kids so I can go downand look at the house. With nerves
on edge, Alice quickly walked throughthe house, looking for any signs of
what may have happened after Patty arrivedhome the night before. So there was
nothing in the house that made thehair on your name, nothing I could
(28:53):
see. But then I get said, I was very nervous. I'm not
so I was looking for, butI did not see any blood. I
did not see any furniture overturned likethey were got in a big sight like
that. She doesn't recall many ofthe details today, but in nineteen seventy
six, Alice told police that thecushion from the living room couch was missing
(29:15):
when she walked through the house.Patty had only recently reopholstered the living room
furniture. That was another thing aboutPatty that when they did, she had
never done very much silly and oranything. And they had got to fill
pouch and she decided she was goingto reopholster it, and he said,
go for it, and it turnedoff really nice. She wasn't afraid to
(29:38):
try something new like that. Shedid it all herself, yes, all
herself. He bought her an extraduty some machine thing, and she did
the whole couch and cushions and everythingall by herself. And it really turned
out nice, the kind of it. But when she says to her mind,
the trythons and knew like that shecould do it. She'd loved to.
(30:00):
She'd paint things red, the furniture, repaint furnishures. Why would the
cushion from a couch that had recentlybeen recovered be missing from the living room.
Lewiston police detective Tom Selene wondered thesame thing, and he asked Ralph
about it during their interview a fewdays later. Ralph told detective Selene that
(30:23):
the cushion was at an upholstery shopfor repairs. If the cushion had been
soiled or damaged by the kids ora rowdy house guest, couldn't Patty have
repaired it herself. Ralph's story doesn'treally add up. It's not clear if
detectives were aware that the living roomfurniture had only recently been reupholstered, but
(30:45):
we don't have a record about themprobing further about the missing cushion. The
upholstery shop Ralph mentioned is still inbusiness. It specializes in custom car,
aircraft and boat interiors, although employeesalso recover household furniture. The man who
runs the shop now is the sonof the original owner. He said.
(31:07):
All the business receipts from nineteen seventysix are long gone. I want to
give you an overview of the townwhere Ralph and Patty lived and the terrain
that surrounded them. It's important tokeep in mind what Patty would have encountered
(31:30):
if she had decided to wander outon her own in the middle of the
night. If Patty really wanted todisappear, Idaho was a great place to
do so. Even today, youcan travel miles without encountering a single human.
(31:51):
The majority of the state isn't populated. It's truly wild, untouched by
roads and inaccessible by most passenger vehicles. More than four and a half million
acres of wilderness stretch out across thestate. Much of it is densely forested,
but larger swaths are scrubby deserts interruptedby canyons, streams, and rivers.
(32:19):
Virtually every mile of the state ishilly, and thousands of acres are
ridged by mountains. The six USstates that touch the Potato capital are also
mostly unpeopled in the areas that bumpup against Idaho, And of course there's
Canada to the north. Well youget the picture. Keep in mind also
(32:46):
that this was the mid nineteen seventies, a time when the United States seemed
to be teeming with serial killers.Gary Ridgeway, often known as the Green
River Killer, Ted Bundy, andRobert Yates Junior, all proud for victims,
not far from the spot where Pattywas last seen alive. But Bundy
(33:07):
was in police custody when she vanished, and it doesn't seem as though Ridgeway's
killing career had begun yet. Yateswas working as a correctional officer in Walla
Walla, Washington, and his knownvictims were all sex workers in the Spokane
area. Walla Walla and Spokane areboth about a two hour drive from Lewiston.
(33:28):
It's certainly possible that another predator couldhave grabbed Patty if she left her
house in the dark that night.In a later episode, we'll discuss a
couple of potential suspects who are knownto have actually been in Lewiston, Idaho,
around this time. Lewiston itself sitson the western edge of the Idaho
(33:49):
Panhandle, about one hundred and eightymiles south of the Canadian border. Back
in nineteen seventy six, about twentyseven thousand people called Lewiston home. The
city's population and land mass had morethan doubled seven years earlier, when an
area called the Orchards on the southend of town was annexed by the city
(34:10):
Patty's sister and parents lived in theorchards. Patty and Ralph's house, which
originally belonged to Ralph's parents, satabout halfway up a steep hill on twenty
ninth Street. The family lived lessthan a mile south of the Clearwater River,
which forms the city's northern boundary.The Snake River flows northward along the
(34:32):
city's western edge. The west flowingClearwater joins the Snake River at Lewiston's northwest
corner. From there, the Snakeveers sharply to flow westward into Washington State.
