OR Cowden Family Murders Carberry Creek, Copper, Labor Day 9/1/1974 OPEN UNSOLVED - suspect Little, Dwain Lee (incarcerated for life In Oregon)

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The Cowden family was kidnapped from Carberry Creek campground near Copper, Oregon (now under Applegate Lake) on 9/1/1974
They were found murdered 7 months later about 7 miles away. Dwain Lee Little has been the suspect but was never charged and has not confessed to this day. This is not the only murder he was accused of committing. He murdered a young woman Orla Fay Fipps in 1965.

Dwaine Little | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

Murderpedia, the free online encyclopedic dictionary of murderers. The largest database about serial killers, mass murderers and spree killers around the world

murderpedia.org

A.K.A.: "Harden"

Classification: Homicide - Murderer

Characteristics: Juvenile (15) - Rape

Number of victims: 5

Date of murders: November 2, 1964 / September 1, 1974

Date of birth: December 1948

Victims profile: A teenage girl / Richard Cowden, his wife Belinda, and two small children

Method of murder: Stabbing with knife / Shooting

Location: Oregon, USA

Status: Sentenced to three consecutive life terms on November 20, 1980

Little, Dwain Lee (1948 - ) Raped and killed a teenage girl in Oregon in 1964 and sentenced to life in 1966. Paroled in 1974 and killed 4 more people. Received 3 consecutive life terms in 1980.​

SEX: M RACE: W TYPE: N MOTIVE: Sex.

MO: Raped/stabbed 16-year-old girl; shot family of four

DISPOSITION: Life term, 1966 (paroled 1974); returned as parole violator, 1975 (released 1977); three consecutivelife terms for rape + attempted murder, 1980.​

Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers​

 

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Cowden family murders - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Wiki entry for the Cowden family murders 9/1/1974
This was a big story here in Southern Oregon at the time. Copper was a small community near Carberry Creek that was located where Applegate Lake is today in SW Oregon near the California border in the Siskiyou mountains

 

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Post in thread 'OR - Missing/Murdered along the I-5 Corridor'
OR - Missing/Murdered along the I-5 Corridor

 

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Post in thread 'OR - Missing/Murdered along the I-5 Corridor'
OR - Missing/Murdered along the I-5 Corridor

The Bulletin - Google News Archive Search

A newspaper clipping archive from The Bulletin

 

[Red Clover]

The Cowden family was kidnapped from Carberry Creek campground near Copper, Oregon (now under Applegate Lake) on 9/1/1974
They were found murdered 7 months later about 7 miles away. Dwain Lee Little has been the suspect but was never charged and has not confessed to this day. This is not the only murder he was accused of committing. He murdered a young woman Orla Fay Fipps in 1965.

Dwaine Little | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

Murderpedia, the free online encyclopedic dictionary of murderers. The largest database about serial killers, mass murderers and spree killers around the world

murderpedia.org

A.K.A.: "Harden"

Classification: Homicide - Murderer

Characteristics: Juvenile (15) - Rape

Number of victims: 5

Date of murders: November 2, 1964 / September 1, 1974

Date of birth: December 1948

Victims profile: A teenage girl / Richard Cowden, his wife Belinda, and two small children

Method of murder: Stabbing with knife / Shooting

Location: Oregon, USA

Status: Sentenced to three consecutive life terms on November 20, 1980

Little, Dwain Lee (1948 - ) Raped and killed a teenage girl in Oregon in 1964 and sentenced to life in 1966. Paroled in 1974 and killed 4 more people. Received 3 consecutive life terms in 1980.​

SEX: M RACE: W TYPE: N MOTIVE: Sex.

