The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current, April 21, 2020, Image 5

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The Observer., April 21, 2020, Page 5, Image 5

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Newspaper Page TextLOCAL TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2020 THE OBSERVER — 5A MYSTERY OPEN Continued from Page 1A Continued from Page 1A woman wore. The report also points out police found a 4-foot-long piece of nylon cord and an approximately 2-foot-long radio cord with the remains. Dale Mammen of La Grande remembers the scene well. He was the county’s district attorney then. “I could probably go to the spot,” he said. “It’s one of those things that’s embedded in your mind.” The grave was about 100 feet off a road, across the dry bed of Finley, up an small embankment and under a log. Two hunters noticed bones, he said, which ani- mals had savaged. The hunters realized the bones were human. Nothing indicated the woman was local, he said, and no one could ﬁ nd any reports of missing people here. Mammen said he ﬁ g- ured she was a loner or had her own network of rela- tionships. He also said he and his ofﬁ ce suspected she may have been a victim of one of the most proliﬁ c serial killers of the Paciﬁ c Northwest. “My theory on that at the time,” he said, “and still is, it was about the time the Green River Killer was active.” Gary Leon Ridgway is serving life in prison at Washington State Peniten- tiary, Walla Walla, for mur- dering 49 women, although he has confessed to almost twice that many. But Jederberg and team- mate Kether Senn of Pend- leton have their own the- ories. They said there are similarities with the Lewis for testing needed to be in place before lessening restrictions. Wallowa County phy- sician Dr. Ron Polk also expressed concerns about the availability of testing and personal protective gear and the consequent risk to health care workers as well as citizens. He said the only way to know if there is sub- stantial risk is to have test results from an appropriate sampling of residents for COVID-19 infection using a test with sufﬁ cient sensi- tivity and speciﬁ city. “If we knew there were 25 or 50 residents who are currently infected but who are asymptomatic, would the county commissioners still want business to reopen on May 1?” he said. Photo contributed by Oregon State Police Hunters in late August 1978 found these remains in a shallow grave about 18 miles north of La Grande. Now, local Melinda Jederberg is working with others to identify the Jane Doe in the case. Clark Valley murders, a cluster of unsolved killings and disappearances that occurred in northern Idaho between 1979-82. “I feel like there might be a connection with that,” Senn said. She came across Jeder- berg’s work via the Face- book page in 2019. Senn said true crime already was an interest, and the local case caught her. “I got really interested in it,” she said. “It kind of hit home to me, especially seeing she was pregnant. How could this happen?” Between caring for three children, Senn said she has devoted a “lot of time on this late at night reading articles” to help crack the mystery. She and Jederberg also have their eyes on Harry Hantman as a suspect. Harry Anthony Hantman was 44 when the law caught up to him in 1993 outside a motel in Lewiston, Idaho. He escaped on Christmas Day 1973 from St. Eliza- beth’s Hospital in the Dis- trict of Columbia, the same mental hospital where John W. Hinckley was incarcer- ated after he shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Hantman was in the hospital’s ward for the criminally insane after being found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1969 of the brutal rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in Washington, D.C., according to the Lewiston Tribune. After escaping, Hantman made his way west, Jederberg said, and hid out near Joseph under the alias Andrew Dorian. He was even married and took classes at EOU. When federal mar- shals caught Hantman, he had a warrant in Oregon on charges of kidnapping, raping and sodomizing a Japanese exchange student. PARADE Continued from Page 1A of goodwill. “That tickled everyone,” the Central principal said. Some families were so anxious to say hello to teachers and staff that they drove through the line more than once. “It provided (the teachers and staff) with a much-needed connection with their kids,” Mayes said. Central secretary Connie Ingerson was among the many who embraced this opportunity. “We miss them ter- ribly,” she said. Many students had not seen their teachers in person in more than a month. Communica- tion has been limited to social media platforms as part of a distance learning program the La Grande School District has put in place. Communicating virtually, in the eyes of many educators, pales in comparison. “It is hard when you see each other only on video,” Mayes noted. The principal said many SENIORS Continued from Page 1A they appear to be on the exterior of the library’s win- dows, but they are indeed on the interior of the win- dows. This was done to pre- vent vandalism, Malone said. Senior Nicholas DuVernay said he is impressed with the time and effort LHS’s staff put into the project. “They gave a lot of time in the middle of the day to recognize us,” DuVernay said. Senior Alyssa Schelin seconds what DuVernay said. “They went out of their way to