cat 310: david adams

In May 1968, Issaquah was a small town where bad things really didn’t happen to people. So, when 8-year-old David Adams disappeared, people turned out from all over the area to help look for him. Surely he must have just gotten lost on the mountain on his way home from a friend’s house. Surely he would be found. But he wasn’t. And as days turned into weeks, months, years and decades, the story of the blue-eyed boy turned into memories for those who knew him and was of little meaning to those who didn’t. The Issaquah Press did an occasional story about him in the early years, but later on, David Adams was all but forgotten. In summer 2006, reporter Bob Taylor tried to update the story, but records were gone or nearly impossible to find. People’s memories were fading, if those people could be found in the first place. In fall 2009, reporter Warren Kagarise took a new run at the story. He spent countless hours locating all newspaper accounts that could be found from the time of little David’s disappearance. And he began trying to contact people from that time, starting with David’s parents, whom The Press had stayed in contact with over the years. Kagarise talked to detectives who have taken on the cold case in hopes of solving it. He found classmates of David’s and interviewed them. He talked at length with David’s parents, and other family and friends. He talked to the last person to see David before his disappearance, a man who was a child then whose story brought tears to readers’ eyes. Kagarise talked to anyone he could locate who had any memory of the case at all. In all, he found more than a dozen people from that time and interviewed them. And he found that things didn’t get reported in the early days of the search turned investigation and, worse yet, things had been reported inaccurately. Then, in writing a three-part series about the boy lost on a mountainside four decades ago, Kagarise brought David to life for readers; explained how the search was done then and how it would be done much differently today; and corrected inaccurate information that The Press and other news organizations reported wrong in the first place and continued to re-report. Most importantly, Kagarise taught people that this newspaper cares about its readers and all of the city’s residents, no matter how long ago something happened to them. And he reminded readers that young David Adams needs to be brought home, and that he won’t be forgotten until the case of his disappearance is closed.

By Warren KagariseIssaquah Press reporter

The walk home was short, butDavid Adams never completed thetrip.

David left a friend’s house on alate spring day in 1968, and set offdown a shortcut worn by neigh-borhood children. Somewherealong the path — whether by acci-dent, misstep or chance encounter— the 8-year-old boy disappearedfrom Tiger Mountain.

Searchers volunteered by thehundreds and combed throughdense forest for days. TinyIssaquah, with 4,000 or so peoplethen, was the nexus in theunprecedented search effort.

With the techniques and technol-ogy available to investigators andsearchers in May 1968, the searchfor David unfolded as a rescue mis-sion.

Searchers offered theories. Maybe David fell down a

coalmine shaft. Maybe a wild ani-mal attacked the boy. Maybe — a

more remote maybe in the 1960s— someone abducted David.

Searchers found nothing.

A free obituary lookup service is available on the Web at the Washington StateLibrary at www.secstate.wa.gov/library/Obituaries.aspx. Find older obituar-ies unavailable on news Web sites. Use the service to locate hard-to-find andhistorical obituaries as well. The library has a large collection of Washingtonnewspapers on microfilm, dating back to the late 1800s in some cases. Thelibrary also has an obituary requests page on the site to explain the service.

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Wednesday, December 16, 2009 • Vol. 110, No. 50Locally owned since 1900 • 75 Cents

INNOCENCE

LOSTPart 1:Missing

A three-part series about the1968 disappearance of David Adams.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY GREG FARRAR

When 8-year-old David Adams disappeared in May 1968, the still-unsolvedcase generated unprecedented news coverage and attracted hundreds ofsearchers to Tiger Mountain.

Only questionsremain after ’68disappearance

PHOTOS BY GREG FARRAR

Winter’sarrival

The official start of winter isn’tuntil Dec. 21, but temperatureslast week as low as 10 degrees

put a chill on everything. Above,ducks on Lake Sammamish werestill swimming, but smaller lakesand ponds were iced over. Left,water leaving the pipes at the

Issaquah Salmon Hatchery wasstopped in its icy tracks.

City budget:Bus service,maintenanceto be delayedBy Warren KagariseIssaquah Press reporter

Issaquah City Jail will add a cor-rections officer, but parks and roadimprovements will be scaled backin the 2010 budget headed to theCity Council next week.

The plan reflects difficult deci-sions as the council sought to bal-ance savings and services amidthe recession. City residents willnotice changes large — fewer traf-fic signal upgrades — and small —only two city newsletters will bemailed next year.

Mayor Ava Frisinger proposed aleaner budget for next year for acity with fewer employees andcapital projects planned. After sev-eral tweaks, the City Council plansto adopt the $99 million budgetDec. 21.

“In this economic climate, therewere some difficult choices thathad to be made,” CouncilmanJoshua Schaer said. “This is a con-sensus document, so no single oneof us was able to control or domi-nate the way in which our city’sdollars are going to be spent.”

The proposed budget containsno property tax or rate increases,though a separate measure head-ed to the council Dec. 21 wouldadjust city water rates.

Officials tackled the budget aftermid-year spending cuts and layoffsdue to declining sales tax revenueand building permit fees — impor-tant cash sources for the city.

Schaer noted that the toughchoices include maintenancedelays and spending cuts — deci-sions outlined in a budget memofrom council members toFrisinger.

The memo includes ambitiousdirectives to re-examine the wayseveral city departments conductbusiness.

“I hope the budget is indeedlean, but I hope it’s not mean,”Frisinger said.

Council considers alternativesThe council asked the city

administration to study privatiza-tion options for Parks & RecreationDepartment facilities and pro-grams. Staffers are due to bringthe options to the Council Services& Operations Committee in thefirst quarter.

And, almost four years after cityvoters passed a $6.25 million parkbond meant to improve recreationand preserve undeveloped land,the council wants updates on cityopen space.


AtWork! employees were gath-ered for a late-afternoon meetinglast week when someone heardwhat sounded like rain — com-ing from inside the building.

Employees watched as watergushed from the ceiling, andthen leapt into action to cut offthe supply and shove bucketsbeneath the leak, administrativeassistant Winter Taylor said. Thesource of the deluge was a burstpipe, brought on by days ofbelow-freezing temperatures.

Lucky for the employees, theaccident occurred when fewer

people were in the building, afterclients left. The organizationhelps disabled people learn skillsand find jobs.

Homeowners and workersthroughout Issaquah enduredsimilar inconveniences last weekas the mercury plummeted.

The deep freeze and subse-quent problems caused calls tospike to Eastside Fire & Rescueand the city Public WorksOperations Department as prop-erty owners sought to deal withthe damage. EFR crews respond-ed to more than a dozen callsrelated to flooding caused byburst pipes.

A near-disaster brought on by

old pipes and below-freezingtemperatures brought the housedown at Village Theatre’s FirstStage Theatre building.

Crews started cleanup effortsDec. 10 to remove insulationfrozen by leaking water. Thefrozen insulation then fell fromthe ceiling.

