ID ID - Lewiston Civic Theater Murders / 5 Related Cases

kline

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I live in Orofino,40 miles from Lewiston and once appeared In a Lewiston Civic Theater production in 1986.
Ive always found the events surrounding this case strange in the extreme.
The listing for Steven Pearsol(one of the missing) In the Charley Project's 1982 cases gives an overveiw .
Please check it out. I would like to hear some feed back.
I think some fresh perspective might help.
Ill fill in some of the detail( the little I know anyway) from my proximity to the case.
 
There was another disappearance around the same time, about an hour away. Probably not connected at all, but I thought I'd throw it out there. Ricky Barnett, a toddler, disappeared from Grangeville, ID, which is about an hour away from Lewiston. I remember because I was a kid at that time, and my grandparents lived in Idaho, one set in Lewiston and one set near Grangeville. We visited every summer, and I remember thinking, "How could anybody disappear from Grangeville?" It's just a small farming community.

Here's Ricky's Charley Project page:
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/barnett_richard.html
 
yes,there were just a few 25th aniversary retrospectives
on the Ricky Barnett case in the local papers.
They still have absolutely no idea what became of him.
And no,Steven Pearsol is not considered a suspect.
As I recall he didnt even own a vehicle ,just a ten speed bike.
It and his laundry were still at the Theater,apparently he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The two step sisters skeletonized, scattered remains were discovered about twenty miles away over a rail road embankment in 1984.
About four years after the crimes my future ex-wife and I lived in the same neigborhood three blocks down the street from the theater, there was a short cut path to the super market the two girls probably took that day that led right past the backstage entrance to the theater before dropping down the hill to downtown.
Thats probably( in my opinon) is where they encountered the killer.
 
Between 1979 and 1982 five people went missing or turned up dead in Lewiston ID. This article was published in Oct. of this year. Apparently LE has a suspect in these cases and it is the same person.
http://www.argusobserver.com/articles/2008/10/26/news/doc4904067b8fb63047146476.txt

Kristin Davis was 21 yrs old. She disappeared while riding her bike to Lewiston, ID in 1981. Eight days later a torso missing it's head, legs and arms was found in the Snake River. The head and extremeties were found a few days later.

Christina White was 12 in 1979. She attended the fair that evening and called her mother to ask her to pick her up because she was not feeling well. Her friends last saw her on her bicycle heading towards home. When her mother arrived Christina was gone and has never been heard from again.
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/w/white_christina.html

Kristina Nelson, 21 and Jacqueline Miller,18 were step-sisters. Kristina had left a note for your boyfriend saying they walked to the Lewiston grocery store. It is believe that on the way they stopped at the Lewiston Civic Center Theater. The sisters were found 2 yrs later in an embankment.

That very same night Steven Pearsall, 35 went missing. Pearsall worked at the Lewiston Civic Center Theater as a janitor and had a friend drop him off that evening so he could do some work and practice his clarinet. He has never been seen again.
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/pearsall_steven.html

LE seem very, very certain Kristina, Jacqueline and Steven's murders were committed by someone who worked at the theater and this someone killed all three of them that night. They believe this same person killed Kristin David and Christina White.
 
I live 40 miles from Lewiston. These cases have haunted this area for a long time.
I was in a Lewiston CivicTheater Production in 1986 four years after the murders.
I really hope they are able to file charges one day.These cases need to be cleared.
Their suspect being one of the last people seen with that little girl then one of the only people at the Theater the night of the three disappearances is way too much for coincidence in my book.
Its always amazed me how little publicity theyve recieved.
Ive posted them in a few different forums and there never seems to be much interest.
Which I dont understand these are a mysterious and bizzare series of crimes and youd think websleuthers would be all over them.
Of course maybe they are just interesting to me because they are local.
Naturally LE has played it pretty close with details but Ive probably followed this case as close as anyone so if anyone has any questions Ill try to help if I know the answers.
 
It seems like too much of a coincidence that three of the five had such similar names.
Yeah it is strange.
Though back in those days I had a few different friends that were named Kristen or Christine or some variation.
It might just be one of those names that come into vogue,like 'Ashley' these days.
One thing that was mentioned in some of the recent coverage that I had never heard before was that Kristin Davis the young student who disappeared biking from Moscow to Lewiston before being found dead in the Snake River also had some connection to The Lewiston Civic Theater.Though what it was they didnt say.
If anyone is interested in this case it might be helpful to Google map this area to get a feel of the landscape because its a little confusing what with Asotin and Clarkston being in Washington State and Lewiston and Moscow being in Idaho.The Snake River is the State line.
All of these areas are in about a 50 mile radius though.
Interesting note about Stephen Pearsol whose remains were not found with the two girls who disappeared from the Civic Theater.
In the Early 90's workers digging a grave in the Normal Hill Cemetary a few blocks from the Theater uncovered the skeleton of a young man buried without a coffin obviously unofficially.(He was pointed crossways to the rest of the graves.)
At first they thought it might be Pearsoll because the ME determined he had been there since the late '70's early 80's.Dental records proved it wasnt him.The Skeleton remains unidentified.
There was some wierd stuff going on back then obviously....
 