MO: Raped/stabbed 16-year-old girl; shot family of four

DISPOSITION: Life term, 1966 (paroled 1974); returned as parole violator, 1975 (released 1977); three consecutivelife terms for rape + attempted murder, 1980.​

Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers​

View attachment 400303

CORRECTION: Orla Fay Fipps was murdered in 1964, Little was released in May 1974

https://solvedandunsolvedcrimes.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/dwain-lee-little.png?w=564

 

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Murder of Cowden family

yourcampinfo.blogspot.com

https://solvedandunsolvedcrimes.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/dwain-lee-little.png?w=564

The Cowden Family Massacre in Oregon — StrangeOutdoors.com

Richard, Belinda, David, Melissa Cowden, murdered September 1, 1974, Siskiyou Mountains near Carberry Creek, Copper, Oregon. Revised December 2020 Richard Cowden (28), his wife Belinda (22), their children, David (5) and Melissa (5 months), and dog Droopy, went camping

www.strangeoutdoors.com

The discovery of the Cowden Bodies​

Then, seven months after the family vanished, on April 12, 1975, two gold prospectors were hiking through the woods near Carberry Creek when they discovered the decomposing body of an adult male tied to a tree on a steep hillside around 7 miles from the location of the Cowden's campsite. In a small cave nearby, the bodies of an adult female, a child, and an infant were discovered. The entrance of the cave was sealed with rocks to disguise it and hide the bodies from view. Positive identification of the bodies was made via dental records.

Autopsies revealed that Belinda and 5 year old David had died as a result of .22 caliber gunshot wounds and baby Melissa had died from severe head trauma. Medical authorities were unable to determine the cause of Richard Cowden's death.

 

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https://www.phantomsandmonsters.com/2012/06/cowden-family-massacre-mystery.html?m=1

Cowden, then 28, was a log truck driver from White City, Ore. He had taken his family camping in the Siskiyous over Labor Day. He had planned to work around his house, but plans to borrow a truck he needed had fallen through.

So, they went camping, and on Sunday, September 1, Cowden and son David, 5 went from the camp to Copper to buy milk.

It was 9 a.m.

None of the family was reported alive again.

A massive search for miles around the campsite turned up nothing, although it is now known that the searchers were as near as 100 feet from the small cave into which the bodies of the family had been crammed.

Lt. Kezar said an extensive investigation has put together this chronology.

Cowden returned with David to the camp, and the family went swimming in adjacent Carberry Creek later that morning.

A short time later, probably before noon, the family was abducted, probably at gunpoint, and most likely probably by someone they did not know.

Kezar surmises they were probably driven some distance away, forced up the steep slope where they were found, and at least three of them were shot.

Medical authorities have been unable to determine how Richard Cowden died. "It's a presumed homicide," said Dr. William Brady, state medical examiner. "I'm sure he was shot, even though we can't prove it."

The skeletal remains of Cowden were found on a steep hillside. The bodies of the other three were placed in the small cave, and the entrance was sealed with rocks to disguise it and hide the bodies.

 

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Unsolved So. Oregon: Mystery in the Woods Pt. 1 - KOBI-TV NBC5 / KOTI-TV NBC2

MEDFORD, Ore. — Former Oregon State Police detective Richard Davis is 81-years-old and is one of the last surviving detectives who investigated the Cowden family murders of 1974. We sat down with Davis to hear his side of the story, to hear details he’s never shared with the public before. “When...

kobi5.com

Unsolved So. Oregon: Mystery in the Woods Pt. 2 - KOBI-TV NBC5 / KOTI-TV NBC2

MEDFORD, Ore. — “The ones you don’t convict, the one’s that get away… they’re the ones that haunt you,” said Richard Davis, former OSP detective. The Cowden family murders of 1974 sent shock waves across Jackson County and the region. Retired Oregon State Police detective Richard Davis says it’s...

kobi5.com

Two part interview with the OSP detective who worked on the case in 1974-1975

Interesting interview done by NBC5 Newsroom Staff August 24, 2020, but also somber as Davis admits they didn't handle the case as well as they could have.

“It was very common among police agencies at that time that with missing persons, they don’t do anything for 24 hours. I believe that policy has changed, I would hope so,” said Davis.

Multiple agencies including OSP, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, and Central Point Police searched for months on end ‘chasing their tails,’ as Davis calls it.

“He had two recruits come in and you go up on the Applegate and look for buzzards because buzzards will lead us to the body. This was in January. Buzzards are migratory birds, there hadn’t been one in the Rogue Valley, Applegate Valley since early November,” said Davis.