(34:52):
Ralph's rand Bonnie, recalled to usthat Spokane, Washington, was where
Ralph took her shopping for a pairof hot hants and white Go Go boots
on September first, nineteen seventy six. However, police records and check registers
indicate that on that day Ralph actuallypurchased a woman's pantsuit, a necklace,
(35:15):
and other items from the Vogue shopin Lewiston. The boots came from another
nearby store. A store clerk initiallyidentified Ralph's shopping companion as Patty, based
on photos of Patty and the clerk'srecollection. Ralph's family touted that as proof
(35:36):
that Patty was alive and well.The clerk was considered a reliable witness because
she was married to a former Lewistonpolice officer. Patty was petite and blonde,
so was Bonnie. It's easy tosee how a store clerk looking at
a photo of Patty could confuse thetwo, according to police reports. Bonnie
(35:59):
herself later confirmed that she was thewoman shopping with Ralph and Lewiston on September
first, more than four decades later. Bonnie's memory is understandably a bit fuzzy.
Perhaps Ralph took her shopping for newclothes more than once. Another potential
clue that Patty might have covertly slippedout of town came from a check register
(36:22):
found in the auto home. Itshowed that a check for sixty one dollars
had been written to Greyhound Bus Lines. Could Patty have been planning to vanish
that night or soon afterward, andactually purchased a bus ticket for herself in
advance. After learning that a checkhad been written at a bus depot,
(36:45):
Ralph's brother Ray went down to thebus station to ask questions. He learned
that Greyhound did not accept checks forbus tickets. However, the bus line
did accept checks to pay for freightshipped on the bus. Ray later conceded
that Ralph had been the one towrite the check and it was for freight.
(37:09):
It's not clear if Ralph was receivinga shipment or instead was paying to
send a bulky or heavy package tosomeone else next time. On Still,
he came out to the shop oneday and it was just scared me.
(37:30):
I'd never seen him like that before, and it was just hitting mad.
Anyone with information pertaining to the disappearanceof Patricia Otto should contact the Leoston Police
Department's tipline at two zero eight tonine eight three nine three nine. Anyone
(37:51):
with information pertaining to the identity ofthe Finland Creek Jane Doe, or other
information related to that case should contactthe Union County Strict Attorney at DA at
Union hyphen County dot org. Ifyou, or anyone you know is a
victim of domestic abuse, please contactthe National Domestic Violence Hotline at eight hundred
(38:13):
seven nine nine. Safe Still isa production of The Reporter's Notebook and Grayson
Shaw Media. You can connect withus online at The Reporter's Notebook dot com
or via email at info at theReporter's Notebook dot com. STILL was researched,
(38:37):
written and produced by Karen Shaw Anderson. Additional research and script editing provided
by Christine Hughes. Original music bySmith Yuosso. Additional narration provided by b.
J. Blackburn. I'm your hostand associate producer Gary Anderson. Special
(38:59):
thanks to everyone who graciously provided interviewsand help with our research. We would
specifically like to thank the advocates forPatricia Otto and the Findlay Creek Jain Dooe
Task Force Like Follow and subscribe toSTILL on your favorite podcast platform, and
follow us on Facebook or Twitter tojoin the conversation. Ezekiel thirty four sixteen.
(39:27):
I will seek the lost, andI will bring back the stray,
and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak
This podcast contains intense subject matter.Listener discretion is advised. I'm just worried
that there's a lot of things thatI don't remember well. The case number
(00:28):
of nine one six five four.At or about four o'clock PM, September
seventh, nineteen seventy six, SergeantRigney and myself went to the Ralph Otto
residence thirteen oh eight twenty ninth Streetto question him concerning the disappearance of his
wife, Patricia Otto. Ralph wasn'thome when we arrived. While we were
(00:50):
at the residence, we observed andexamined a large tarp to the west side
of the residence spread out in thelawn. We looked at the tarp to
determine whether they or not there wereany signs of blood, hair, or
other physical evidence where a body couldhave been transported in the tarp. Lewis
and Idaho police detectives were looking intothe disappearance of twenty four year old Patricia
(01:14):
Lee Otto, a married mother oftwo young girls. The first voice you
heard belongs to retired police detective TomSelene. Then you heard a portion of
his actual nineteen seventy six police reportread by one of our colleagues. Patty,
as most people called her, wasreportedly last seen alive by her husband,
(01:38):
Ralph, late in the evening ofAugust thirty first, nineteen seventy six.