I live 40 miles from Lewiston. These cases have haunted this area for a long time.
I was in a Lewiston CivicTheater Production in 1986 four years after the murders.
I really hope they are able to file charges one day.These cases need to be cleared.
Their suspect being one of the last people seen with that little girl then one of the only people at the Theater the night of the three disappearances is way too much for coincidence in my book.
Its always amazed me how little publicity theyve recieved.
Ive posted them in a few different forums and there never seems to be much interest.
Which I dont understand these are a mysterious and bizzare series of crimes and youd think websleuthers would be all over them.
Of course maybe they are just interesting to me because they are local.
Naturally LE has played it pretty close with details but Ive probably followed this case as close as anyone so if anyone has any questions Ill try to help if I know the answers.

I know. There are certain cases that I think are really fascinating and people just don't seem that interested in them. Tom Stump and Diana Harris for one - I started a thread about them a while back and Diana's daughter started posting but it just never really caught on.

Anyway - was this big news locally at least? It sounds like LE knows who it is they just don't have the evidence to charge them. I wonder if they have gone back through the evidence and sent the girls clothing off to be tested for DNA.
 
I know. There are certain cases that I think are really fascinating and people just don't seem that interested in them. Tom Stump and Diana Harris for one - I started a thread about them a while back and Diana's daughter started posting but it just never really caught on.

Anyway - was this big news locally at least? It sounds like LE knows who it is they just don't have the evidence to charge them. I wonder if they have gone back through the evidence and sent the girls clothing off to be tested for DNA.
Yeah I dont know what the DNA status is.
When they found the two girls in 1984 they were mostly bones from what I understand and Kristen Davis was dismembered an immersed in water for days and that was 1981.
It was pretty big news locally.
Nationally almost nothing.
Which is strange because Ive seen far more.... I hate to use the word mundane over anyone's tragedy ,but less bizzare cases publicized all over the place.
Of course this is Idaho.
Authorites seem pretty convinced over their main POI.
Its hard to know what to make of that.One can only hope it isnt a case of tunnelvision.I have no indication that that is the case here but sometimes when LE is positive they have their man but cant manage an indictment...
Ive seen several programs about the Green River Killer(Who's Task Force interviewed our suspect) and they are always lionizing Ken Reinhardt.
What they tend to downplay is the fact he was so dialed in on weirdo cabdriver Melvin Foster because of a personality conflict for the better part of a year while the real killer was killing women by the carload under the task force's nose.
I just hope that isnt the case here.
When 12 year old Kristina White vanished from the Asotin County Fair in 1979 the Clarkston P.D. treated it like a runaway case.
There was also some friction between LE and the mother and stepfather and real father of the girl who were conducting their own search.
Apparently LE felt the parents were contaminating interviewees and things got to real cross purposes and turned public and ugly.And there the case languished.
As I understand it it wasnt until some of the Washington Cops compared notes with the Lewiston Idaho Cops years later and discovered one of the last people to see Kristina was also the last one at the Lewiston Civic Theater who didnt turn up missing that night in 1982 that the dime dropped.
Since then over the years several searches at the POI's former residences have taken place(One by the Kristina White's father who tore up a concrete floor and sifted dirt.Others with cadaver dogs.
Nothing has been found.
 
Interesting case but little information that I can fine. Anybody have any links or othwer sources of info?
 
Is it possible that Steven was the killer and escaped before he could get caught? With his body not being found, it raises the possibility...
 
Is it possible that Steven was the killer and escaped before he could get caught? With his body not being found, it raises the possibility...
the police dont think so.
He was going to the Theater that night to practice his clarinet and do laundry.He worked there part time.
I beleive he was dropped off by friends and didnt have a car.
The girls were transported about 20 miles away near Julietta where they were dumped down an embankment.
Authorities think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The girls had an apartment a few blocks from the Theater and the route they were taking down Normal Hill to a supermarket would likely have taken them right past the Theater.
My Ex and I used to live in that same neighborhood about four years later and often walked that same route ourselves.
The shortcut we took would take you into a small driveway adjacent to the building right past the backstage door and down a small rutted trail that went down the hill and came out catty corner to the store we used to frequent.
If anyone is interested google the Lewiston Civic Theater and check out this building that used to be a church.Gothic looking in the extreme.
 
Ive written about this local case before but the Lewiston Tribune Online has a pretty decent article about it on the front page today,you can read it there if anyone is interested.
It gives a pretty good overview with some photos of the victims.
 
Sadly my rudimentary computer skills dont cover linkage(hangs head in embarrassment)
But if you put lewiston tribune online into your search engine it will take you right there.
 
Sadly my rudimentary computer skills dont cover linkage(hangs head in embarrassment)
But if you put lewiston tribune online into your search engine it will take you right there.


googled it and found the website but can't find the story.
 

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