make us feel spe- cial,” she noted. Senior Katelyn Wil- liams said one of the things she likes about the display is that it is designed in a way that creates a sense of togetherness. Senior Kenzie Wil- liams also is delighted her class is being saluted in this Photo contributed by Calandra Johnson Staff from Central Elementary School in La Grande line the campus Friday during a drive-by-and-wave parade. of Central’s staff long to return to face-to-face teaching. “Our true purpose in manner. “It is a cool way to rec- ognize it,’’ she said. Members of the window display team, Malone said, were worried at ﬁ rst there would not be enough space available for the names of the graduates, but it turned out they had space to spare. LHS’s traditional grad- uation had been scheduled for May 30 but it appears increasingly unlikely such a commencement exercise will occur. LHS assistant principal Brett Smith said if the grad- uation ceremony is not allowed, many other steps will be taken to salute the class of 2020. “We will make it memo- rable and fun,” said Smith, noting that a committee of community members, par- ents, school staff and stu- dents will determine how the seniors will be saluted. Smith said the graduates are worthy of much credit. “They deserve to be rec- ognized because they have accomplished a lot in 13 years,” Smith said. life has been taken away from us,” she said. About 150 students pick up lunches and break- Jederberg said Hantman checks a lot of boxes in this case. Senn said some- thing in her gut “just keeps pointing to him.” But for Jederberg, catching any killer would be the cherry on top. She said the real work is about identifying the young woman and ﬁ nding her remains. State police shipped the remains to a crematorium in Walla Walla, she said, but after that no one has any paperwork. “I want to ﬁ nd her ﬁ nal site. I’m just not quite there,” she said. Jederberg also said the woman had to have family — there has to be people who knew her. If she could ﬁ nd the remains, maybe she could give them to Jane Doe’s relatives. “She deserves her name,” Jederberg said. “It’s really about getting her name for her and laying her to rest.” fasts on weekdays at Cen- tral. Many of the students receiving meals knew of the plans for the parade from seeing messages on Facebook. “They were giggly,” Mayes said of the students. “They were so happy (to see the teachers and staff).” Monica West, Central’s assistant principal, came up with the idea for the spirit and wave parade. West did not need to spend any time persuading staff members to participate. “Everyone jumped on board,” Mayes said. All the staff members who participated in the parade stayed for all 90 minutes. Mayes had feared that some would have to leave early because of other responsibilities, dis- appointing the students who arrived later. “Nobody left,” Mayes said. “It was awesome.” The principal said she is proud of how her teachers and the school’s staff are responding to the profes- sional challenges posed by the pandemic. “They have a good atti- tude,” she said. COURTS Continued from Page 1A Department of Justice later (Monday). Non-unanimous juries have been part of Oregon’s Constitution since 1934, when voters adopted the practice. Legal scholars argue non-unanimous juries are rooted in discrimina- tion, and that Oregon’s law was originally intended to silence the voices of Cath- olic and Jewish immigrants in the state. In Louisiana, the law was directly tied to Jim Crow laws and aimed to make it easier to convict black defendants so white landowners could maintain a cheap, post-slavery labor force. In November 2018, Louisiana voters scrubbed non-unanimous juries from “If we had no positive test results in an adequate sam- pling, and had a strategy to prevent or identify reintro- duction of the virus, then a phased reopening might present an acceptable risk.” The letter states, in part: “Our businesses are strug- gling as are others, and the longer the restrictions are in place the more it is dam- aging their ﬁ nancial well- being. Small businesses can’t survive much longer under these rules, and we hope you can weigh the public health considerations in our counties and the dire economic circumstances our citizens face. We are isolated out here so social or physical distancing is pretty normal. As you know, every business in these areas is considered ‘essential’ to us. We need and want them all back to work soon, prefer- ably by May 1st.” their state’s Constitution. But that didn’t prevent the Supreme Court from agreeing to hear a case that directly dealt with the issue of non-unanimous juries. In recent years in Oregon, there’s been a growing recognition about the state’s racist and dis- criminatory past, as well as an understanding among many state lawmakers and elected ofﬁ cials — even the state’s district attorneys — that there should be no doubt among jurors when convicting a defendant of a crime. Oregon legal experts have disagreed on how best to adopt unanimous juries without overturning many past convictions. ——— Observer reporter Sabrina Thompson contrib- uted to this article. Imagine The Difference You Can Make DONATE YOUR CAR 1-844-533-9173 FREE TOWING TAX DEDUCTIBLE Help Prevent Blindness Get A Vision Screening Annually Ask About A FREE 3 Day Vacation Voucher To Over 20 Destinations!!! Blazing Fast Internet! 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