He told people the two had aheated argument and went to bed in
different rooms to cool off. Neighborsdidn't hear this particular fight, but they'd
heard plenty of fights before. Pattyand Ralph's young daughters woke the next morning
(02:02):
and began looking everywhere for their mom. She was nowhere to be found.
Ralph didn't report Patty missing, though, he told everyone that Patty had threatened
to leave the kids with him before, just so he would know what it
was like to raise them on hisown. He said Patty had simply walked
(02:23):
into the night without packing a bag, leaving a note, or even taking
her car, which was parked rightoutside. The youngest daughter remembers seeing part
of a scuffle between her parents thatnight. Her sister told her it was
just a bad dream. This isthe story about the decades long search for
(02:47):
the girl's mother. It's a storyabout outlaws and in laws, police detectives,
suspects and potential accomplices, blatant lies, conspira theories, reams and reams
of circumstantial evidence, and a mindboggling lack of concrete proof. Ralph found
(03:09):
out that she was working as aprostitute. I think they put it into
humage, having real received information thatthere was a secret room in the basement
that was all paneled off. Ithink that we broke up the mafia rain
in this city. But it wascommon knowledge that they were running a call
girl Rady, you know East Temberwhere you want the big deal here at
(03:30):
very dangerous people. What happened toPatricia Lee Otto? This is also the
story of a woman whose body wasfound almost exactly two years after Patty disappeared.
Her remains are still waiting to beidentified. It's the mystery of who
(03:52):
that woman was, what happened toher, and whether or not she could
be Patty Otto. In the ageof DNA, how can we not be
sure? And if it's not Patty, then who and who killed her?
And why? A cadre of volunteerresearchers and people who loved Patty are all
(04:15):
asking those same questions. More thanforty five years later. They're still waiting
for answers, still waiting for justice, still waiting for peace from the pages
(04:46):
of the reporter's notebook. This isstill season two. I'm your host,
Arie Anderson. I don't believe sheleft at all. I believe that he
(05:40):
somehow killed her, and then somehowby himself or with others, and something
with her body. Everything else afterand in between is him trying to protect
his lebrities. That's retired Detective TomSelene again. He was the primary investigator
(06:01):
looking into Patty's disappearance. He's convincedthat Patty's husband, Ralph Otto, killed
her that night. Throughout this season, you'll hear from Selene. You'll also
hear the text from many of hisand other investigators reports, and you'll listen
in as my colleagues and I,Christine Hughes and Karen Shaw Anderson read through
(06:26):
transcripts from taped police interviews and portionsof handwritten notes from some of the people
surrounding this investigation. Most importantly,you'll hear the actual voices of Patty's family,
people connected to Ralph, and thevolunteer sleuths who have devoted years of
their lives to solving these cases.We couldn't have put this season together without
(06:48):
the tireless work and relentless determination ofso many people. We will carefully comb
through the documented facts and let youmentally sift out half truths, rumors,
concealed circumstances, and seemingly far fetchedtheories. Most of the facts lead us
(07:10):
straight back to Ralph as the causeof Patty's disappearance the night of August thirty
first, nineteen seventy six. Butsome of the details of this case also
appear to contradict our assumptions. It'scertain that some of the information we've been
given was designed to send us scurryingafter shadows. How much of it should
(07:33):
we actually believe? After you hearthis tangled story, will be curious to
know what you think. You maycome to a different conclusion than we did
we first learned about this case.Actually these two cases. In the summer
(07:56):
of twenty twenty one, Patty Auto'syoungest daughter, the one who remembers seeing
her parents fighting that night in nineteenseventy six, was scrolling through social media
late one evening. She froze afterseeing an image that looked an awful lot
like herself. I sat straight upin my bed and I'm like, that's
(08:18):
my mother. This guy drew mymother. Who is this guy? Can
I start messaging like crazy? Whoare these people? How did they get
my mother's picture? Who is thismissing person? The image was posted by
volunteer investigators trying to identify a JaneDoe found in nineteen seventy eight in a
(08:41):
remote area of Oregon. The imagewas a forensic anthropologist's rendering of what that
woman may have looked like based onher skeletonized remains. Law enforcement working on
the case back then estimated she hadbeen dead for at least two years when
she was found. It appeared thatshe had been strangled. Elk hunters hiking
(09:05):
through a wooded trail had stumbled acrossher shallow grave. Animals had helped unearth
her skull. In the grave,pieces of clothing were found, scraps of
cloth seemed to be from a pairof red pants and a white top.
