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September 11, 2023 • 58 mins
"It's been a process of seeing how ineffective our system is."

On the afternoon of October 12th, 2022, 31-year-old Hannah Walker went swimming in a scenic area near Trout Lake, Washington. Accompanied by a 67-year-old man named Jeremy, the two eventually got separated, and after waiting for some time, Jeremy called 911. A search effort would find Hannah's remains in the water, and officers initially made note of the odd circumstances at the scene.

Hannah's family has struggled to determine what happened that fateful October afternoon, and have had to fight uphill to get any momentum or answers in her case. Nearly one year later, they have more questions than answers...



Special thanks to Aia Walker for chatting with me for this episode. If you'd like to learn more about Hannah's story, please check out the website set up by Hannah's family at the following link:

https://www.hannahrosewalker.com/


Research, writing, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Learn more about this podcast at http://unresolved.me

If you would like to support this podcast and others, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or Producer

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved--3266604/support.
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Call started on Wednesday, October twelfth, twenty twenty two, and eighteen hours
forty seven minutes in eight seconds,nine one one. What's the address of
your emergency? Well, I'm downby the natural area preserved by the kind
of near Clarksdale, kind of outsideTrout Lake. And that's the best I

(00:20):
can tell you about where I am. There's a little entrance here. So
what's going on, sir? Iwas. I came over with a friend
of mine and she's a great summerand went down to that. She wanted
to go something, so we wentdown to sir, what is going on
right now that you've called nine oneone? She's lost? She's not that
okay, So you've got a missingperson. Okay, Yeah, she's been
gone. She's been gone for likewell of her an hour and it's getting

(00:42):
dark here. She's only got herswimsuit. She's barefoot, just like freaking
cold in the water. Take takea deep breath for me, okay.
And what water was she in?Trout Creek? I guess called Trout Creek?
Okay, feeds in your Trout Lake? Okay. And you're there at
Trout Creek Road and here you're downthere by Clarksdale. Yeah, by Clark

(01:04):
Clarksdale. I think it is,yes, And is that where she went
in it? Yes, I actuallywas with her, went that of the
creek and I waited around for liketwo hours for her back up. She
never showed up. On the afternoonof Wednesday, October twelfth, twenty twenty
two, a thirty one year oldwoman named Hannah Walker went swimming in a

(01:26):
scenic area near Trout Lake, Washington, accompanied by a sixty seven year old
man named Jeremy. The two werefriends, although the exact circumstances of their
friendship remains unknown. Regardless, thetwo wins swimming in an area named Trout
Lake, not too far away fromthe vacation home where Jeremy often stayed with
his wife. As you just heard, that afternoon, the two got separated.

(01:51):
Hannah, who had been wearing nothingbut a black swimsuit at the time
of her disappearance, had gone intothe water and did not come back out.
Hours later, the older Aramy calledninety one to inform them of Hannah's
disappearance, having left her towel andcell phone at the shoreline. Sadly,
sometime later, a search effort wouldfind Hannah's remains in the water. She

(02:12):
was found nude, with no shoesfound at the scene, and her swimsuit
found on shore surrounded by bootprints.An autopsy held more than a week later
would find DNA under her fingernails andseamen in her vaginal canal, but it's
not believed that any suspects were askedto provide DNA. You see, the
investigation would be overseen by the clickitatCounty Sheriff's office, and their poor resource

(02:36):
management made it so the autopsy didnot take place until nine days after Hannah's
body was recovered. They claimed tohave found alcohol in her blood stream,
which they allege mixed with prescription medicationand led to her accidental drowning. Hannah's
family alleged that waiting more than aweek to conduct the autopsy allowed the alcohol
in her body to metastasize, aknown phenomenon in d composition, and that

(03:00):
the drugs in her system were consistentwith her medication. But that's not all.
The family of Hannah Walker has beenfighting for answers for the past year,
and they've had to operate off ofthe backfoot the entire time. They
weren't even informed of Hannah's death untilthree days after her body was found,
when they found out due to anerrant social media post. In the months

(03:23):
since, they've had to fight uphillto get any momentum or answers in her
case, and nearly one year later, they have more questions than answers.
This is the story of Hannah roseWalker. Just a few weeks ago,

(04:09):
I was able to chat with AyaWalker, Hannah's mother. While we would
eventually discuss the investigation and her ongoingquest for answers, I would also get
to learn more about the details thathave not yet made it into the scant
coverage of this case online, namelydetails of Hannah herself. It's really hard

(04:30):
for me to to talk about Hannahor two things about how special she is
as an individual. But I'll tellyou that she grew up in Hawaii and
was very hard to get out ofthe ocean. Oftentimes it was become night

(04:53):
time and I'd be there, youknow, paddling out to tell her,
no, really, Anna, wehave to come in. And so she
was just a water girl learned justthen. Really young life, I said,
was just always in the ocean,playing really hard in the jungle.