The damage claimed KID-STAGE costumes, a soundboardand other equipment. Managersdid not have cost estimates forthe damage by late last week,theater spokeswoman MichelleSanders said.

Burst pipes leave damage in wakeVillage Theatre, AtWork! sustain water damage


Klahanie residents wantanswers about what will happen tothe community after Sammamishacquires Klahanie Park from cash-strapped King County.

Sammamish officials wantKlahanie Park and adjacentIssaquah School District property.Klahanie Park and several othercounty parks were marked for clo-sure in August as county officialsworked to cut costs.

Before the transfer, the dealbetween Sammamish and thecounty will prompt Sammamish,Issaquah and county officials toredraw planning maps to removeKlahanie Park and the school dis-trict land from the KlahaniePotential Annexation Area —

about 1,200 acres spread acrossseveral subdivisions and home toabout 11,000 residents.

The park discussion has alsoopened a dialogue betweenIssaquah and Sammamish officialsabout future annexations, andwhether Sammamish leaderswould be interested in all or someof the potential annexation area —land bordered by both cities butincluded in long-term growthplans for Issaquah.

“King County planning policysays within the urban growthboundary, there should be noislands,” Issaquah PlanningDirector Mark Hinthorne said. “Wecan’t give up any part of thatpotential annexation area unless

Klahanie Park transferrevives annexation talk

See PARK, Page A3

By Chantelle LusebrinkIssaquah Press reporter

The Issaquah School District’s15th elementary school finally hasa name.

Creekside Elementary School,20777 S.E. 16th St., Sammamish,will open in fall 2010 for studentson the Sammamish Plateau nearPine Lake.

The school board unanimouslyvoted on the name at its Dec. 9regular business meeting.

The Chang family, ofSammamish, couldn’t be morethrilled with the choice, since itwas their submission, MelodyChang said.

Jesse and Melody Chang’s twodaughters, Emma, 7, and Erin, 4,will attend the school.

“When the community was

asked to submit names, we cameup with the name Creeksidebecause it was simple, yet true tothe area,” Melody Chang said.

“We think it is indicative of thesurrounding area and the nurtur-ing environment that the elemen-tary school has such an importantrole in playing.”

In early November, PlanningPrincipal Robin Earl gave a pres-entation to the board about thefive names the school’s NamingSelection Committee chose.

Those were Creekside, EbrightCreek, Lake Vista, Opportunityand Samena elementary schools.

Community members submittedmore than 130 submissions basedon a set of rules, which included

District’s newest school named Creekside Elementary

See WATER DAMAGE, Page A5See BUDGET, Page A3

See CREEKSIDE, Page A3

BY ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT

Creekside Elementary School as seen from the northeast, with the mainentrance at left and classrooms at right.

See LOST, Page A3

Sammamish is willing to take it.”Planners in both cities would

need to amend the respective com-prehensive plans, or growth blue-prints, to incorporate a redrawnpotential annexation area.

Sammamish City Manager BenYazici sent a letter to IssaquahMayor Ava Frisinger in earlyDecember to ask Issaquah munic-ipal staffers to draft a letter to theKing County Growth ManagementPlanning Council, the group setup to guide development. Besidesapproval from the Issaquah andSammamish councils, changes tothe potential annexation areawould require nods from thegrowth management board andKing County Council.

Issaquah officials discussed theproposal at a Council Land UseCommittee meeting last week,where members noted how exist-ing growth plans limit options forthe potential annexation area.

“As long as that PAA stays inIssaquah’s comprehensive plan,there are only two possibleactions — either it stays in thecounty or Issaquah annexes it,”Councilman John Rittenhouse,the committee chairman, saidduring the Dec. 8 meeting.

Another remote option exists:Klahanie residents could incorpo-rate the area as a city, thoughresidents at the meeting said thecost to provide municipal servic-es would be prohibitive.

Voters in the potential annexa-tion area defeated a 2005 proposalto join Issaquah, even though 67percent of voters approved annex-ation. But the Issaquah City Councilbalked because fewer voters — 47percent — agreed to shoulder aportion of the city’s debt.

Issaquah and Sammamish offi-cials discussed redrawing thepotential annexation area in late2007, but the proposal witheredin both cities.

Like King County, Issaquah andSammamish are under pressureto annex developments just out-side city limits because county

leaders want to shed the role ofmanagers of unincorporatedurban areas, like Klahanie.

The park decision became thefocus in the annexation discus-sion in August, when then-County Executive Kurt Triplettannounced Klahanie Park wouldbe closed. Sammamish officialsthen moved to secure the park.Issaquah leaders were uninter-ested in taking on the park andassociated maintenance costs.

Despite the effort to keepKlahanie Park open, neighbor-hood residents worry about themove by Sammamish into thecommunity — a move someKlahanie residents view as a prel-ude to annexation.

Klahanie resident MichelleKolano addressed the IssaquahCity Council last week, and saidshe felt uneasy about changesrelated to the park transfer.Kolano said residents consider the64-acre park as a “crown jewel” inthe neighborhood.

“We’ve been in existence for 25years, and to be absorbed or par-tially absorbed by a city who onlyhas 10 years under their belt isvery alarming,” she said duringthe Dec. 7 meeting.

Development in Klahanie start-ed in the mid-1980s and lastedabout a decade. Sammamish wasincorporated in August 1999.

“We identify with Issaquah,we shop here, we were herebefore there was aSammamish,” Kolano said. “Itjust doesn’t make sense to us fora part of our community to beabsorbed by Sammamish.”

In the letter to Frisinger, Yazicinoted how Issaquah officials wereuninterested in the park.Negotiations betweenSammamish and King Countyofficials will enable Sammamishto acquire the park.

Kolano urged Issaquah officialsto reconsider the decision not toacquire Klahanie Park.

“We would really, really appre-ciate it if that sometime theIssaquah City Council wouldagain revisit the idea of annexa-tion,” she said. “And, in the inter-im, possibly think about takingover the stewardship of KlahaniePark.”

ParkFROM PAGE A1

Merry Christmas Issaquah Fund

Helping neighbors help themselves

Total: $9,337from 55 donors

2009 Fund Goal: $50,000Thank You! to this week’s donors:

Let there be hope.

To donate, send to:Merry Christmas Issaquah

c/o The Issaquah PressPO Box 1328, Issaquah, WA 98027

Name will be published unless anonymity is requested.