(09:26):
Law enforcement spent months comparing her clothing, hair color, body size, and
teeth to records of missing women fromacross the Northwest, but they still had
no idea who she was. Recordsindicate that they did compare her to Pattiotto
and ruled her out as a match, but there are questions about how those
(09:48):
comparisons were made, which will discussin detail later. If it was indeed
Pattiotto, the mystery remains how shegot there. The location where she was
found is a treacherous three hour drivefrom her home in lewis And, Idaho.
(10:13):
In the taped interview Ralph gave topolice investigators on September seventh, he
said that Patty disappeared sometime between elevenpm August thirty first and mid morning September
first, nineteen seventy six. Herparents know that she was alive shortly before
eleven pm. That's when she lefttheir house, so that time is confirmed.
(10:37):
We also know Ralph started telling peoplethe next afternoon that Patty had left
him. Ralph told police that Pattycame home with the children. He and
Patty fought, and she left.He said he heard her leave after he
went to bed, and he didn'tgo up to check on her, but
he did say he looked in onhis daughters, who were sleeping in a
(10:58):
basement bedroom. At about one thirtythe next afternoon, Ralph called Patty's younger
sister, Alice Mills, and toldher he couldn't find Patty. He asked
Alice if Patty was there with her, and then he asked Alice to watch
his daughters while he searched for hiswife. The girls were much too young
(11:18):
to be left home alone. Natalie, the oldest, hadn't even turned five
yet, Dlice, the younger daughter, was still just two years old.
At about two that afternoon, Ralphdropped the girls off at Alice's house and
said he was going to drive tothe town of Winchester, Idaho, about
forty minutes southeast of Lewistown, tolook for Patty. When he arrived at
(11:43):
Alice's house, it was apparent toAlice that Ralph had been drinking, and
he was complaining that he couldn't findone of his handguns. In the recorded
interview with police, Ralph later describedgoing to Winchester that day and looking for
Patty at a bar called the woodShed because he believed Patty hung out there
often. He said he didn't findher there, but did he really even
(12:07):
look. Each time Ralph talked topolice about what happened in the minutes before
Patty's disappearance, the specifics changed alittle, usually with new details. In
the earliest versions of his story,Ralph said they had simply argued. He
said he suggested that they go tobed in different rooms to cool down.
(12:30):
Later, he said Patty slapped him, but he denied hitting her. Sometimes
he mentioned hearing a horn honk outsideand a door slam as Patty left the
house. Other times he said hedidn't hear anything at all, or that
he wasn't sure how far away thecar was that honked. It could have
been in a nearby park, andhe wasn't certain what he heard was even
(12:52):
that night. In his first statementto police, Ralph said she took her
purse with her. In a lateraccount, he said he saw five one
hundred dollar bills in her purse shortlybefore she disappeared. Ralph's family said she
packed a suitcase, but there's noreference in official reports about belonging she may
(13:16):
have taken other than her purse orthe clothes she was wearing red pants and
a white sleeveless blouse. Ralph Ottowas requested to come to the Lewiston Police
Department to be questioned concerning the disappearanceof his wife, and that was done
(13:37):
at five o'clock PM. A statementwas taken from Otto. The statement ended
approximately five thirty or shortly thereafter.President in the office is one Ralph s
Otto and myself Sergeant Selene. Thisconversation is being recorded by dictaphone. During
(13:58):
that interview, Ralph didn't explain topolice his rationale for believing his wife would
hang out at a bar forty minutesfrom their home, but we do know
that his story about going to Winchesterwas a lie. He also told police
about going to a different bar inLewiston called Van's Club that day. Police
(14:20):
were able to verify that he didindeed go to Van's Club, but his
visit there was actually on August thirtyfirst, a few hours before Patty vanished,
not September first, as he hadtold detectives. The bartender had called
police after Ralph showed up there witha handgun tucked into his waistband and demanded
(14:41):
to see a man named Randy.Ralph believed that the man he was looking
for worked at the bar. We'lltalk more about that storyline soon. I
will tell you, though, that, aside from making a number of phone