(05:15):
She helps me in the garden alot. She was really interested in her
bolicy as a little girl, andas she grew she spent some time in
southern Oregon. I'm also up inPortland. She was of an animal lover

(05:42):
like. She could communicate with dogs, particularly really well, and she had
a really special cat that I'm nowcaring for. She was really smart.
She was the funny one in ourfamily. She could always be the quick

(06:05):
one with the inside jokes and alwaysmade us laugh. She had the infectious
laughter. She was pretty sarcastic withshe was studying. She was a CNA

(06:26):
and she really enjoyed caring for theelderly. She helped them with mobility training
and whatnot. And then she scoredin the top I think it's like ninety
nine point eight percentile on the GeVexam, and she took it. She

(06:46):
read a lot, She painted,she wrote music. I had a lovely
voice. Hannah. Hannah wrestles witha lot of internal dem too. She
had eating disorder as a young girl, a lot of confidence issues. She

(07:10):
was She endured a lot of traumaas a child, and I think that
translated to some of these problems thatshe was rustling with She was in the
process of making significant changes. Shewas going to come down here. She
got accepted to go to the universityhere, and so that was exciting for

(07:40):
everyone to see that she was,you know, making some choices that look
like it was going to help herturn things around. She and I were
at odds often because of choices thatshe was making and dangers that she would,
you know, unbound the signs insituations she would put herself into.

(08:05):
But we were very close. Wetalked to daily. While Hannah had started
to build up herself throughout twenty twentytwo, she still struggled with some long
time issues in her life, namelyan ongoing issue with alcohol abuse. She
was lost in alcohol. She oftentold me that she didn't do other drugs,

(08:31):
but that I really didn't believe herbecause her behavior would sometimes be very
aroved. She was also and sometherapy for mental illness, trying to get
some help for deep issues. Soit's confusing, Like I actually thought that

(08:54):
I would find out that it wassomething like Sentinel or you know, some
bad drugs, but that wasn't thecase. When the toxic Collegry report came
back, it showed only normal levelsof her regular prescribed medicine, So that
was a little bit. I wasshocked to me because she did tell me

(09:16):
that she was only drinking and reallytrying to stop at herself. So regretfully,
I wish I really would have believedher at any rate. She was
going through quite a bit, andshe was, you know, involved with

(09:39):
a boy that I didn't like.Once he was abusive tour I blocked him
immediately. And Hannah had been planningon relocating to the American Southwest, where
she had already been accepted into auniversity. However, before she did so,
she planned to finish up some unfinishedbusiness in the Portland area, namely

(10:01):
a longtime relationship. Hannah had beenin an on again, off again relationship
with a man will call Ricky,whom had not been great to her.
The two had been involved in manydomestic disturbances, with Ricky alleged to have
been abusive towards Hannah. This ultimatelyculminated in an incident in October of twenty
twenty two, just days before Hannah'seventual death. On Friday, October seventh,

(10:26):
members of the Multnomah County Sheriff's Officeresponded to another domestic disturbance, and
Ricky was detained under potential charges ofmenacing and stringulation. He was ultimately released
from jail without being officially charged onOctober tenth. Yeah, so Hannah,
Hannah was here, got accepted tothe university, and then I'll rather forget.

(10:48):
She was like, Mom, I'mgoing to go up to Oregon.
I'm gonna road trip with some friendsand go to the beach before I start
school. And I was furious aboutthat, and I said, no,
you really ought to just get settled, you know, get ready for school,
to carry yourself. It's the workfrom work going. But she said,

(11:09):
oh, it's a laughter all,you know, before I get serious.
For whatever I need, could doit. And I hugged her twice,
you know, I made her getout of the car and embarrassed her
friends that she was said, andI'm really glad that I did that.
But anyway, she laughs. Andthen you know, the time for her

(11:31):
to return came and went, andshe called and said she was going to
go back up to Portland to dealwith Ricky a little bit. And I
of course didn't want that to happen, but she did, and predictably,
they got into argument and you know, she's texted me saying he had been

(11:58):
abusive and caught came and arrested him, and she was going to try and
press charges. And I my responsewas to immediately get her down here,
but she said she might have togo to court, and she was concerned

(12:20):
about his dog. She was veryattached to his dog and didn't want to
leave it alone. And I toldher she could take care of the dog
with some hall arrange for people towalk it or seed it, and she
needed to leave immediately, but shedisagreed and said she was going to go

(12:41):
out to the cabin with Jeremy.And Jeremy is a character that's been in
her life for many years that wedon't know anything about. Like we were
never privy to his last name,he wasn't a Facebook friend. There just
wasn't any way for me to knowabout this person. But the story that

(13:05):
Hannah told me and others is thatshe was being paid by him for companionships.
And she swore to me that itwas non sexual companionships, that he
was just a really rich person thatcould afford to help her. An he
took a liking to her and decidedto help her life and that was really