 

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A timeline for Dwain Lee Little (b.1948- currently incarcerated In Oregon)

OR - Missing/Murdered along the I-5 Corridor

Some of those listed were also somewhat tried to be tied to Keith Hunter Jespersen, The Happy Face Killer. He's a known suspect in at least a dozen disappearances throughout OR, WA, CA, ID, MT, and even some have speculated a tie to him and the original I-35 killer in TX/OK. Yes, he was a cocky...

www.websleuths.com

 

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Dwaine Lee Little- 1980 Rape & Attempted murder of 23 year old stranded motorist

Clipping found in The Capital Journal published in Salem, Oregon on 6/4/1980. Dwaine Lee Little- 1980 Rape & Attempted murder of 23 year old stranded motorist

www.newspapers.com

Lee is serving 3 life sentences at Oregon State Penitentiary for the rape and the attempted murder of a 23 year old pregnant woman in the Portland area

"On a rainy day in June, 1980, defendant, a former co-worker of the victim, spotted her walking along the road after her car had broken down; he picked her and a hitchhiker up in his automobile, dropped the victim off at a phone booth and drove the hitchhiker on into King City. About 20 minutes later, defendant again saw the victim walking along the road, and he picked her up again and offered to drive her home. Defendant drove past her home, but did not stop; he continued to drive, pulled out a knife and forced her to engage in oral sodomy while he was driving. Then, driving to an area near a freeway interchange, defendant took the victim to a secluded spot on a hill and raped her. Afterward, he
[639 P.2d 668]

choked her from behind until she lost consciousness, stabbed and slashed her with his knife and left her lying part-way down the hill. When the victim regained consciousness, she crawled down to the freeway and managed to attract the attention of a passing driver, who took her to a hospital"

STATE v. LITTLE | 639 P.2d 666 (1982) | p2d66611290 | Leagle.com

BUTTLER Presiding Judge. Defendant appeals his convictions for the kidnapping rape and attempted murder of a young woman...p2d66611290

www.leagle.com

 

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Always with the appeals, that guy...

1965- he was 15 when he murdered Orla Fay Fipps in Lane County on November 2, 1964, she was
In this appeal he's questioning be remanded to an adult penitentiary at 16, as he was a "child" at the time of the murder. Little was paroled in 1974, violated his parole in 1974-1975 and was released again in 1977

"The defendant's construction would make it possible for a person to commit any number of dangerous felonies a few days before his sixteenth birthday and then, by evading arrest until he is twenty-one,[2] escape both corrective measures as a juvenile and punishment as an adult. This result would follow, the state points out, because a person over twenty-one cannot be treated as a juvenile, and, under the defendant's theory, one can never be prosecuted as an adult for crimes committed before he turned sixteen.

If the defendant is right, he has discovered a means by which felonies may be committed with impunity by a significant class of youthful offenders. Further, *563 if the defendant's interpretation of the statute is correct, a person can commit crimes before his sixteenth birthday, happy in the knowledge that his worst fate, if caught, will be a brief period of treatment as a delinquent child."

State v. Little

State v. Little - 241 Or. 557, 407 P.2d 627

law.justia.com

State v. Little

0: [object Object]. 1: [object Object]. 2: [object Object]. 3: [object Object]. 4: [object Object]

case-law.vlex.com

______________________________

1982 appeal of the kidnapping, rape and attempted murder of a female former co-worker who survived his assault and for which he is serving 3 life sentences

"Defendant appeals his convictions for the kidnapping, rape and attempted murder of a young woman. He assigns error to the trial court's denial of his motions: (1) to merge the kidnapping conviction with the rape conviction; (2) to merge the rape conviction with the attempted murder conviction; (3) to dismiss the kidnapping charge for insufficient evidence; (4) to suppress all evidence seized from his automobile on the ground that there were insufficient exigent circumstances to impound the vehicle; (5) to limit eyewitness identification because a photographic throw-down was unduly suggestive; (6) to hold a post-indictment preliminary hearing; (7) to dismiss for the state's failure to record the grand jury testimony leading to the indictment, and (8) to compel discovery of the grand jury testimony."

State v. Little, 55 Or. App. 603 | Casetext Search + Citator

Read State v. Little, 55 Or. App. 603, see flags on bad law, and search Casetext’s comprehensive legal database

casetext.com

Little was never charged in the kidnapping and murders of the Cowden family; Richard 28, Belinda 22, David 5, and Melissa 5 months.