calls in the weeks that followed,we are certain that Ralph never physic he
searched for Patty beyond his own yard. I'll also tell you now that the
(15:05):
tarp police saw in Ralph's yard didn'treveal any clues. That first day of
September, instead of actually driving southeastto the bar in Winchester, Idaho,
Ralph headed west, taking a bridgeacross the Snake River. He then drove
a few miles south to the smalltown of a Sotan, Washington, to
visit a woman named Bonnie's shop.Beell, we heard from Bonnie, and
(15:28):
you'll hear what she told us asthe story unfolds, Ralph had been spending
quite a bit of time with Bonniein recent days, including on the day
of his wife's disappearance. We learnedthat Ralph had spent most of the day
on August thirty first with Bonnie beforehe went to Van's Club in Lewiston with
(15:50):
a gun, and he took hisdaughters back to Bonnie's house the morning of
September first, before calling Alice thatPatty had left him. We have to
wonder if a man who had justmurdered his wife would expend so little effort
concealing his lies. Did he reallythink investigators wouldn't check his story. Ralph
(16:18):
had spent the better part of aweek helping Bonnie finish packing up her house
she was moving away to California.After spending the morning with her and then
dropping his daughters off with Alice,sometime in the afternoon of September first,
Ralph went back and picked up Bonnieto take her shopping to buy a new
outfit. He also had dinner withher and her parents that evening, and
(16:41):
returned to Bonnie's parents house for breakfastthe next morning. On September second,
he stayed and visited with the familybefore Bonnie followed him back to his house.
On the way out of town.At Ralph's house, he checked her
car's fluid levels, and then shedrove away for California. Late in the
evening on September second, Patty's sister, Alice Mills, and her parents Tom
(17:06):
and artist O'Malley, who everyone calledToots, contacted police to report Patty missing.
Ralph still hadn't returned to Alice's houseto pick up his daughters. If
Ralph had indeed killed Patty sometime overnightbetween August thirty first and September first,
(17:26):
he didn't have much time to hidethe body. We do know, though,
that he called at least two friendsthat night saying he was in trouble
and needed help. Both friends saidno, but didn't ask what sort of
trouble Ralph was in. Did hecall someone else who did agree to help.
We'd really like to know that answer. Toasty out here. It's getting
(18:04):
warm, isn't it. My colleaguesand I met Patty's sister, Alice at
her home in Idaho to talk aboutPatty's disappearance on what would have been Patty's
sixty ninth birthday, August fourth,twenty twenty one. This is my uncle
Van Nier Rank you, Garry,Christine and Alice. Hi. Hi,
(18:30):
I'm Karen. Alice still lives inLewiston and hasn't changed her phone number in
case Patty is somehow still alive andwants to reach out. This is Alice
talking in a recorded phone call weeksafter that first meeting. We were asking
about Alice's relationship with her sister andPatty's life before she disappeared. She said
(18:52):
they talked every day and usually saweach other too. Alice said that Patty
never left the girls in Ralph's carebecause he would often drink until he passed
out. Oh no, I hadthe kids a lot. It's not messing
Babyson. I would just she'd comeup with the kids. There weather a
lot of when she went to school. When with Babyscorse, she never believed
(19:15):
the kids of rap by himself.He never he never watched the kids.
So she had an appointment or something. First moment Mom was and so I'd
watched him. But it was alwaysusually family, Yeah, watching him mom,
dad or me. According to documentationwe've obtained, Ralph was also taking
(19:36):
more than twice the standard maximum doseof valum. The valume was prescribed by
a Lewiston doctor who was trying tohelp Ralph with nervousness and trouble sleeping while
attempting to quit drinking, but Ralphoften swallowed the valume with whiskey. Alice
told us that Patty was fed upwith Ralph's drinking, which had led to
him more than one separation for Pattyand Ralph. Ralph had gone into treatment
(20:00):
for alcoholism several times, but hehadn't successfully sobered up. There was also
the issue of Ralph's involvement with otherwomen. Patty knew he was seeing that
Bonnie. We've seen him together.She had seen him together, and then
when Matt Bonnie had that baby,but he thought it could be his,
and he was always wanting to buythings and go visit Stephanet really bothered Patty.