The Harringtons, in honor of Jerry & Wendy Blackburn

Dale & Jeanett DePriest

Dorothy Clark

St. Michael’s Singalong

Eastside Home Association

Barbara & Matthew LePage

Kiwanis Club of Providence Point

Ronald & Shirley Koger

Susan & Bernard Wright

Cougar Mountain Veterinary Hospital

Leo & Rose Finnegan

L. & R. Skinner

Marinell Schmidt

Robert & Rebecca Hazel

Michael & Sandra Nygaard

J.D. & Kit Brown

The Rezendes Family

Joseph MacDonald

Thomas & Sally Montgomery

Joyce Johnson

Bjorn & Gail Sorensen

Beverly Huntington

Andrew, Elise, Carolyn & Ned Nelson

Nancy Viney

Ivan & Diane Lee

Hank & Jackie Thomas

Mary Ann Hult

Dan & Maria Menser

Edwin & Joan Smithers

Steven & Carla Hoffman

Mary Fricke, in memory of James L. Fricke

Joyce Kormanyos

Five anonymous

Town & Country Square1175 NW Gilman Blvd.

Suite B-4, Issaquah (425) 391-9270

9 days until she believes again...

VOTED BEST OF

ISSAQUAH SINCE 1996

By David HayesIssaquah Press reporter

Issaquah icon McNugget therooster became the center of con-troversy Dec. 8 and 9 when agroup of concerned citizens wereblocked from moving him to awarmer environment.

Kristen Parshall and her friendDebby Welsh, both of Fall City,became worried about McNugget’swelfare in the face of temperaturesreaching overnight lows in theteens and below.

“Our biggest concern is the win-ters,” said Parshall, a formeremployee of Pasado’s Safe Haven.“He needs to be in a coop with aheat lamp.”

Their efforts were met by thosewho disagreed, saying McNuggethad ample care at the YourEspresso stand and had survivedjust fine in previous winters.

“McNugget eats three times aday and gets fresh water providedas a second source of waterintake,” barista Candice Mercadowrote in an e-mail. “McNuggetuses the small creek mostly for allhis drinking needs. He neverleaves the property and if a roosterwere unhappy, he would have leftover five years ago.”

Parshall said Welsh called thenearby Issaquah Grange Supplythe next day, this time asking forpermission to remove McNugget.

McNugget escaped from the

Grange years ago during a cus-tomer appreciation day event.Grange General Manager GaryOlson said McNugget was broughtin as part of the petting zoo, butsomehow got away.

The rooster later adopted theparking lot of the Staples store asits new home. Employees of theespresso stand in the lot adoptedthe rooster and gave him his nameand a crate for shelter. YourEspresso owner MichelleSchneider said customers, baristasand local residents all providedfeed for McNugget over the years,enough to give him three squaremeals a day.

About three years ago, Parshall,a regular customer of the espresso

stand, provided a home upgrade toa doghouse and stopped by occa-sionally to feed him.

She and Welsh’s concern forMcNugget peaked when the tem-peratures dropped to overnightlows of 10 degrees.

“It also looked like his comb wasfrost-bitten,” Welsh said. “I just feltso bad for him, standing thereshivering while I was feeding him.”

Parshall said she later offeredSchneider hundreds of dollars topurchase McNugget, but the offerwas declined.

“I would leave them alone if theyput up a proper coop with a heat-ing lamp,” she added.

Schneider said that over the pastweekend a couple of her employees

had offered to take McNugget totheir family’s farm, where theyhave chickens and a coop. But theoffer proved unnecessary.

“I called both the Renton AnimalControl and King County AnimalControl,” Schneider said. “Bothsaid to just leave the rooster alone.So, that’s what I’m going to do.”

She added that if animal control

officials told her McNugget neededto be moved to a farm, she wouldhave acted without hesitation.

Olson offered to provide achicken coop hand-crafted by aGrange employee should a newhome not be found for McNugget.Even so, Olson said a coop doesnot provide a surefire safehousefor the rooster.

“The reality is no chicken isabsolutely safe in a coop,” he said.“Predators, like raccoons, havegotten into coops on my farm andkilled chickens. So, it’s not a surebet, but it is better, keeping him outof the wind.”

He said providing a coop is stillnot the end of the situation.Someone has to be committed tostay at the end of the day and lockMcNugget safely inside the coopand again let him out in the morn-ing. Those logistics have yet to beworked out.

David Hayes: 392-6434, ext. 237,[email protected]. Comment atwww.issaquahpress.com.

Rooster wranglers ruffle feathersConcerned citizens want a move to warmer location; new coop offered

BY DAVID HAYES

McNugget the rooster, the center ofcontroversy in a dispute to move himto a warmer climate, gets some sunin the Staples parking lot last week.

A2 • Wednesday, December 16, 2009 The Issaquah Press

�

In the decades since the disap-pearance, the unsolved mysterybaffled investigators and stalledwhen evidence eluded detectives.The case gathered dust for years atthe King County Sheriff’s Office,with investigators stymied byscarce evidence and witnesseswhose memories were blurred bytime and pain.

Detectives revived the investigationin April with a federal grant meant tosolve decades-old cold cases. Daysafter authorities announced the newCold Case Unit, a detective inter-viewed a Lewis County man aboutthe disappearance. But the case hasproduced no arrests.

The events renewed attention,too, in Issaquah, where longtimeresidents recall the fruitless TigerMountain search. The investiga-tion also forced the Adamses toconfront the grief and unansweredquestions associated with the dis-appearance.

As the decades passed, however,accounts and recollections weremuddied because news organiza-tions — including The Issaquah Press— repeated incorrect information inthe years since the disappearance.

‘A garden-variety 8-year-old boy’The year he disappeared, David

was a third-grader at ClarkElementary School.

“He was like most any other 8-year-old boy, sweet and naughty atthe same time, loud, and just likedto play and do the things little boysplay,” Ann Adams said when asked

to describe her lost son. “He was abright little boy. He excelled atschool.”

Ann and Don Adams raised aclose-knit family — six children inthe house on Tiger Mountain,where the Adamses still live today.A daughter was born a few yearsafter David disappeared.

“He was just pretty much a gar-den-variety 8-year-old boy,endearing and frustrating at thesame time,” said Ann Adams, now76. And, she added with a laugh,“probably the bane of his teacher’sexistence very often.”

David, the second oldest, had amischievous streak, Ann Adamsrecalled. She remembered a photo-graph from Easter, with her oldestdaughter, Jill, in a frilly Easter dress,and David beside her in a holidayoutfit. Look closely at the photo, AnnAdams recalled, and notice Davidholding fingers aloft above Jill’shead to make rabbit ears, with “justa glint in his eye of mischief.”

David had dark hair and strikingblue eyes, like his mother. In themost common photo of him — thepicture reproduced on playingcards with photos of missing peo-ple — David wears a bright rust-colored shirt, but the eyes captureattention first.

Jill Stephenson was not yet akindergartener when her olderbrother disappeared. Though sherecalls little about David, she saidshe remembers those blue eyes.

Stephenson also recalls the dayDavid vanished. She was playingin the backyard with her brotherswhen a neighbor told them Davidwas missing.

Rob Killian shared a desk withDavid at Clark. The boys went tothe same church, and attendedeach other’s birthday parties.

