OR OR - Alice Lee, 7, Eugene, 29 Aug 1960

[JusticeWillBeServed]

Alice Lee was playing in the bean rows at the Swan's bean yard north of Pleasant Hill while her mother and older siblings were collecting green beans. It was around 10 a.m. when she told her mother that she was going to put her dolls and things with her lunchbox. Investigators later found those items Alice was putting back; placed in the area where pickers kept their lunches but the seven-year-old had vanished. A search ensued that same day, involving about 100 people but no trace of Alice was found. The searches continued for almost three weeks until it was noticed that buzzards were circling over a certain area.

On September 16th, Alice's nude body was discovered in a hand dug grave. She was faced down and had been strangled; her clothes were piled (some accounts say folded) next to her. Dealing with a homicide and probable sexual assault, the governor ordered that the OSP take over the investigation. Detectives Cleve Veteto and Al Wolfe worked the case hard; following up on all leads. The pickers in the area that day were all questioned; the men questioned more intensely. A lot of promising leads were pursued but everything came up empty and the case went cold. Veteto and Wolfe continued to work the case throughout the following decades.

Originally, it was thought that Alice had fallen into a river and drowned which explains why some evidence may have been lost. The perpetrator was most likely working that same day it happened and was not a stranger to the area. Alice's parents are now deceased but two of her siblings might still be alive. Although it happened over 55 years ago, the search for Alice's killer is still active.

Girl’s murder in 1960 still being investigated

Wolfe and the late longtime Oregon State Police Det. Cleve Veteto were assigned to the case after Oregon Gov. Mark Hatfield ordered the agency to take over the investigation of Alice’s murder and likely sexual assault. It was their first child murder case, and both were then 30-year-old OSP troopers with young children of their own. They were anguished, Wolfe said later, by thoughts of how helpless Alice was, “how scared she must have been.”

Wolfe and Veteto had pledged to one another that they would never give up on finding Alice’s killer. Just before Veteto died of cancer five years ago, his last request of his former colleague was that Wolfe continue to seek justice for the child.

50-year search for justice: A retired detective carries on the quest for the killer of Alice Lee

Wolfe believes a young male working at the bean yard that day killed the girl. The Swans hired only local youths and families, not transient adults, the detective noted. And Alice’s body was buried less than a quarter-mile from the bean field.

“If it had been someone with a vehicle, I think that body would have been buried far away,” Wolfe said.

“To get to Swan’s bean yard, you had to drive down a country road and then down a winding, dirty road that looked like it dead-ended,” she said. “And you couldn’t see the bean field even from its parking lot.”

Wolfe suspects — as did Veteto — that the killer was someone Alice knew. He theorizes that the killer was teasing and tussling with the girl, that she screamed when his touching turned sexual, and that he strangled her in panic.

December 1960 Article Includes a picture of Alice.

Brief Older Articles

Thriller Based on 1960 Murder of Child in Bean Field

Find a Grave

 

[Al Ka]

News article from September 17, 1960 (one day after Alice's body was discovered)

The nude body of Alice Louise Lee. a seven-year-old Dexter girl who disappeared from a bean field near j Trent about 20 miles east of here Aug. 29, was recovered Friday afternoon near a slough at the ' bean field where she disappeared. ' Her body was partially buried. The Lane County Sheriff's of-1 fice reported late Friday night the girl had some of her clothing wrapped around her neck. Probable cause of death will not be known until after a pathologist's report. According to authorities the girl was carried to the spot where she was found.

Intensive Search She had been the object of two intensive ground searches by' the Lane County Sheriff's office. A second ground search for the girl was called off last Friday after a futile day-long search. Deputy Sheriff Wayne Dillon, who had been assigned to the case after earlier search efforts failed, found the girl's body about 980 feet from where bloodhounds lost trace earlier. He went to search the area Friday afternoon after R. W. Swan, owner of the bean field, notified him of a strange odor. A Lane County deputy sheriff, who was at the scene Friday after the girl was found, said he saw what looked like a blood-stained stick about 20 feet from the Lee girl's body. Sheriff Ed Elder went to Selma, Calif., to question a possible suspect, who was cleared after questioning.

The girl disappeared the morning of the 29th after telling her mother that she was going to put her doll with the family lunch-box. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Lee of Dexter.

https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/91990248/

 

[Springrain]

Being discussed on "Bob Evans" thread. He may have been in Dexter, OR at the time.

 

[Richard]

Alice Lee, age 7,
Murdered 29 August 1960

 

[Richard]

Girl’s murder in 1960 still being investigated
By Karen McCowan
For The Register-Guard

APPEARED IN PRINT: SUNDAY, SEPT. 13, 2015, PAGE H4

Her murder was The Register-Guard’s top story of the year in 1960.

Fifty-five years later, the killing of seven-year-old Alice Lee remains unsolved.

Former Oregon State Police trooper Al Wolfe, now long retired from a second career as a private investigator, continues to work the cold case. For several reasons, Wolfe remains determined to find out who abducted Alice from a Pleasant Hill-area farm on Aug. 29, 1960, as her mother and siblings picked green beans nearby.

Despite a ground search by more than 100 people, tracking by police bloodhounds, an aerial search and dragging of the nearby Willamette River, little Alice’s disappearance remained a mystery for 18 days. Circling buzzards led the beanyard’s owner and a Lane County sheriff’s deputy to the child’s remains on Sept. 16, 1960. Alice’s nude body was face down in a shallow, hand-dug grave in a wooded area not far from where she vanished. Her clothes were folded beside her corpse.

Wolfe and the late longtime Oregon State Police Det. Cleve Veteto were assigned to the case after Oregon Gov. Mark Hatfield ordered the agency to take over the investigation of Alice’s murder and likely sexual assault. It was their first child murder case, and both were then 30-year-old OSP troopers with young children of their own. They were anguished, Wolfe said later, by thoughts of how helpless Alice was, “how scared she must have been.”

They chased down hundreds of leads over the years, identifying and interviewing the more than 100 people working as pickers in the Swan beanyard’s long rows of pole beans the day Alice disappeared. They investigated and discredited rumors about a stranger who’d reportedly been in the bean field that day. They followed up on allegations of other incidents of sexual abuse by area residents, leading to the opening of more than 30 other suspected abuse cases.

They never solved the Lee case, however, and it remains an open Oregon State Police case....

... We believe this person has tried to do so at least once — possibly twice — in the past. We hope they will do so one more time and provide long overdue justice for Alice, for her surviving family and for a community still tormented by the violent death of an innocent child.

Anyone with information about who committed this crime is invited to contact Oregon State Police Det. Sgt. Steve Payne at 503-934-0163...

LINK:

Girl’s murder in 1960 still being investigated Guest viewpoint/Unsolved crime | Commentary | Eugene, Oregon