(20:25):
Do you think that's part of whatthe fight was about the night she
disappeared, was Bonnie? No,I don't think so. It could be
just everything coming up. I thinkthe night that the last night I got
into I think for the last drive, Ralph knew that Patty had went out
was Randy, and there's no wayanybody's going to have anything that belongs to
(20:48):
Ralph. Patty and Ralph met whileshe was still in high school. She
(21:23):
was eighteen when they married in nineteenseventy. He was a divorced thirty five
year old who had worked as amechanic and owned heavy road equipment, which
he sometimes leased out. Ralph's incomewas good when he earned contracts from the
state or Forest Service to clear roadscovered by mudslides, but he had also
(21:45):
lost money on other business ventures,including a plan to crush rock into gravel
on a Clearwater River island he anda business partner had purchased. Ralph and
Patty's marriage was having ups and downstoo. They went through their longest split
in late nineteen seventy five, whilethey were separated, Patty hooked up with
(22:06):
a man named Randy Benton. Randyis a musician whose bands sometimes played at
Vans Club. You'll hear from Randyin an upcoming episode. Ian Patty knew
each other from school, and theysaw each other again when he was playing
(22:29):
one night at Vans. Truth BeTold. It sounds like Patty seduced Randy
that night to get back at Ralphfor his relationships with other women. Patty
told Ralph about her one night's standwith Randy when she and Ralph decided to
give their marriage another try in thespring of nineteen seventy six, Ralph said
he forgave Patty, but he couldn'tforget about that tryst. Ralph later admitted
(22:52):
to police that he intended to killRandy when he went to Van's Club with
a gun the night Patty disappeared.He told police that he was the only
man Patty had ever been with beforeshe hooked up with Randy. Ralph said
Patty's affair with the musician was moreabout her desire for new sexual experiences than
revenge for his unfaithfulness. Patty andRalph had often argued about Randy. They
(23:19):
also argued about Ralph's history with otherwomen and his drinking. Occasionally, the
squabbles turned violent, and not juston Ralph's part. He had hit and
choked Patty. She had fired agun into the ceiling. It was the
same gun Ralph had threatened to killRandy with. This is Ralph's sister Marcy
(23:42):
Smith talking about Patty and Ralph's relationship. Marcy ended up raising Patty's daughters after
she disappeared. She was a sweet, loving person. She could have a
temper, and Ralph tried it morethan once. You know, Marcy said,
(24:03):
Patty would get upset about the otherwomen in Ralph's life, past and
present. Patty knew about all ofthem. He was always up friend and
they had a good marriage. Asthe longer it went, there were ups
and downs, and some of them. I wasn't proud of my brother.
(24:30):
He was married and had children,but he just thought that was a privilege
and he never felt guilty for it. Marcy said Ralph had a temper.
She remembers two specific childhood incidents thatcould have ended tragically. The first time
(24:51):
was when Ralph threw an axe andhit Marcy in the head with it.
She was severely injured. Another time, Ralph and his older brother Jerry went
after their younger brother Ray. Heliked to pick on Ray, and I
was spending most of my life defendingRay and protecting him from I stopped him
INtime one time, and they wereMy two older brothers were going they were
(25:17):
playing cowboys and Indians, and theywere going to hang Ray. And I
was terrified because I knew that itmight happen. I went in and got
Daddy so fast, and I thought, boyd now the boys are going to
beat up on me. But Ididn't care. And I think if it
would have been left up to Ralph, I don't know. So this was
(25:42):
Ralph and Jerry. Yeah, Ralphand Jerry. Yeah, I don't know.
I think Jerry might have stopped him. But to this day I knew
that Ray's life was in danger.In the hours before Patty and Ralph fought,
(26:07):
the evening of August thirty first,Patty had gone to a night class
at the Valley Business School, alittle more than three miles from her in
Ralph's house. Patty had been takingclasses at the school for more than a
year and a half and She hadregistered for a new daytime class that would
start on September seventh. She wastraining to become a secretary. Was she
(26:33):
taking steps to start a new life. Ralph's family thinks so and earnestly believes
she's still alive. They have manytheories about why she hasn't been found.
On the other hand, Patty's familyis certain that Ralph killed her. Before
(26:57):
going to school that night, Pattyhad dropped off her daughters at her parents
house after class. She made aquick stop at Alice's house before going to
her parents' place to pick up thegirls. Patty stayed at her parents' house
to talk and sit beer for anhour or two before heading home. We
(27:18):
know Patty made it home with thegirls after leaving her parents' house at about
eleven pm. The girls were safein their basement bedroom when the sun rose
on September first. This is Patty'ssister Alice again. She came to our
house after she got done with school. She came by to tell me she
was going to make my birthday cake. And she didn't stay long because mom
(27:41):
and dad had the kids, soshe was going to go get the kids
and go home. And that isthe last. I mean, she probably
wasn't there more than ten minutes,but she wanted to make sure that.