Killian said he remembers mostthe brittle silences in the yearsafter David disappeared.

“I am not sure if I have blockedall of these memories, but Iremember being quiet around hisfamily a lot in the days and monthslater,” he recalled. “There wassuch fragility and silence.”

Killian, now a Seattle physicianwho runs a group family practiceand works with HIV patients, saidthe 1968 school year came to ahushed, somber close.

“My desk, the double desk,”Killian recalled, “eventually gotcleaned out and I sat alone the restof the school year.”

A fateful dayFriday, May 3, 1968: David rode

the bus from Clark to the stop alongSoutheast Tiger Mountain Road.

David and the oldest Adams son,Steven, walked from the stop to thehouse where the family had movedless than two weeks earlier.

After school, David went to playwith Kevin Bryce, then 6, a friendfrom church. Although theAdamses were new to TigerMountain, the family had wor-shipped with the local Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saintscongregation for years.

Don and Ann Adams and theirfive children settled on the Eastsideafter Don Adams accepted a jobwith Boeing. Don Adams, a captainin the Air Force Reserve, wascalled back to active duty after thePueblo incident — a Cold Warflashpoint in January 1968, whenNorth Korea seized a U.S. Navysurveillance ship. By early May,Don Adams, now 77, was stationedin Oklahoma for Air Force training.

Meanwhile, on the first Friday inMay, David and Kevin walked onTiger Mountain from the Adamshouse to the Bryce residence. Theboys used the fateful shortcut, a pathbeaten across a field. The trail ledbehind the Adams house to a gravelroad, now 241st Avenue Southeast.

David and Kevin crunched down

the gravel road, crossed a bridgeabove 15 Mile Creek and headed upthe hill toward the Bryce house. Theboys used a trail worn by the Brycechildren, instead of using the drive-way circling the front of the house.

At about 5 p.m., David was duehome for dinner. Ann Adamsplanned to take the children to J.C.Penney in Bellevue to buy shoes.

David asked his mother on thetelephone if he could stay awhilelonger.

“I did tell him to come homebecause dinner was nearly readyand we were going to go down” toBellevue, Ann Adams recalled.

Kevin walked with David to the15 Mile Creek bridge, and thenasked if David knew how to gethome. David said he could find the

way, and he headed down the trail.After 15 minutes or so, Ann

Adams called back to the Brycehouse to tell David he needed toleave. David, she was told, left rightafter she had first spoken with him.

Ann Adams and neighbors can-vassed the neighborhood, callingfor David and asking others if theyhad seen the boy.

“Hours passed and they couldn’tfind him. The authorities becameinvolved,” she said.

Within hours, a massive searchwould unfold on Tiger Mountain.Neighbors looked through the night.

David was nowhere to be found.

Warren Kagarise: 392-6434, ext. 234, [email protected]. Comment atwww.issaquahpress.com.

Lost:Unsolved

mystery isbaffling FROM PAGE A1

BY GREG FARRAR

Don and Ann Adams have never moved from the Issaquah area, more than 40years after their son David disappeared from their Tiger Mountain neighbor-hood. ‘He was a bright little boy. He excelled at school,’ Ann Adams said.


Only memories and frayednewspaper clippings remain fromthe fruitless search for DavidAdams.

Ask any longtime Issaquah resi-dent about the mystery, and talkturns to the May 1968 search forthe missing 8-year-old boy. Manyold-timers scoured fields andforests in the frenzied days afterDavid vanished.

The search drew people in thehundreds — perhaps even 1,000searchers — to Issaquah, just aflyspeck on maps back then.Volunteers swarmed TigerMountain in the days after Daviddisappeared, but the firstsearchers were bound together byfaith, community and the desire tofind the lost boy.

The first teams included mem-bers of the local Church of JesusChrist of Latter-day Saints, where

the Adamses worshipped. The callfor help rippled through the con-gregation hours after David failedto return home. Searcherscombed the mountain through the

ChristmasChristmasMerryMerry

City, county, state and federal offices and banks will close Friday, Dec. 25,in observance of Christmas. Post offices will close and mail will not bedelivered. State driver’s license offices also will be closed. Metro Transitwill operate on a Sunday schedule. The week after Christmas, someMetro service will operate on a reduced weekday schedule, and someroutes are canceled. Call 206-553-3000 or go to metro.kingcounty.gov.

Last Week’s Rainfall:(through Monday)2.34 inches

Total for 2009:58.44 inches

Total last year:(through Dec. 21)54.89 inches

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debuts� See Page C6

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variety show�See Page B6

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INSIDE THE PRESS�



INNOCENCE

LOSTPart 2:Search


All dressed upfor the holidays


We Wish You aMeow-y ChristmasAlvin the cat answers the knock at thedoor for Michael and Courtney Bostjan-cic, who have made their home a most

cheerful one for the holidays. More than7,000 light-emitting diodes at 230 S.E.

Bush St. decorate the fence, bushes andtrim on their house for Christmas.

�

J.B. WoganIssaquah Press reporter

About a day after a high-speedpolice chase led to the recovery ofa carload of missing mail,Sammamish Police Sgt. RobertBaxter had already fielded about50 phone calls from people hopingtheirs had been found. Most gotbad news.

“If we haven’t contacted you, wedon’t have your mail,” he said.

Sammamish police were part ofa high-speed chase Dec. 15 thatbegan in Sammamish, wovethrough Issaquah and ended offthe High Point exit of Interstate 90in Preston. The arrest of twoSnoqualmie Valley-area womenand the ensuing investigationturned up a “large amount” ofwhat police say is stolen mail fromSammamish, Issaquah, Redmondand Snoqualmie in the car.

Baxter explained that police aretaking the initiative in communi-cating with residents whose mailthey have.

“We’re hoping that they can tellus if there might be other thingsthat they might be missing,” headded.

Police say they also found evi-dence linking the suspects to vehi-cle break-ins in Bellevue and autothefts in North Bend andSammamish.

The Dec. 15 chase began atabout 5 a.m., when a patrollingofficer saw a gray Chrysler NewYorker driving near the intersec-tion of Issaquah-Beaver Lake RoadSoutheast and Duthie Hill Roadand ran a database check on thelicense plate. King County dis-patchers said the license plateexpired in 2008, yet the plate said2010.

Thinking the discrepancy mightimply stolen license plate tabs, theofficer followed the car to Issaquahnear the Front Street exit andturned on his emergency lights tostop the car. The driver thenturned onto I-90 heading east-bound, getting off at the High Pointexit and crashing the car in anembankment.

The Sammamish officer man-aged to apprehend the driver onhis own, but when the passengertook off on foot, officers from theWashington State Patrol and theKing County Sheriff’s Office camein to help. A police tracking dog

Police recoverstolen mailafter chase

Searchers scoured fields, forests for missing boynight. By the next morning, theKing County Sheriff’s Officearrived, and the case caught theattention of Seattle news organiza-tions.