(13:31):
upsetting for me. It didn't makemuch sense. Through the years, it's
been something that we thought about.But what I know from my history with
this character's involvement is that he wouldput her up in hotel rooms all the
time. I never understood. Thatreally really made me angry. She could

(14:00):
never come home in a crisis becauseshe didn't have ID. Something had always
happened to her ID, so Ialways had to go through the process of
helping go get a new ID soshe could travel to come back. But
yeah, I don't know about thisJerman character other than you know, I

(14:22):
do have texts from her saying thathe paid her two thousand dollars a month.
While Hannah told her family of herrelationship with this Jeremy that it was
non sexual in nature and that theywere just friends, they never knew the
details of it until just recently,when they discovered that Jeremy had been regularly

(14:43):
paying Hannah to travel and stay withhim. This is, of course,
despite him being married and his wifeseemingly being aware of their friendship. This
relationship between Hannah and Jeremy remains somethingof a murky mystery for most of Hannah's
family. Now we're going to pausefor just a moment to hear a word
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next subscription. Like Hannah, Jeremylived in the Portland area, but he

(16:40):
was no stranger to the area oftrout Lake, and in the context of
the story, he remains something ofan enigma. As I touched on just
a moment ago, he seems tohave been paying Hannah for her companionship,
whatever that may mean. After sheleft the Portland area in early October following
the most recent abusive incident from herex boyfriend Ricky, she seems to have

(17:02):
gone to stay with Jeremy at hisvacation home near trout Lake, a rural
area in southern Washington just about ninetymiles northeast of Portland. This area of
southern Washington is very rural. Whilethere are plenty of trees, this area
is full of farmland and wide openspaces. It was here where Hannah spent
her final days in the company ofJeremy. On the afternoon of October twelfth,

(17:26):
the two decided to go swimming ata nearby river which fed into Trout
Lake. At some point, thetwo reportedly got separated, and in the
early evening hours, Jeremy called nineone one. Call started on Wednesday,
October twelfth, twenty twenty two,at eighteen hours forty seven minutes. In
eight seconds, nine one one wasthe address of your emergency. I'm down

(17:51):
by the natural area preserved by thekind of Clarksdale kind of outside Trout Lake,
and that's most like and tell youabout where I am. There's a
little entrance here. So what's goingon, sir? I was. I
came over with a friend of mineand she's a great summer and went down
that she wanted to go simming.So she went down to sir, what
is going on right now that you'vecalled nine to one one, She's lost.

(18:15):
She's not that okay, So you'vegot a missing person Okay, Yeah,
she's been gone. She's been gonefor like well of her an hour
and it's getting dark here. She'sonly got her swimsuit. She's barefoot,
just like freaking cold in the water. Take take a deep breath for me.
Okay. And what water was shein? Trout Creek? I's called
Trout Creek okay, feeds into TroutLake. Okay. And you're there at

(18:37):
Trout Creek Road and you're said you'redown there by Clarksdale, Yeah, by
Clarkstile just thought side Clark Clarksdale.I think it is, Yes, And
is that where she went in at? Yes? I actually was with her,
went that the creek, and Iwaited around for like two hours for
her show back up become. Shenever showed up. Is she on an
inner tube or no? She's justhas her bathing suit. She's barefoot,

(18:59):
that's us all. She's got abarefoot Okay. Do you know what color
her babying suit is? It's black. It's black. Okay. How old
is she? Thirty one? Thirtyone? Okay, Sorry, my computers,
And where did you get out at? I came back to the car.
I just I waited around for awhile. I left the towel and

(19:21):
the sheet we're sitting on in hercell phone there, because I thought it
if perhaps she did actually show up, that she was able to call somebody.
But I'm back at the car nowshe's not there either. Okay,
So where did you leave her toweland her cell phone? App there's like
a little like beach down by theby the creek down there, and it's
really hard for me to describe.I could show you. I've been there

(19:42):
many many times. I come herequite often by the bridge or No,
it's like, uh, it's anatural area preserve. There's actually a little
forest service road at least as aforest or market. I can walk up
and look if I can read themarker, but nobody ever thinks of it.
Is that using that that road designation? Okay? And he said your

(20:12):
friend is thirty one? Yes,thank jes. So she went in and
you have a teen heer and alot how long? Uh? What time
is now? About about about sixforty something like that? Ye? Uh,

(20:36):
probably since about four, she said, really strong summer. So I
really expected. I wasn't really worriedabout her for at least an hour or
so, and then she just nevershowed up, and I started to God,
damn it, she just left mehere, just left me here and
stranded me. But then she nevercame back. And it's like, I'm
really freaking worried. Now I can'teven find it's so overgrowing up here.
I can't even find. But thereis there is no there's the actual numbers

(21:07):
on the sign had gone. Itwas just still there. Okay, So,
sir, what's your name? Myname, first name is Jeremy.
My last name is Coullie. Doyou live in this area of Jeremy?
I have a vacation home in chartLake. Okay, but you don't live
here, correct, I just Icome up here frequently, but my home
is actually important. All right,hang on just a second, Jeremy.

