Twenty years after the bodies of two women are discovered near Bonner, one retired detective is still searching for answers. Authorities believe the women fell victim to serial killer Wayne Nance. Larry Weatherman is a retired Sheriff's Captain. He says, "We're pretty much through with the search."
That was Larry Weatherman 20 years ago, but today he's still searching for the identities of two women, likely victims of serial killer Wayne Nance. Weatherman: "I do enjoy my retirement, but I'd enjoy it more if we had her identified."
Perhaps what haunts him the most is that two young women in their late teens to early twenties were wiped from the face of the earth before their time. No names, no one to grieve them, no final resting place. Their bones are now shelved in a county warehouse, occasionally retrieved for University students to examine.
Weatherman returned to the place above the Milltown Dam where Nance dumped the bodies in the mid 1980's. He wants to mark the shallow graves with a global positioning device. That way if family members are ever found, they will have the option of returning to the crime scene, regardless of how the land is divided and developed.
Weatherman: "I have children and grandchildren of my own and if this ever happened to one of them, I know I'd never stop searching." He hasn't been here in 20 years. Weatherman: "I'm just trying to get my bearings, there's a fence over there that didn't used to be here."
Then after nearly an hour of searching he found what he was looking for. " Weatherman: "On Christmas Eve 1984 here in the bluff above the Bonner Dam where a wildlife photographer made a gruesome discovery. Here in this site he spotted a woman's foot sticking out of the ground!
Greg Hintz is the current Missoula Sheriff's Captain. He says, "The foot is right here and this is the gravesite." He recalls the fear building up in the community when the remains were found. Hintz: "It was the unknown, the community was dealing with something and it wasn't known who was doing this.
The hardest part was finding out the identities of these two women." One victim was around 18 to 20 years old and may be part Asian. The other victim was 17 to 20 years old. Her name may have been Robin and she could have been a hitchhiker passing through the area. These pictures of her were recovered from Wayne Nance's home in East Missoula. Dental records are entered into a national missing person's registry. Bone samples are now in Texas for DNA analysis, it's part of a national effort to update cold cases in a DNA registry. Hintz: "DNA will be a big help in this case."
New technology and a renewed interest are just what Larry Weatherman is searching for to give these victims a chance to rest in peace. It's his only option since the one man who could end the mystery is no longer here to tell the story.
Weatherman: "It would just be nice to find closure, for the families." Weatherman: "Yeah, for me too, to get it out of the back of my mind." In the mean time, he hopes someone out there can put names to the faces to close two of Missoula's notorious cold cases. If you have any information that may help identify these women, you can contact the Missoula Sheriff's Department.
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