Searchers said the effort repre-sented the best qualities inhumanity. But no trace of Davidwas ever discovered.

Don Cronk organized the volun-teer search effort. From head-quarters at the Adams house, heplotted a search grid and sentsearch teams into the thick forest.

Cronk and other tirelesssearchers imagined David lost onthe mountain, “out there some-where, weaker and colder” astime passed.

“We were just going for 24hours a day,” Cronk said. “I don’tthink I slept for a day or two.”

Eileen Erickson heard about the

case the Sunday after David disap-peared. A call for volunteers cameduring a church service inMagnolia, the Seattle neighbor-hood where the Ericksons wor-shipped with the local Mormoncongregation.

Issaquah claimed about 4,000residents then. Seattleites viewedthe outer suburb, beyond LakeWashington and nestled in theCascade foothills, as rugged andwild.

“Enough people knew Issaquahwell enough that we thought ofIssaquah as the end of the world,”Erickson said.

Kevin Bryce was the last knownperson to see David. Bryce, then a6-year-old neighbor, played withDavid in the hours before the May3, 1968, disappearance. WhenDavid headed home for dinner, he

walked with Bryce to a bridgeacross 15 Mile Creek, and then setoff down a trail toward home.Bryce was confused hours laterwhen he heard David had neverreturned.

“It’s so easy to get there,” Brycerecalled. “I don’t know how hecould have not made it home.”

‘The world was a lot safer place’David and Bryce parted ways at

about 5 p.m. near a shortcut frommodern-day 241st Place Southeastto the next street, where theAdamses had moved fromEastgate less than two weeksbefore. David planned to take ashortcut worn by neighborhoodchildren. Bryce, now 48,


The Dickens/DECA carolersStudents in Issaquah High School DECA donated a program of Christmas carolingDec. 17 to residents of Timber Ridge at Talus, by fundraising $300 from the student

store and candy bar sales to hire the Dickens Carolers to perform.


The developer behind ParkPointe said ground could be bro-ken for the embattled TigerMountain residential project asearly as a year after it emergesfrom Chapter 11 bankruptcy hear-ings. But city officials, accustomedto long delays related to ParkPointe, described the timeline asambitious.

Wellington Park Pointe LLC VicePresident Ron Slater said the com-pany would be ready to breakground on the Tiger Mountain sub-division 12 to 18 months afteremerging from Chapter 11.

Slater spoke during a Dec. 8hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Courtin Seattle. He described the chal-lenges Park Pointe has faced sincethe project was proposed in themid-1990s — everything from con-cerns about traffic to a zoningswitch at the development site.

The initial meeting betweenSlater and a trustee assigned to thecase provided a glimpse of theproject timeline. Slater said the

project could be ready to breakground in 2011.

Despite the development sce-nario described by Slater, city offi-cials said the process to breakground on Park Pointe couldstretch up to three years.

“There are all of these stepsbefore you turn a shovel of dirt,”city Major Development ReviewTeam Manager Keith Niven said.

First, Wellington needs to com-plete the journey through bank-ruptcy. If the company still ownsthe Park Pointe parcel, a develop-ment agreement between thelandowner and the city could takeup to two years to draft. The per-mitting process could consumeanother year, and the time beforecity officials issued a grading per-mit to allow crews to clear treesand move earth could add anotherthree months.

“Optimally, you can do a devel-opment agreement in a year, butwe haven’t seen anyone do it inunder two,” Niven said.

Developer: ParkPointe could break

ground in 2011

See LOST, Page A6

See PARK POINTE, Page A8

It’s life’s unexpected bumps thatoften cause people to seek emer-gency financial aid. They hate toask, they are humbled, but they’reat the end of their rope.

Take the teacher whose wife wasinjured and unable to work. Thecouple and their two sons quicklyran through their savings, in spiteof his steady income. Thanks todonors to Merry ChristmasIssaquah, they were able to getassistance through IssaquahChurch and Community Services,who made a payment to the city onthe family’s overdue water bill.

Nurses aren’t supposed to getsick, but this unemployed nursedid. Her unemployment benefitsran out, and she needed a little helpto get her going again. Relief with aportion of her rent one month wasall she needed. The compassion ofan ICCS volunteer was a little extrashe hadn’t counted on.

Ordinary people — those are theones ICCS helps most, says Marilyn

Taylor, president of the 501c3 non-profit. But none of the work provid-

ed by volunteers would be possiblewithout the generous donations toMerry Christmas Issaquah, shesaid.

Since 1981, local people and busi-nesses have sent donations to MerryChristmas Issaquah. Since 1981,more than $600,000 has beendonated.

There is no such thing as toomany donations, Taylor said. Lastyear, there was a record $57,000donated, yet the need increased 50percent. Assistance with rent, utili-ties, prescriptions and other needswas provided in smaller amounts tomake the dollars stretch.

Taylor doesn’t expect the need tobe any less in 2010, but hopes itwon’t be greater.

You, too, can help. Send dona-tions to Merry Christmas Issaquah,c/o The Issaquah Press, P.O. Box1328, Issaquah, WA 98027. Namesof donors (but not amounts) will bepublished in the newspaper unlessanonymity is requested.

TO DATE: $26,9622009 GOAL: $50,000

MerryChristmasIssaquahFund

MerryChristmasIssaquahFund

Help provide emergency aid to those in need

See MAIL, Page A5

Mary, Queen Of PeaceCatholic Church

Friday, December 25th8AM, 10AM

Thursday, December 24th4PM, 7PM, 10PM

1121 228th Ave. SE, Sammamish • (425) 391-1178 • www.mqp.org

Christmas Mass Schedule

Dec. 24th Christmas Eve:4:00 PM • 7:00 PM • 10:00 PM

Dec. 25th Christmas Day: 9:30 AM

St. Joseph Catholic Churchand School

220 Mountain Park Blvd. SW, Issaquah(425) 392 5516 • www.sjcissaquah.org

Taize PrayerDec. 21st7:00 PM

Good Samaritan Episcopal Church1757 - 244th Ave NE, Sammamish

425-868-2123 • www.goodsamepiscopal.org

Welcome Home For Christmas ServicesWelcome Home For Christmas ServicesChristmas Eve Thursday, December 24Christmas Eve Thursday, December 246:00 pm Christmas Pageant & Holy Eucharist 6:00 pm Christmas Pageant & Holy Eucharist

10:00 pm Christmas Eve Holy Eucharist10:00 pm Christmas Eve Holy Eucharist

Christmas Day Friday, December 25Christmas Day Friday, December 259:00 am Holy Eucharist9:00 am Holy Eucharist

First Sunday after Christmas, December 27First Sunday after Christmas, December 27No 8:00 am Service • 10:00 am Lessons & CarolsNo 8:00 am Service • 10:00 am Lessons & Carols

Please Join Us!Our preschool is accepting registration

beginning Jan 15 for the 2010-2011 school year!