(21:37):
Okay, doing him? Okay,So I've got a deputy headed your way.

(22:14):
Cool, that's great. What kindof vehicle are you in, Jeremy.
What color is it? Silver?Okay, let's kind of parked down
this road. I can actually goto stand by the road, so if
he shows up, I could I'dbe a little more obvious. Well,
just stay right where you are,because we've got some cell phone cover journey

(22:34):
to ask you a bunch of questionsbefore you go back. Okay, my
video will find you so great.And you're right there at Trout Leak,
Trump Lake Creek Road. What isthat road there? There's another road right
there though, right to the littleshort road. Yeah, to the west

(22:56):
of view there's a road or upto the north and then to the west
there's a road. Correct, Yes, yes, okay, that's that's that's
uh. I can't rename this.No, I don't either, nuts and
look at my matiness. Why Ican't? Okay? Does she have any
medical problems? No, not really. She has some mild asthma and that's

(23:21):
yeah. Does she have any mentalhealth problems? Yes she does. Okay,
what kind of mental health problems doesshe have? Oh? Depression?
Is she just kind out of anabusive relationship with the world kerk guy?
And yeah? It really like devastatedor sort of. I don't think she
got out of it. She wasvery despondent, but she was sort of
brightened up by the waters. Iwasn't really too worried about her, but

(23:44):
not coming back like this, andso I was streaking me out right.
No, No, that's why I'vegot to ask a bunch of questions.
Okay, sure, ask away,okay? She okay? What's her name?
Her first name is Hannah, herlast name is Walker. What's your
do order? Your day of birthis? By chance, let's see,

(24:07):
it's uh May first, And she'sthirty one, so I guess that's NY
two or ninety one? All right? N any one? Don't make her
thirty probably? No, ninety one? Yeah, ninety one? Yeah,
I make her thirty one? Yep? Yeah, he said she's in bare

(24:40):
feet? Yep? About how toly? Is she? Uh? She's about
five eight? She thin? Isshe average? Is she hefty? A

(25:03):
little on the thin side? Yeah? Okay? What color hair does she
have? Blond? Is it longer? Short? Long? Well? Yeah?
Curly long? Yeah? Okay?Is it curlier? Straight? Straight?

(25:30):
What color her eyes? Blue?Cars? Marks? Tattoos that you
know of? Yes, she hassome tattoos. It'd be kind of difficult
for me describe them as she doesa two stars to be okay? Tattoos?
What part of her body? Arethey on her arms? Oh?

(25:51):
Curt? Alrighty? What's the phonenumber that you're calling me from? Five
zero three eight six zero four twofour two? Okay? And I'm sorry?
What was your name against. Herfirst name is Jeremy. That's j

(26:11):
E R E M. Y lastname is the girl on the east out
like yeah, who girl? Eat? All right, Jeremy, Jeremy?
What's your birthday? Very this year? With yep? Use? What is

(26:33):
her phone number? I can findit out if you liked me? It's
like her she has never found rightnow, it doesn't really matter. Do
you want to look it up?Yeah? If you would hang on a
second, you bet right? Okay, her number is valer who yes,

(26:59):
yes, guess me on earth.And when my deputy gets there, can
you take him back to where youleft the towel on the phone? Absolutely?
It's a little dark, but yes, I can do that. Okay,
great. And then where is yourcar parked at? It's parked in
this a little lot you can parkin up here, right sort of off
the road. Okay. So areyou close to it or I'm standing right

(27:22):
next almost right next to the car. Yeah, okay, okay, hang
on just a second, oh right, cheer me. I'm gonna put you
on a brief hop. I'm goingto be there just since if my deputy
wants me to ask you anything else? Okay, okay, okay, sir.

(27:44):
For now, I'll go ahead andhang up with you. My deputy's
headed to where you're at. Okay, just stay by my car and go
up to the road or where areyou where you're at right now? So
I'm gonna buy my car. Mycar is about, you know, maybe
fifty feet from the road. You'refine, you'll see him and you can
flag him down. Okay, okay, great, And then just then if

(28:06):
we call you back to answer thephone, if she shows up, give
us a call back. Okay,absolutely, all right, thank you,
thank you. Bye. Call endedon Wednesday, October twelfth, twenty twenty
two, at eighteen hours, fiftynine minutes and thirty three seconds. Officers

