Additional Book Notes
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER 39
Background information re Theodore “Ted” Bundy came from Steven Michaud’s and Hugh Aynesworth’s 2019 book Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer. According to this source, Bundy was tried separately for the murder of residents of a Florida university sorority house on January 15, 1978 and the kidnapping and murder of a twelve-year-old girl from Lake City, Florida, on February 9, 1978. He received the death penalty in both cases, and was executed in 1989.
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Information about Bundy having possibly killed someone in Clackamas County came from the following sources: Sarah Kershaw, “21-Year Search for Killer Shapes Man and Family,” the New York Times, November 7, 2003; Robert Keppel, The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer; “Rita Lorraine Jolly,” the Charley Project, November 15, 2013; Mike Carter, “Robert Keppel, who spent his life chasing serial killers including Ted Bundy and the Green River killer, dies at 76,” the Seattle Times, June 28, 2021 and Katherine Ramsland, “The Detective Who Used a Serial Killer to Advance Forensics,” Psychology Today, July 19, 2021.
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According to these sources, Bundy contacted King County, Washington detectives in 1986 and offered to help them understand how serial killers think.
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“Don’t ask me why I believe I’m an expert in this area,” Bundy wrote the detectives, who were investigating Bundy’s successor in Washington, the “Green River Killer.” "Just accept that I am and start from there.”
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So Detectives Dave Reichert and Robert Keppel flew to Florida and talked to Bundy.
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Between December 1988, when Bundy exhausted his last appeal, and January 24, 1989, when he was executed in Florida, he talked to Keppel again. This time, he confessed to eight Washington and Oregon homicides in which he had been the prime suspect. He also described five additional, previously unknown homicides in the two states, one of which may have been committed in Clackamas County.
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On June 29, 1973, the year before Bundy’s first verified murder, seventeen-year-old Rita Jolly, whose long brown hair matched the profile of many of Bundy’s victims, had left her family’s home in West Linn—which is across the Willamette River from Oregon City—to take a walk. Unfortunately, Bundy was executed before detectives from Oregon could talk to him and confirm that Jolly was one of his previously unknown victims. She remains listed as missing almost fifty years later.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER 5
Per the case of Weaver v. Woodford, Elmer and Katie Groce didn’t move to California until 1916 or 1917. That can’t be correct because they and their son, Paul, age three, are included in the 1910 federal census as residents of Hemet, California. See Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910, State California, County Riverside, Hemet Township, sheet 15-B, lines 78-80.
CHAPTER 10
In 2003, Ward Weaver told Portland reporter Anna Song that he couldn’t “stand” his mother because of “things” she allowed his stepfather “to do to us. And I’m not talking sexually, I’m talking physically.” According to the Website formerly known as About.com (since replaced by Dotdash.com) Ward’s stepfather molested him between the ages of twelve and fourteen: Then his mother found out and the couple separated for eight months before she “allowed him back.” About.com also reported that “It was later discovered that the stepfather had also molested [Ward’s] youngest sister and brother.” About.com didn’t identify its source(s).
CHAPTER 17
After Close to Home was published, I tried the link to the transcript of Francis Weaver’s interview with Connie Chung that I included in the book's notes and got an error message. A slightly different version of that link, http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/28/cct.00.html/, did work, as did the link CNN.com - Francis Weaver: My father killed two girls - August 28, 2002/.
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Years after the Oregonian published Maria Shaw’s comments about her son Francis’s 911 call, I obtained a copy of Oregon City Police Department Detective Viola Valenzuela-Garcia’s affidavit in support of the August 23-25, 2002 search of Ward Weaver’s house and property. Reading it, I understood why the missing-girls’ task force questioned Francis’s truthfulness.
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At 6:50 p.m. on August 13, 2002, the affidavit says, two members of the task force, OCPD Detective Greg Fryett and FBI Agent Ted Price, began questioning Francis at the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. Francis said that his father had told him that he’d killed Ashley “because she deserved it.”
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According to Francis, the confession had taken place earlier on the 13th in Francis’s and Randi Dakota’s apartment in Portland. (In July 2002, Francis had told me that Randi and their son lived in the house in Southeast Portland where I interviewed him and that he lived with his father on South Beavercreek Road. In fact, Maria and Daniel Shaw were renting the Southeast Portland house and Francis was living with Randi in an apartment in Portland.) It’s unclear, from the search-warrant affidavit, whether Randi was present in the apartment when Ward confessed.