Sunday Worship 8:30 AM & 11:00 AM

Sunday School Education 9:45 AM

JOIN US FOR ADVENT SEASON & CHRISTMAS

DEC 24 CHRISTMASEVE WORSHIPcarols & candlelight

7:00 pm, 9:00 pm & 11:00 pmEveryone’s Welcome!

LIVING GOD’S LOVE745 Front Street South, Issaquah

425-392-4169 www.oslcissaquah.org

Come, Worship With UsCome, Worship With Us

explained the route before Davidleft.

“For me, being a grown adult,looking back on it and knowingevery inch of that land, I think hegot to that lot, balked at the trailand then left the area under some-one else’s guidance,” Bryce said.

Investigators and volunteershandled the disappearance as asearch-and-rescue mission.Issaquah was safe; some residentsleft doors unlocked, because crimewas almost nonexistent.

Ann Adams, now 76, said theTiger Mountain neighborhoodseemed like a safe place where sheand her husband, Don, could raisetheir family.

“At that time, everyone was justassuming that he had become lost;40 years ago, the world was a lotsafer place and we were in a veryundeveloped neighborhood at thattime,” she said. “The idea of crimein Issaquah just had not reallyraised its ugly head that much.”

Cronk and the search team setup in the first floor at the Adamshouse. The family had just builtand moved to the house; the firstfloor was fairly empty, with littlefurniture. Women from churchtransformed the kitchen into asoup kitchen to feed searchers. Thegroup received help when theAmerican Red Cross set up anoth-er soup kitchen in the driveway.

Investigators set up the sheriff’soffice command post at anothersite, though searchers could notrecall the location.

Investigators integrated volun-teer efforts into the official search;detectives and deputies focused onthe area where Bryce last sawDavid. Volunteers fanned acrossTiger Mountain.

“The idea of someone doingharm to a young boy was really notthe first concern at that time,” AnnAdams said.

Clark Bean joined the initialsearch. Bean, now 76, was in theAir Force Reserve, like DonAdams, and the families kneweach other through church.

Bean recalled the effort to “combthe area foot-by-foot.” In the daysafter David disappeared, searcherswere optimistic he would return.

“We had every reason to believehe could find his way home,” Beansaid.

When David failed to return inthe first hours after the disappear-ance, a call for help reached otherMormon congregations in WesternWashington.

“When you tell the Mormons youneed a couple people, you get acouple hundred,” Bryce said.

Soon, other searchers tromped

across Tiger Mountain — ExplorerScouts, mountain rescue teams,German shepherd teams, highschool students, servicemen andcongregations from other faiths.

Exhaustive search, inexhaustiblesearchers

Ava Frisinger and her husband,Bill, moved from Michigan to aMay Valley house near TigerMountain the previous winter.

Ava Frisinger was a University ofWashington graduate student then.Nowadays, she serves as themayor of Issaquah. Bill Frisinger,now retired, worked as a Boeingengineer.

The couple joined a search partya few days after the disappear-ance, and scanned brush near

Issaquah Creek. About 15 peoplefanned out across that search area,kept arms’ lengths apart and ranwands through the brush to lookfor signs of David.

“People thought this was some-thing that happened in big cities,”Ava Frisinger said. “Small townswere safe places. They were goodplaces for kids.”

Bill Frisinger recalled when mili-tary helicopters equipped withthen-secret infrared sensorsbuzzed the area at night. Noisefrom the rotors, and lights from thehelicopter, startled the Frisingersawake.

The infrared technology offeredthe Adamses new hope for resolu-tion.

“I said, even if there’s a body,

would they find it?” Ann Adamsrecalled. “And they said, yes, thatthey could.”

But the helicopter search, likethe ground effort below, failed tofind anything.

Despite widespread efforts byarea residents, and news coveragethe case received, the disappear-ance received little attention in theClark Elementary School class-room where David attended thirdgrade. Rob Killian shared a doubledesk with David, and attended thesame church.

“Nothing was said at school,”Killian recalled. “It was not dis-cussed. And, now that I thinkabout that, in memory that seemsso odd. We weren’t warned orcounseled or offered grief counsel-ing or interviewed.”

At the Adams house, searchorganizers reached a grim conclu-sion. After days spent scouringTiger Mountain, teams had foundnothing.

Investigators searched the areafor about five days, while volun-teers kept up the unofficial searchfor another five days or so.

Cronk recalled how businessesdonated food and batteries to thesearch teams. Volunteers were socommitted that some searchersrefused to leave the mountain, andlost jobs because they wanted tocontinue.

Inside the search headquartersat the Adams house, however,Cronk and other organizers knewthe search was done. Cronkwalked outside and addressed thecrowd — between 75 and 100people — through a bullhorn andcalled off the search. Peoplebroke down, overcome with emo-tion.

“We chased every loose end,”Cronk said. “We chased every pos-sible lead we could find.”

The case would gather dust atthe King County Sheriff’s Office forthe next 41 years.


LostFROM PAGE A1

BY GREG FARRAR

Ava and Bill Frisinger revisit forested fields near their old home on 231st Avenue Southeast at Southeast May ValleyRoad, where they joined in searches for 8-year-old David Adams in 1968.


�City pockets local, statedollars for parks upgrades

City officials accepted parksgrants from local and stateagencies Dec. 7 in order toenhance and preserve landnear Issaquah Creek.

The city received $800,000from the state Recreation andConservation Office to buyland for Tollë Anderson Park,part of a downtown parks sys-tem at the confluence ofIssaquah Creek and the EastFork.

The area encompasses threecontiguous parks: Cybil-Madeline Park, Tollë AndersonPark and Issaquah Creek Park.City officials call the area the“crown jewel” of the municipalpark system.

The grant will supplementcity park bond dollars, and beused toward the purchase ofproperty where the park isplanned.

The council also accepted a$6,500 grant from the KingConservation District. Theaward will extend a partner-ship between the city and theWashington Native PlantSociety in order to enhanceand maintain riparian habitatat Berntsen Park through2010.

As part of the partnership,the plant society trains volun-teers in a 10-week, 100-hourcourse. The volunteers thenform five-member teams; ateam from the group willrestore the creek buffer atBerntsen Park, 804 Fourth St.N.W.

The conservation districtoffers information and techni-cal-assistance programs tolandowners, as well as con-servation grants. Taxpayersfund the district through a$10 per-parcel assessmentfee; additional money comesfrom the state ConservationCommission.

davidharris

Line

New YearHappy

City offices will close Thursday, Dec. 31. City, county, state and federal officesand banks will close Friday, Jan. 1. Post offices will close and mail will not bedelivered. State driver’s license offices also will be closed. Metro Transit willoperate on a Sunday schedule. On weekdays with reduced schedules, somecommuter and school-oriented routes do not operate, and other routes willhave trips canceled. Call 206-553-3000 or go to http://metro.kingcounty.gov.