(28:30):
arrived at the scene a short timelater. Sometime after that, Hannah's body
was found, and while officials withthe clickatat County Sheriff's Office would tell Hannah's
mother that they were investigating the crimethoroughly and investigating it as a homicide,
there seems to have been little momentumeven from the get go. Jeremy was
allowed to go home without much inthe way of questioning. He nor his

(28:52):
car were searched. While I don'tthink that this is overly unusual, it
does point to their being no realeffort at the time to thoroughly investigate the
crime as a homicide, despite policeofficials telling Hannah's family otherwise. Regardless,
it would take Hannah's relatives three daysto receive word of Hannah's death. It

(29:14):
wasn't until that weekend, when someonemade an errand post announcing Hannah's death on
social media that her family caught windof it. Then they contacted Cliotat County,
hoping to find out if the rumorswere true, only to receive a
knock on their front door about anhour later when a local police officer delivered
the bad news. Other than this, there would be no public mention of

(29:37):
Hannah's death anywhere. Her death wasn'tannounced by Clicotat County. If you look
online or even in the local newspapers, there was no death announcement, not
even a notice that a woman's bodyhad been found in a nearby body of
water. Nothing. However, youwould probably find plenty of information about the
local sheriff running for reelection more afterthe break. As I've mentioned, the

(30:15):
investigation into the death of Hannah Walkerwould be overseen by the clickitat County Sheriff's
office. Despite you not knowing hisname, the sheriff himself, Bob Songer,
might already be known by some ofyou. Sheriff Bob Songer is infamously
known as a constitutional sheriff, arather crackpot belief that has become the sovereign

(30:36):
citizen of the law enforcement world.Basically, Sheriff's Songer and other constitutional sheriffs
believe that they are the utmost authorityfigure in the area that they hold office,
that they get to pick and choosewhich laws to enforce, even believing
that their authority trump's state and federalauthority. In this rather rural area of
Washington State, Sheriff's Songer essentially holdsall of the power, or at least

(31:02):
he thinks so. Don't take myword for it. He campaigns on it.
If you google Sheriff Bob Songer,you'll find some new story talking about
it. At the time of Hannah'sdeath in October of twenty twenty two,
Bob Songer was running for reelection.He won just a couple of weeks later
by a rather slim margin, buthe won regardless, and in the weeks

(31:22):
after Hannah's death, which his investigatorswould quickly label as an inactive case.
Her family would try and find outinformation, but were met with a metaphorical
brick wall and an ongoing cavalcade ofinvestigative shakeups. So I was getting nowhere
because Okay, so the detective thatwas a sign the full time detective right

(31:44):
it, told me he was orderingthe forensics on the phone doing all this
stuff. He told me that Iwould hear from him on Thursday without fail,
that he might not always have informationor new information, but that he
would be the keeping me connected.He called the next Thursday, has agreed

(32:07):
to tell me that he had beentransferred to patrol because they hadn't found any
smoking gun so to speak, atthe crime scene. They were going to
move the case to inactive and waitfor the toxicology report to come back.
And I was like, what doyou mean you're moving it to inactive?

(32:27):
How are you going to find outwhat happened if you don't investigate? Makes
no sense. Yeah, So hetold me he had been moved to patrol
because they were understaffed. So Icalled the you know, the Sheriff's office,
and spoke to the under Sheriff Carmensand I complained and I said,

(32:53):
hey, you know, I needto know who's handling this investigation and if
it's active or if it's inactive,it's active. We're just really understaffed and
you need to just kind of bepatient with us. We also all have
the flu. I say, okay, I get that, that's you know,

(33:19):
understandable, but isn't there protocols inplace if you need help, you
can get state resources or federal resourcesor I mean, you can't just not
investigate because you're busy or understaffed,right And she said, you know what
you can do is you can callthe county commission increase our budget. That's

(33:45):
what she said to me. Iwas like, are you kidding me?
That's what you're saying to me rightnow. So, yeah, it was
just just just the whole time,it's been nothing but that kind of out
of too people seeming very annoyed ifI'm you know, calling to find out

(34:07):
you know why they haven't answered myquestion and their valid question. Okay.
An example is Hannah and I weretexting as she was on her way to
the river. She texted me,I'm on my way to the river.

(34:27):
Okay. But the nine one call, when the lady asked Jeremy for Hannah's
phone number, Jeremy says, well, she doesn't have it with her right
now, so it doesn't matter.And the lady's like, well, just
can you give it to me anyway? And he's like, okay, you

(34:47):
want me to look it up foryou, I'll look it up or whatever.
So first off, you know,okay. So anyways, he gives
them a different phone number. Somy question, which is very valid,
is which phone did you find atthe scene. Is it the one that
I pay for that I was textingher on or is it the one that

(35:15):
is tied to the number that Jeremygave you. Very valid question I think
needs to be answered, needs tobe answered, share a funger. When
I pose the question to him,he says this to me, Well,
we think that both numbers are tiedto that phone, so I call my