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After the detectives talked to Francis on August 13, they went to the Clackamas County Jail, where Ward was lodged, and questioned him.
On August 15th, Fryett and Price met with Francis again. They told him that, based on “further investigation,” they'd concluded that he couldn’t have spoken with his father in the apartment on the 13th. Francis then said that his father’s confession had actually occurred in a different location on or around August 8. Francis told the investigators that he hadn’t reported the confession then because he’d found it hard to believe and thought his father might be testing his loyalty. Francis said that he'd lied about the circumstances of the confession on the 13th because he was afraid of getting in trouble for withholding information but insisted that his father had confessed. Francis said that his brother, Alex, had told him that their father had made a similar confession to him. On August 22, the affidavit says, Alex Weaver confirmed to investigators that Ward had also made incriminating admissions to him.
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According to the affidavit, Fryett’s and Price’s questioning of Ward on August 13 started with them asking if he knew why he was in custody. Ward said no. They told him that it was for an “incident” involving Randi. Ward didn’t ask them what they were talking about but did agree to walk them through the previous day.
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Ward said that on August 13, he’d driven to work in the black Pontiac Thunderbird my Portland Tribune colleague, Jim Redden, had seen at his house in late June. But, because his driver’s license was suspended, he’d “pre-arranged” for Randi to drive the car and him home. If Fryett and Price asked Ward why he’d felt comfortable driving himself to work but not home, or how Randi had gotten to his workplace, that information is not included in the affidavit.
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Ward said that after he and Randi arrived at his house at about 4:50, he went into his daughter Mallori’s bedroom. Randi also came into the room and they had a “conversation” about the “stickers” on the wall, which, I assume, were the letters M A L L O R I that I saw in the room on August 15. Ward said he initiated sex by kissing Randi, who helped him remove her clothes. According to Ward, they were having “regular sex” when she suddenly said “stop;” jumped up and ran out.
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“At this point” in the interview, the affidavit says, Ward interrupted his account to say that he and Randi had had consensual sex, in his bedroom, the previous week. Then he reverted to the 13th.
Ward told the investigators that after Randi “ran” out of the house, he drove around what he called the Kmart shopping center looking for her. He couldn’t find her. He said that he was on his way to her apartment “to figure out what was going on” when the police stopped his car on the highway and arrested him.
Reading that paragraph of the affidavit made me shiver. Oregon City’s Kmart —now closed—was in the same shopping center where Randi leaped out of her Good Samaritan’s car. As Randi started running into the shopping center’s parking lot, the driver of that car reportedly heard a really loud noise, like a bad muffler on an old car. Ward’s 1978 Thunderbird, I’ve been told, had a muffler that could be heard from blocks away .
CHAPTER 18
Per the case of Randi Dakota, acting by and through the Division of Child Support, v. Francis P. Weaver, Multnomah County Circuit Court Case No. 010464720 (2001), Money Judgment, p. 2, Francis was born on December 13, 1982. Per the case of Vanthia Nguyen Green v. Vantri Thomas Green, Multnomah County Circuit Court Family Law Department Case No. 0311-72599 (2003), Vantri Green was born on May 17, 1980. Per State of Oregon v. Vantri Thomas Green [the robbery/assault case against Green cited in Close to Home], Green was five foot nine and 155 pounds at the time he was charged. Per State of Oregon v. Francis Paul Weaver [the robbery/assault case against Francis cited in Close to Home], Francis was six feet and 220 pounds.
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CHAPTER 19
The audiovideo tapes of Detective Brett Ethington’s and Lee Ferguson’s interviews with Francis Weaver were included as Exhibits 5. 6 and 7 of the State’s Memorandum in Response to Defendant’s Motion to Sever Jointly Charged Defendants filed in the case of State of Oregon v. Francis Paul Weaver [the murder case at the trial-court level], which is cited in Close to Home.
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According to the memorandum, the entire audiovideo recording of the first set of interviews with Francis runs just under five hours, including breaks. Francis was questioned between 11:02 a.m. and 12:19 p.m.; 12:36 and 12:40 p.m.; 2:34 and 3:29 p.m. and 3:45 and 3:59 p.m.