Rainfall unavailableat press time.

YOU SHOULD KNOW� RAIN GAIN�A&E . . . . . . . . . B8

Classifieds . . . B6-7

Community . . . B1

Opinion . . . . . . A4

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Sportsstories ofthe year� See Page C4

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INSIDE THE PRESS�



INNOCENCE

LOSTPart 3:Clues


Detectives re-examine ’68 cold case with few cluesBy Warren KagariseIssaquah Press reporter

Investigators scoured TigerMountain for almost a week.Volunteers searched for days more.Still, the mountain yielded nosecrets in the search for DavidAdams, the 8-year-old boy lastseen near 15 Mile Creek in May1968.

The disappearance baffled inves-tigators. Left to work with fewleads and scant evidence, the casefaded into memory for more thanfour decades — until now.

In the spring, King CountySheriff’s Office investigatorsreceived a $500,000 grant to re-examine cold cases. The agencyestablished a cold case unit; detec-

tives treated the Tiger Mountaindisappearance as a priority.

When David vanished May 3,1968, authorities handled the caseas a search-and-rescue effort.Perhaps the boy fell down adefunct coalmine shaft or suffereda wild animal attack. After exhaus-tive searches for David turned upno traces, people suspected some-thing more sinister.

David played with a friend afterschool, and then left for the shorttrek home at about 5 p.m. AnnAdams, now 76, asked her son toreturn home for dinner just beforehe vanished.

“I have the firm, firm feeling thatthis was not an accident, thatsomebody was involved,” she said.“Now, whether it was an accident

on their part, I don’t know if theydeliberately set out to do harm tohim. But somehow along in theassociation that they had, harmwas done to him.”

The lead detective, ScottTompkins, believes someone elsecaused the disappearance, too.Everything Tompkins knows aboutthe case is contained in a binderlabeled “homicide” — 41 yearscondensed into three inches.

Detectives collected little evi-dence from the area where 6-year-old Kevin Bryce last saw David.Nobody knows if searchers dam-aged other evidence during thehunt for the lost boy.

Tompkins said he was amazedby how little detective work wasconducted in 1968, because

authorities managed the disap-pearance as a search-and-rescueeffort instead of a child abduction.

“If the community felt that hewas attacked by a cougar or felldown a well, then it wasn’t on peo-ple’s minds,” he said.

‘Time is the enemy’Robert Lowery, executive direc-

tor of the missing children divisionfor the National Center for Missingand Exploited Children, said high-profile abductions and technologi-cal advances since 1968 reshapedthe way investigators and peopleapproach missing child cases.

“We’re more sensitive now about

See LOST, Page A6

BY GREG FARRAR

The binder for King County Sheriff’sCase No. 68-008320, in the disap-pearance of David Adams, is labeled‘homicide,’ and ‘open,’ with a blankafter ‘S’ for suspect.

Top 10 newsstories of 2009Economy, weather and more

Growth slowed and the economycooled throughout 2009. Thewatershed moments in Issaquahhinged on expansion and reces-sion. Leaders broke ground for amajor new employer, even whileother businesses left town for good.

Issaquah began the first decadeof a new century as a fast-growingcity, a title the city held for years. As2009 reached a close, however, offi-cials pared the size of governmentto face the new economic reality.

From January floods to recordJuly heat and brutal Decembercold, 2009 was jam-packed, butthe year was never dull

Living ‘green’continues in Issaquah

A new community gardensprouted, threatened salmonreceived another chance and cityofficials worked to make dining outmore eco-friendly.

Volunteers harvested more than300 pounds of organic peppers,squash and tomatoes for theIssaquah Food and Clothing Bank.The effort brought together a com-munity group, SustainableIssaquah, and nonprofit AtWork!to feed the hungry.

Salmon benefited from goodworks, too. Throughout fall,Issaquah Salmon Hatchery work-ers and volunteers collected almost35,000 eggs to restore vulnerablekokanee salmon.

King County Council membersand local environmentalists alsoprodded the federal government tolist Lake Sammamish kokanee asendangered, but the U.S. Fish andWildlife Service ended 2009 with-out a decision about the salmon’sstatus.

Officials further burnished thecity’s green credentials when theCity Council banned polystyrenefood containers, like Styrofoamtakeout boxes.

Issaquah will become the firstEastside city to require businessesto switch from eco-unfriendly poly-styrene to compostable or recycla-ble — and pricier — containersand utensils. The council votedNov. 16 to follow bans in Seattle,Portland and San Francisco.

What’s next: A voluntary adop-tion period will begin Jan. 1, andthe ban will become mandatoryOct. 1.

Happy birthdayAbove, Vitez rolls around with some bam-boo, about the only Christmas present he

enjoyed Dec. 23. At right, Bagheera eyes abox, one of his presents, suspiciously. Maybehe knew it contained nothing but small tuftsof reindeer fur. The newest Cougar Moun-tain Zoo cubs were given Christmas trees,

plenty of bamboo and boxes that had meat,fur and various smells in them. See video of

the cubs enjoying their first Christmas atwww.issaquahpress.com.See TOP 10, Page A3


Questions about commercialdevelopment in the IssaquahHighlands prompted developerPort Blakely Communities to askcity officials to postpone a decisionon a highlands gas station.

Port Blakely President AlanBoeker asked city officials to post-pone the key vote less than a weekafter a city commission postponeda residential project in the high-lands until Port Blakely answersquestions about commercial devel-opment plans.

City Council members were setto consider a change to the agree-ment between the city and PortBlakely to allow a highlands gasstation, banned when the agree-ment was drafted due to concernsabout ground water contamina-tion. Officials scheduled the meas-ure for a Dec. 21 vote.

City officials and highlands resi-dents subjected Port Blakely tocriticism in recent months becauseadditional commercial develop-ment has failed to materialize inthe highlands. The gas stationamendment also received a luke-warm reception from the Council

Highlandsgas stationdecision

is delayed

See GAS STATION, Page A5

It is very likely the MerryChristmas Issaquah emergency aidfund will set a new record for thenumber of donors this year. Butthe fund is still more than $16,000away from its goal of $50,000.

It usually takes about 200 indi-vidual donors for the fund to reachits goal, but this year 157 dona-tions have already arrived and thefund is still more than 30 percentshy.

Merry Christmas Issaquah hasbecome known as the fund thathelps people help themselves. Nothaving enough funds to help thosewho need help with a new pair ofglasses, a prescription for a sickchild, work boots to start a newjob, a car repair, rent or an over-due power bill is something the

volunteers at Issaquah Church andCommunity Services cannot fath-om. ICCS is the nonprofit agencythat distributes the Christmasfunds.

“We don’t ever have as much aswe’d like, but you’d be surprisedhow much a little bit can help,”said Marilyn Taylor, president ofICCS. “But the need is so great.This may be the year that fundsrun dry. We pray it won’t be so.”