(35:40):
phone company. And that's not howit worked. Each phone number is tied
to a semcard, so you know, you can forward a number to your
cell phone or something, but acell phone can't have two numbers. Yeah,
the only that would work as ifit was like a Google Voice number

(36:01):
or like a digital phone number,but if it was tied to a simcard,
then yeah, those are two differentcell phones. Yeah, so I
don't know. I don't know thesethings. That's why I'm stuck on it.
I'm like, well, this isa piece of something that doesn't make
any sense. I need to know. With the police seeming to take no
interest in pursuing Hannah's death as anythingother than an accidental drowning, her family

(36:25):
would begin to compile information about thelife Hannah had been living in the weeks
before her death, including information aboutthe people she had surrounded herself with,
including Jeremy and her ex boyfriend Ricky. The family. We took all of
this in and met with the sheriffin person on the twenty sixth of October.

(36:47):
And the reason I said at thatmeeting was because of the delay and
notification and telling me I couldn't ideaher until after autopsy, which I challenged.
I was like, no, Ineed to see her before the autopsy.
I just want to make sure herAnd the coroner told me, well,
I would have to escalate that upto the head corner. It's not

(37:08):
usually how it happened, and Isaid, yes, well please do.
So I'm going to talk to mykids and make sure they agree with me,
but if you would please escalate it. I do want to see your
body before before the autopsy. Buthe never responded, and the next communication

(37:30):
I got was a voicemail and he'slike, yeah, I'm on the road
taking Hannah to the medical examiners.You're gonna have to call them, you
know, to make arrangements to pickup our body. It was just so
insensitive and so like there was novictim advocate there for our family, you

(37:52):
know, there was nobody like,Okay, we were told we were given
a number to call the detective,the guy that was at the scene that
you know that responded Tony Warren.I called to talk to Tony Warren and
I was told he was on vacation. And I'm like, whoa wait,

(38:15):
you assigned a homicide to somebody onvacation. Who's who's in charge of the
case when he's gone. Well,nobody, they say, so I'm furious.
So I called the county commissioner becausewell, first I did the loop
through like the Governor's office and theAttorney General's office and trying to figure out

(38:39):
who oversees this county and all that'sgoing on, because it makes no sense.
And I was told that there areelected officials and so the electorate is
who oversees them. And I'm like, well, okay, but I'm trying
to figure out why I wasn't notifiedabout stuff. Oh well that's the corners.

(39:01):
Yeah, I don't know. Youmight try the commissioner. So called
the commissioner and he gave me surea Songer's cell phone directly, you know,
his cell phone number, And soI called Songer and he said,
can you come and meet me inmy office tomorrow. So we drove out

(39:22):
to Golden Bille and we stayed upthat night writing out all our questions and
concern and we delivered him to himand he read the whole thing. We
sat there and watched him mouth eachword. We watched his heart rate,
you know, it started to gofaster at certain parts of what he was

(39:46):
reading. And yeah, when hefinished, he said, you know this,
Yeah, it's very suspicious. Andhe said, if if the autrup
becomes back showing any any sort offoul play, these are you know,
high on our list. These aresuspects high on our list. And then

(40:09):
right after that, like the nextday, maybe the day after, I
got a call from another detective thathe had been assigned the case and that
he's the full time detective and hisname is Tim Near and it was he

(40:29):
said, this is really unusual.I am considering it a homicide. You
know, people don't just go tothe river with a friend to commit suicide.
And he said he was going toget to the bottom of it.
He told me about forensic tools thathe was going to order. He said

(40:50):
he needed to order some phone workthat they were going to be able to
tell not only details about her phoneand where it had been, but other
phones the end of the vicinity,et cetera. Exter you explained it quite
well. But since we've learned thatthey never did any of that. They

(41:10):
told me that it was a highpriority that they were doing a thorough investigations.
Sureff Songer told me I needed totrust him. Yeah, that one
gets me like kind of upset.He told me, I'm asking you to

(41:32):
trust that we're doing a thorough investigation. And I said, well, sir,
you know it doesn't appear that way. I've asked these questions that are
going unanswered, their valid questions.You haven't responded to me, I'm doubting
it. Yeah, And then Iblundered one day by saying, you know,

(41:57):
telling the suriff that, hey,I don't think you're doing good investigations.
I'm finding lots of ways that you'renot. And I'll give you an
example. I received a call fromthe coroner or a text saying that they
had recovered some of Hannah's personal belongingsfrom the residence and what did I want

(42:22):
done with them? And my responsewas to take them to the Sheriff's office,
where I would arrange for them tobe picked up. But then when
I called to do that, therewere no belongings there. Nobody knew anything
about it. So I addressed thesheriff directly and said, you know what

(42:43):
about her belongings. The coroner toldme blah blah blah, what about him?
And he said, I will lookinto that for you. I'll give
you my word, I will findout about the belonging. I said,
great. I waited a respectful twoweeks, like doing business, you know,
gaylow up and I followed up andI said, I haven't heard from

