WA WA - Sheila Kearns, 43, Mt. Rainier National Park, October 4, 1996

[Wilma_W]

I found out about this case from watching the Youtube videos from King 5 Seattle's Unsolved Northwest series. (Note: I think that ALL of the Unsolved Northwest videos are great. This case in particular is very interesting and I could not find a Websleuths thread for it.)

The main story is here:

Friends, detectives and a small-town journalist keep the 1996 case of Sheila Kearns' killing alive

Youtube video Part 1:

Youtube video Part 2:

Short Excerpt:
"In 1996, Sheila Kearns was reported missing and seven months later, her remains were found scattered in Mount Rainier National Park. Kearns was 43 years old at the time of her disappearance and worked at the Paradise Inn located inside the park.
Her coworkers remembered her as beautiful, kind and "incredibly careful.""

The inn closes for the season on October 1st, and she was last seen at a farewell dinner for the staff. She had been hired for the winter crew and had moved into housing which looks like it was located in the area of the old Longmire campground within the national park.

Her remains were located in May 1997 near the Community Building in the Longmire campground area. It looks like they were not able to determine a cause of death. There was animal activity and her remains were scattered, but apparently they couldn't determine for sure whether all of the animal activity was after death, or whether her death could have been the result of an animal attack.

Their series mentions a reporter named Dixie Walter who worked for the Eatonville Dispatch newspaper. She apparently did a number of stories and interviews (2 of the interviews are included with the King 5 article) about this case.

Because this happened within a national park, the primary law enforcement agency is the Seattle FBI Field Office; contact information is:

Seattle FBI Field Office
Phone
(206) 622-0460
Address
1110 3rd Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101-2904
Territory
Entire state of Washington
Special Agent in Charge
W. Mike Herrington

 

[Wilma_W]

Question for any other Websleuthers who are interested in this case: If anybody has access to newspapers.com I would be interested in whether the Eatonville Dispatch articles are available there.

They mention more than once that it seemed like Sheila "had a past" and was very careful, hinting that she may have been afraid of something or someone from her past, but no details were given. She was divorced, but from the information given, it sounds like her ex just wanted to move on (i.e. he left her, not the other way around).

If someone from her past was there in the Longmire campground area at that time, some park facilities were closed, so you would think that a non-employee, either on foot or in a vehicle, would stand out. (If anybody is familiar with the park, especially in the off season, please speak up!)

Since the farewell party was the last chance for the non-winter employees to see each other, it would make sense for that to be the time for someone to 'make a move', so perhaps that went wrong and Sheila ended up dead. I believe that the area her remains were found in (after apparently being buried under snow from October until May) was close to the housing facility she was living in. It doesn't sound like anyone heard anything unusual.

Not a lot of information and this one is a real mystery!

 

[Judosleuth]

Hello
New here but this case has been on my mind almost 30 years now. I had reached out to give my information right after this happened and even gave information to the FBI. Took a while for them to get back to me but I thought it was important enough to do it. I was hiking with my then girlfriend and her son that same timeframe. It was the trailhead with parking closest to Longmire. Me and the boy headed up the trail at a quick pace since the weather was excellent and there were no one else on the trail. We were about 2 or more miles in and a man came onto the trail from the bushes. He had dark hair and dark complexion and was giving us the meanest look. Enough so I got in between him and my girlfriend's son. I could get an evil vibe off the guy and he wasn't friendly like most you would encounter on a hike. He didn't have tons of backcountry gear either which was weird from just coming onto the trail from who knows where. He also appeared like he was a few days of not showering and his clothes were dirty. The guy didn't say a word and headed down the trail to the parking area. I then decided it was best to head down after him since my girlfriend would have ran into him as she was a ways behind us. He must have left the trail before we caught up to him and before we met back up with my girlfriend because she did not see him.

I didn't think much more about till I saw the news story of Sheila's disappearance on the news. I did reach out to law enforcement and told them this information but was told without a car or more info it wasn't much of use. Also being the park is visited by millions a year that is a lot of people people.

I still have it in my head and think I ran into real evil that day...