The entire audiovideo recording of the next set of interviews runs just over three hours, including breaks. Francis was questioned between 5:08 and 5:50 p.m. and 6:13and 7:26 p.m. The next interview takes place between 9:06 and 9:33 p.m.; the last interview between 11:14 and 11:50 p.m.
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All of these interviews contain periods of conversation about matters that were, or proved to be, irrelevant. In Chapter 19, I redacted these periods of conversation and indicated the redactions with ellipses. These interviews also contain other conversation and the frequent use of verbal tics, such as “you know” and “like,” on the part of both Francis and the detectives. I redacted this other conversation and these tics without indicating these redactions.
CHAPTER 20
In 2017, Brittany Endicott petitioned for divorce from Michael Orren, to whom she’d been married since 2013 in a case entitled Brittany Christine Endicott-Orren v. Michael Arlan Orren, Washington County Circuit Court Case No. 17DR05136. The petition was dismissed because she did not follow through. In 2018, she again petitioned for divorce in a case entitled Brittany Endicott-Orren v. Michael Orren, Washington County Circuit Court Case No. 18DR09945. That petition also was dismissed for failure to follow through. In 2021, while she and Orren were still incarcerated and their three, grade school-age children were living with their maternal grandmother and great-grandmother, she filed for the third time. The divorce was granted later that year.
CHAPTER 21
According to a timeline published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on May 30, 2009 under the headline “Briley brothers mayhem detailed,” their crimes occurred as follows:
March 21, 1979: Linwood and Anthony Briley abducted and robbed Michael W. McDuffie, 20; Linwood fatally shot him.
April 9, 1979: Linwood Briley and Duncan Meekins robbed Mary W. Gowen, 76, before Linwood raped and fatally shot her. Anthony Briley was present.
July 3, 1979: Linwood and Anthony Briley and Meekins beat Christopher M. Phillips, 17, before Linwood killed him by hitting him in the head with a piece of concrete.
Sept. 14, 1979: the Briley “gang” mugged disc jockey “Johnny ” Gallagher before Linwood fatally shot him.
Sept. 30, 1979: Linwood Briley robbed Mary S. Wilfong, 62, before fatally fracturing her skull with a baseball bat. Anthony and James Briley and Meekins are present.
Oct. 6, 1979: Per the timeline, “Linwood uses a pipe to beat to death nearly blind Blanche I. Page, 75, and her boarder, Charles W. Garner, 59.” According to Williams’s and McKelway’s article, which ran with this timeline, Garner’s body was discovered with knives, scissors and a carving fork sticking out of it. The Briley gang lit a fire on his back with the Yellow Pages. It’s unclear, from a comparison of the article and the timeline, what Garner’s cause of death was or which of Linwood Briley’s cohorts were present at these murders.
Oct. 14, 1979: Linwood and James Briley and Meekins were involved in a “scuffle” with
Thomas Saunders, 32; Meekins fatally shot him.
Oct. 19, 1979: Linwood, Anthony and James Briley and Meekins “pillage” the home of Harvey Wilkerson, 26. “Several” of the men raped Wilkerson’’s common-law wife, Judy Barton. James fatally shot Wilkerson’s and Barton’s son, Harvey, 5, and Barton; Meekins fatally shot Wilkerson.
According to Williams’s and McKelway’s article, William and Virginia Bucher escaped after the Briley “gang” left them to burn alive in their home on March 12, 1979.
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According to Williams’ and McKelway’s article, “As far as police know, he [Linwood Briley] began his murderous career at age 16 when he shot and killed a 57-year-old neighbor, Orline Christian, on Jan. 28, 1971.” According to the timeline, on March 31, 1979, Linwood Briley fatally shot Edric Alvin Clark, 28, in a drug dispute in which Meekins was also involved.
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EPILOGUE
Additional information about Ward Francis "Pete" Weaver Jr.’s appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit can be found under the case name Ward Weaver, Jr. v. Ron Broomfield 21-99010 on the Website justia.com/. Information about current developments in California concerning the death penalty can be found by searching those terms online. Pete’s current location within California’s correctional system can be found by searching https://inmatelocator.cdcr.ca.gov/Results.aspx/ for the name Ward Francis Weaver.