(43:05):
you. You told me you weregoing to find out about these belongings.
It's been kind of a long timegetting mad about it. I didn't say
that actually, but anyway, sohe left me a voicemail and he said,
oh, yeah about the belongings.The coroner did bring him to the
office. We have we have themhere and what we're showing is a black

(43:30):
swimsuit and a cell phone. Yeah, so they're here. Just wanted you
to know. I did follow upon that, and I was shocked because
I wasn't talking about the belongings atthe crime scene that we're supposedly in the
evident blocker or at the lab.I'm talking about the belongings that the coroner

(43:52):
mentioned getting from the resident. Sohe wasn't even on the same page.
He's not even carrying an about whatmy concern was to get it right.
And when I had that conversation withhim, I told him, I said,
you know what, it doesn't looklike you're doing their investigation at all,

(44:13):
sir. I said, it kindof seems like may be somebody was
too busy with their election to reallycare about doing the work. And he
got really mad at me and hesaid, missus Walker, I've been nice
to you up until now because you'rea grieving mother that you have taken it
too far. Now you are interferingin this investigation. They were, That's

(44:38):
what he said to me, andI said, sir, I'm not interfering
in the investigation. I'm trying toassure one was completed. And then he
refused to communicate with me after that. In January, I got a letter

(45:00):
and it had the crime lab informationsheet, It had the initial coroner report,
it had the initial deputy report,and it had the search and rescue
personnel log, you know, thatI had asked for. I had asked

(45:21):
for a lot of stuff, andit said the letter says to me that
due to backlog at the labs,the two labs, the crime lab and
the toxicology lab, they had notthey had not received any results and they

(45:42):
don't expect to receive it for anothersix to eight months. They wrote that
letter to me in January, andabout April is when I got attorneys involved,
and they started asking, you know, like re asking, because I
had already requested all public records,but they started requesting them again and came

(46:08):
to the conclusion that after receiving thefinal you know, so, they received
from a click attack an assertion thatwe had received all records for chaining to
the case and that nothing was beingwithheld. That's important because they technically can

(46:32):
withhold information, withhold evidence, butthey have to tell you that they are.
So we know that they're not becausemy attorneys brought that to light and
had them assert that they're not withholdinganything. Okay, So they have everything.
We have everything, and they're notholding anything back. When we go

(46:58):
through everything, what we realize isthey had all the information in December that
showed DNA under both sets of fingernails, semen in the vaginal canal, bootprints
photographed at the scene, even thoughthey didn't recover any shoes, and he
on the nine or one call saysshe's barefoot, okay, So they knew

(47:22):
all of that in December, stillchose not to investigate, even though the
crime lab report itself says please submitDNA referenced samples for positive confirmation. But
they never did that part. Theynever did anything. In fact, what
they did is they lied to mein January and told me it was going

(47:45):
to be Oh, I don't know, let's say put it after the date
that the samples can be destroyed,okay, so we'll date it that and
we'll send it to her and we'regoing to tell her. That's when,
you know, we think we're goingto have everything back. And then right
around that time is when the attorney'sgot their final this is everything we have.

(48:07):
We're all done the case. He'sdone. So they just lied to
me and didn't investigate. They toldme that things were backlogged at the lab.
They had it on their guests showingfoul play probable foul play that means
an explanation. In the months thathave since passed, Sheriff Bob Songer and

(48:30):
other members of the Clickitat County Sheriff'soffice have refused to say much about Hannah's
case. While he has refused tospeak privately with Hannah's relatives, in public,
he's assumed the stance of someone eagerto defend himself. In fact,
in his most recent statements to thepress, he's claimed that the Walker family
hiring lawyers clearly means that they planto sue him in his department, so

(48:52):
he's unwilling to talk about the case, while at the same time asserting that
it was an accidental drowning and iscurrently in active kind of the law enforcement
equivalent of having his cake and eatingit too. While Hannah's family remained frustrated
with how the investigation took place andhow law enforcement communicated their progress or lack

(49:12):
of it, with them, they'realso increasingly frustrated with how the local authorities
did not publish any information in thecase until they were pressed on it.
Well, what's interesting is the localnewspapers in that area that serve the electorate
that is, the oversight committee haven'tpublished anything about it. They didn't publish

(49:35):
anything about her death when it happened, even though they regularly published incident reports
before and after Hannah's death. Ican show you both just general police incident
report like you would expect to findin the newspaper when you're trying to find
out what is going on in thecommunity. But they didn't publish anything about

(49:58):
it at all. Nothing, Nothingwas published about it until KGW broke the
story when we finally decided, okay, you know what, we've had enough.
Now we're going to go to thepress. Now we're going to get
attorneys, because you can't do thisto people. You know, First of

(50:22):
all, it's bad enough that theyjust neglected their basic job description, basic
crime investigation. One oh one thatyou can Google search and look at the
first ten steps you have to do. You know, there's been nothing.