She told me she was going tomake my birthday September second, So she
was going to make my birthday cake, and she was going to go kids
at for mom and dad and gohome. And that's that was a last
(28:07):
right there that I saw. Andthen he called me the next morning and
asked me where Patty was. DidI know where Patty was? And I
said no, And I just startedthis. I can still remember this feeling,
that just feeling inside myself, andI'll never forget that feeling. I
knew something was wrong. And assoon as I got off the phone,
(28:29):
I called my dad and I said, I know something's wrong. I said,
Rolph's going to bring me the girls. Would you come over you watch
the kids so I can go downand look at the house. With nerves
on edge, Alice quickly walked throughthe house, looking for any signs of
what may have happened after Patty arrivedhome the night before. So there was
nothing in the house that made thehair on your name, nothing I could
(28:53):
see. But then I get said, I was very nervous. I'm not
so I was looking for, butI did not see any blood. I
did not see any furniture overturned likethey were got in a big sight like
that. She doesn't recall many ofthe details today, but in nineteen seventy
six, Alice told police that thecushion from the living room couch was missing
(29:15):
when she walked through the house.Patty had only recently reopholstered the living room
furniture. That was another thing aboutPatty that when they did, she had
never done very much silly and oranything. And they had got to fill
pouch and she decided she was goingto reopholster it, and he said,
go for it, and it turnedoff really nice. She wasn't afraid to
(29:38):
try something new like that. Shedid it all herself, yes, all
herself. He bought her an extraduty some machine thing, and she did
the whole couch and cushions and everythingall by herself. And it really turned
out nice, the kind of it. But when she says to her mind,
the trythons and knew like that shecould do it. She'd loved to.
(30:00):
She'd paint things red, the furniture, repaint furnishures. Why would the
cushion from a couch that had recentlybeen recovered be missing from the living room.
Lewiston police detective Tom Selene wondered thesame thing, and he asked Ralph
about it during their interview a fewdays later. Ralph told detective Selene that
(30:23):
the cushion was at an upholstery shopfor repairs. If the cushion had been
soiled or damaged by the kids ora rowdy house guest, couldn't Patty have
repaired it herself. Ralph's story doesn'treally add up. It's not clear if
detectives were aware that the living roomfurniture had only recently been reupholstered, but
(30:45):
we don't have a record about themprobing further about the missing cushion. The
upholstery shop Ralph mentioned is still inbusiness. It specializes in custom car,
aircraft and boat interiors, although employeesalso recover household furniture. The man who
runs the shop now is the sonof the original owner. He said.
(31:07):
All the business receipts from nineteen seventysix are long gone. I want to
give you an overview of the townwhere Ralph and Patty lived and the terrain
that surrounded them. It's important tokeep in mind what Patty would have encountered
(31:30):
if she had decided to wander outon her own in the middle of the
night. If Patty really wanted todisappear, Idaho was a great place to
do so. Even today, youcan travel miles without encountering a single human.
(31:51):
The majority of the state isn't populated. It's truly wild, untouched by
roads and inaccessible by most passenger vehicles. More than four and a half million
acres of wilderness stretch out across thestate. Much of it is densely forested,
but larger swaths are scrubby deserts interruptedby canyons, streams, and rivers.
(32:19):
Virtually every mile of the state ishilly, and thousands of acres are
ridged by mountains. The six USstates that touch the Potato capital are also
mostly unpeopled in the areas that bumpup against Idaho, And of course there's
Canada to the north. Well youget the picture. Keep in mind also
(32:46):
that this was the mid nineteen seventies, a time when the United States seemed
to be teeming with serial killers.Gary Ridgeway, often known as the Green
River Killer, Ted Bundy, andRobert Yates Junior, all proud for victims,
not far from the spot where Pattywas last seen alive. But Bundy
(33:07):
was in police custody when she vanished, and it doesn't seem as though Ridgeway's
killing career had begun yet. Yateswas working as a correctional officer in Walla
Walla, Washington, and his knownvictims were all sex workers in the Spokane
area. Walla Walla and Spokane areboth about a two hour drive from Lewiston.