(50:45):
So we gave them the press release. We gave the local papers the press
release over a month ago. Tothe Golden Bell Sentinel. Anyway, the
attorney sent the first press release tothem. They haven't published anything. In
fact, we got a response fromthem basically saying it's an uncorroborated story.

(51:07):
You know, we would have tohave a public statement by somebody to answer
to it, and since we can'tget that, then we can't publish the
story, which makes no sense becausethere are a lot of facts to the
story, and you would think theindependent media would go out and try and
find the information instead of you wouldhope so, especially if you're being told

(51:30):
that the electorate is the governing andoversight committee for you know, really significant
crucial roles in the community, likelaw enforcement, and I you know,
I just wonder, now, likethis county, where are the people getting
their information? You know, whenI finally did reach a victim advocate in

(51:53):
the county, when I reached out, she hadn't heard about it at all,
and she was so shocked. Shegoes why didn't I hear about this?
It is such a small community,and I work at the courthouse with
these people every day, and it'smy role to know about this stuff.

(52:14):
Why didn't I know about this?Okay, a lot of people didn't know
about it. Our email is fillingup with people that are like, I
have teenage daughters that go down thereand swim all the time. You know,
why didn't I know about this?Like somebody's just going to decide that

(52:34):
they know what happened without any investigation, without any search of the evidence.
Like they didn't search his car,they didn't check him for scratches. He
had said nothing about her being inaboratedor having trouble on the trail, or
even about drinking. How far awayis the cabin from the plate? And

(52:54):
then they walked to trail. Thenthey sat for a while, Like it
doesn't make sense. He didn't showme anything that shows that they were drinking
there. He didn't show me anythingthat shows that he didn't have scratches,
that his car didn't have booze orwhatever. You know, there's there was

(53:17):
just nothing done. They let himgo home because he was cold. He
was wearing Hannah's hoodie. He hadleft the towel and the phone on the
beach in case she comes back,not when she comes back, but in

(53:38):
case she comes back, so shecould call somebody. And he also found
raised concern on the nine one onecall about her possibly being cold because she's
naked and barefoot, but he wearsher hoodie because he's cold. I don't
know. Anyway, there's so many, so many problems with the way the

(54:05):
whole thing has gone. I'm we'rejust at a complete loss. We don't
We are really hoping that the FBIdecides to investigate, if not to find
out what happened to Hannah, butalmost as importantly to find out why they're
conducting law enforcement this way there.And you know, there's other people coming

(54:29):
out in emails to us saying thatthey know of other incidents. It's not
an isolated case of mishandled or neglectedinvestigation. Despite struggling over the past year
to not only grieve Hannah's loss butalso fight for answers in her confusing case,

(54:50):
Hannah's family remains resilient. I'm sorry, Like I said at the beginning,
like I know, it's not easytalking about this, but then when
you have the equal parts the sadnessfor the grieving, and then you have
all this other anger and frustration.Like I know, it can create something
that's just overwhelming and overpowering. Andthat's why I'm I'm just every time I
talk to a family member like yourself, like, I'm just you know,

(55:12):
I'm amazed, I'm inspired. I'mjust honestly just amazed by how you can
coherently, you know, make thesearguments and not just explode in a ball
of anger. Like it really saysa lot about you and you know,
your family. You know, it'sbeen so hard to frankly, have to
have to show up right. Itwould be a lot easier for us if

(55:37):
we could really just go away andgreet right. It would be a lot
easier to look the other way andsay, oh, no, that county
system isn't defunct. No, thatsure iff isn't acting with impunity and just
like deciding the debates of people.No, you know, you can't look

(55:59):
away from stuff like that. Ifsomebody is going to bring the battle right
to your home, then yeah,okay, I'll grieve later. I'll grieve
later. You don't even know youpicked the wrong family here, you know,
I've got stamina, I've got resiliencefor all of us. We're going
to find out what happened eventually.You know, it doesn't feel right.

(56:25):
Nothing about it feels right, andI'm not going to just go away.

(57:06):
This is undoubtedly a story that willbe covered more in depth on this podcast
in the near future, so Idon't think that this is the last you'll
hear of it from me or Hannah'smother. If you would like to learn
more about this case or learn howto support the family in their effort to
keep Hannah's story alive, I wouldencourage you to visit their website, Hannah
Rosewalker dot com. There they've posteda lot of information about the case about

(57:30):
Hannah, including several pictures of Hannahthroughout her life, so you could see
random snapshots of her. I'll includea link to their website in the show
notes. I encourage you check itout. While Hannah's case file remains technically
inactive with the clickitat County Sheriff's Office, I believe that her story remains unresolved.
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