(33:28):
It's certainly possible that another predator couldhave grabbed Patty if she left her
house in the dark that night.In a later episode, we'll discuss a
couple of potential suspects who are knownto have actually been in Lewiston, Idaho,
around this time. Lewiston itself sitson the western edge of the Idaho
(33:49):
Panhandle, about one hundred and eightymiles south of the Canadian border. Back
in nineteen seventy six, about twentyseven thousand people called Lewiston home. The
city's population and land mass had morethan doubled seven years earlier, when an
area called the Orchards on the southend of town was annexed by the city
(34:10):
Patty's sister and parents lived in theorchards. Patty and Ralph's house, which
originally belonged to Ralph's parents, satabout halfway up a steep hill on twenty
ninth Street. The family lived lessthan a mile south of the Clearwater River,
which forms the city's northern boundary.The Snake River flows northward along the
(34:32):
city's western edge. The west flowingClearwater joins the Snake River at Lewiston's northwest
corner. From there, the Snakeveers sharply to flow westward into Washington State.
(34:52):
Ralph's rand Bonnie, recalled to usthat Spokane, Washington, was where
Ralph took her shopping for a pairof hot hants and white Go Go boots
on September first, nineteen seventy six. However, police records and check registers
indicate that on that day Ralph actuallypurchased a woman's pantsuit, a necklace,
(35:15):
and other items from the Vogue shopin Lewiston. The boots came from another
nearby store. A store clerk initiallyidentified Ralph's shopping companion as Patty, based
on photos of Patty and the clerk'srecollection. Ralph's family touted that as proof
(35:36):
that Patty was alive and well.The clerk was considered a reliable witness because
she was married to a former Lewistonpolice officer. Patty was petite and blonde,
so was Bonnie. It's easy tosee how a store clerk looking at
a photo of Patty could confuse thetwo, according to police reports. Bonnie
(35:59):
herself later confirmed that she was thewoman shopping with Ralph and Lewiston on September
first, more than four decades later. Bonnie's memory is understandably a bit fuzzy.
Perhaps Ralph took her shopping for newclothes more than once. Another potential
clue that Patty might have covertly slippedout of town came from a check register
(36:22):
found in the auto home. Itshowed that a check for sixty one dollars
had been written to Greyhound Bus Lines. Could Patty have been planning to vanish
that night or soon afterward, andactually purchased a bus ticket for herself in
advance. After learning that a checkhad been written at a bus depot,
(36:45):
Ralph's brother Ray went down to thebus station to ask questions. He learned
that Greyhound did not accept checks forbus tickets. However, the bus line
did accept checks to pay for freightshipped on the bus. Ray later conceded
that Ralph had been the one towrite the check and it was for freight.
(37:09):
It's not clear if Ralph was receivinga shipment or instead was paying to
send a bulky or heavy package tosomeone else next time. On Still,
he came out to the shop oneday and it was just scared me.
(37:30):
I'd never seen him like that before, and it was just hitting mad.
Anyone with information pertaining to the disappearanceof Patricia Otto should contact the Leoston Police
Department's tipline at two zero eight tonine eight three nine three nine. Anyone
(37:51):
with information pertaining to the identity ofthe Finland Creek Jane Doe, or other
information related to that case should contactthe Union County Strict Attorney at DA at
Union hyphen County dot org. Ifyou, or anyone you know is a
victim of domestic abuse, please contactthe National Domestic Violence Hotline at eight hundred
(38:13):
seven nine nine. Safe Still isa production of The Reporter's Notebook and Grayson
Shaw Media. You can connect withus online at The Reporter's Notebook dot com
or via email at info at theReporter's Notebook dot com. STILL was researched,
(38:37):
written and produced by Karen Shaw Anderson. Additional research and script editing provided
by Christine Hughes. Original music bySmith Yuosso. Additional narration provided by b.
J. Blackburn. I'm your hostand associate producer Gary Anderson. Special
(38:59):
thanks to everyone who graciously provided interviewsand help with our research. We would
specifically like to thank the advocates forPatricia Otto and the Findlay Creek Jain Dooe
Task Force Like Follow and subscribe toSTILL on your favorite podcast platform, and
follow us on Facebook or Twitter tojoin the conversation. Ezekiel thirty four sixteen.
(39:27):
I will seek the lost, andI will bring back the stray,
and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
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.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.