Christmas fund is still30 percent under goal

See FUND, Page A5

TO DATE: $33,8222009 GOAL: $50,000

ONCE AROUNDTHE LAKE

Two Santa Clauses enjoy thecold, clear sunshine on Lake

Sammamish Christmas Day, asDouglas Bubbletrousers, of LosAngeles, wakeboards behindthe personal watercraft of Is-

saquah resident Jason "The Pi-rate" Gilluly. Bubbletrouserssubstituted for Issaquah resi-

dent Blake Thomson, whocould not ski this year, in the

fifth year of continuing a long-time holiday tradition startedyears ago by Barry Nyman.Sounds of cheers could be

heard coming from surprisedlakeshore residents. BY COLIN THOMSON

New YearHappy

PHOTOS BY KATHLEEN R. MERRILL

Merry Christmas Issaquah Fund

Helping neighbors help themselves

Total: $33,822from 157 donors

2009 Fund Goal: $50,000Thank You! to this week’s donors:

Let there be hope.

To donate, send to:Merry Christmas Issaquah

c/o The Issaquah PressPO Box 1328, Issaquah, WA 98027

Name will be published unless anonymity is requested.

David & Pauline Harris

Bruce Miller

James & Lorraine Cooper

John & Celese Spencer

Thomas & Jean Aguirre

Jane Stevenson

Debra McElroy

Bob & Mary Hildie

Thomas & Christina Anderson

Barbara & Bill Galler

Chris & Shelly Hawkins

Michael & Maureen Bondor

Alan Silverman

Larry Norton

Robert & Nina Milligan

Wanda Taylor & Kelly Bezdzietny

James & Leslie Young

Richard & Margaret Jacobs

Richard & Karen Johnson

David & Penny Short

Richard & Dorothy Amidei

Ralph & Ann Moore

K.L. & Marian Hampton

Kathleen & Michael Richardson

Joan Smithers

Betsy & Keith Seiler

Joanne Engle, in memory of Frank G. Engle

Craig Nelsen & Margaret Hall

William & Yoko Smiley

Lisa Lloyd, in memory of Elise and Robert Perry

Valborg Borman

John McConnell

Charles & Jolene deKeyser

Judi Schrager

Peter & Karen Norby

6 anonymous

On TV, when things go wrong in the ER,they win an Emmy.

In real life, when things go right in the ER,they win one of these.

You’re looking at the 2009 Press Ganey Summit Award. And, while you’ve probably

never heard of it, if you ran a hospital you certainly would.

That’s because the Press Ganey organization studies more than 10,000 healthcare

facilities in the U.S. The 74 that delivered exceptional patient satisfaction scores three

years in a row won this award — and that’s exactly what the Swedish/Issaquah ER just did.

What makes Swedish patients happy? For starters, instead of making you wait in

the lobby, you’re almost always ushered right into a treatment room. There are no long

delays to see a doctor either — Swedish guarantees the doctor will be with you in 30

minutes or less.

Truth be told, Swedish didn’t win this trophy. The men and women who work at

this remarkable, efficient, patient-friendly place did.

They’re the real stars of the show. And, while they may never win an Emmy, they

definitely deserve a standing ovation.

2005 N.W. Sammamish Rd. – www.swedish.org/issaquahER

EMMY® and the EMMY statuette are the trademark property of ATAS/NATAS.

what happens in these cases,” hesaid.

Although people opened news-papers, listened to radios orwatched television broadcastsfilled with information about thecase, many reports containedincorrect information.

The Seattle Times and SeattlePost-Intelligencer misidentified thelost boy as “David Adam.” Articlesin the days after the disappearancecarry reports about bogus sight-ings. Tompkins said a few reportsturned out to be cruel hoaxes.

David disappeared almost a fullday before the case received wide-spread attention. The disappear-ance received unprecedented cov-erage, but a key tool investigatorsuse today to locate missing chil-dren — the AMBER Alert — wasnonexistent in 1968.

Nowadays, information about amissing child can be beamedacross TV news tickers, electronichighway signs and mobile phonesminutes after authorities deter-mine a child is lost.

But 41 years ago, authoritieswere unable to saturate the air-waves with the description for aslender boy, 4 feet tall, with darkbrown hair and intense blue eyes,dressed in green-and-brown plaidshirt, jeans and high tops.

“Time is the enemy when itcomes to finding a child,” Lowerysaid.

DNA technology, another crime-solving tool, was unimaginable 41years ago. Detectives now collect acomb, toothbrush or another itemchockablock with DNA traces frommissing people to aid investiga-tions.

Not long after the King CountySheriff’s Office revived the Adams

investigation, agents collected DNAsamples from Ann and Don Adamsand uploaded the information in anational database. The agency alsocollected DNA — through a quick,oral swab — from the oldest Adamschild, Steven, who lives in Alaska.

Known as the Combined DNAIndex System, the database helpsinvestigators compare forensicDNA evidence nationwide.

Tompkins said DNA samples are

key in cold cases. If another lawenforcement agency had recoveredunidentified human remains, DNAfrom them could be matched againstgenetic profiles in the database.

Searchers recovered no traces ofDavid. The first search teamsscanned the forest near the Adamshouse in the hours after Davidfailed to return home. King Countyinvestigators arrived the nextmorning, and volunteers came toIssaquah by the hundreds tosearch.

Military helicopters equippedwith then-secret infrared sensorsbuzzed the area. Volunteers trav-eled south toward Mount Rainier toinvestigate reported sightings.Searchers used fabric strips tornfrom bed sheets on which Davidslept to help dogs pick up the scent.

Unanswered questionsDon Adams, then a captain in

the Air Force Reserve, remembersthe search dog teams well. Hereturned from Air Force training inOklahoma days after his second-oldest son vanished.

But the dogs, like the searchersand the helicopters, found nothing.Don Adams, now 77, recalled a fol-low-up visit from searchers afterorganizers called off the hunt forDavid.

“A few weeks later, they cameback, and they said the dogs hadnever failed to find who they werelooking for if who they were look-ing for was there,” he said. “Basedon that, I just assumed that some-

body had taken him from thearea.”

Detectives eyed a 20-year-oldman early in the investigation, aU.S. Navy corpsman whose familylived near the Adamses. Policereports from the days after Daviddisappeared show the man piqueddetectives’ interest.

A search volunteer and TigerMountain residents said the manbehaved in a strange way whenasked about the disappearance.Neighbors told police they saw aman walking along Tiger MountainRoad the day David vanished.

A detective interviewed the manMay 6, 1968 — three days after aschoolmate last saw David near 15Mile Creek. The man told thedetective he had been taking tran-quilizers because, he said, he was“a very nervous person,” courtdocuments state.

Tompkins requested a warrantin October to search mobile phonerecords because he felt the man,now a Lewis County resident,steered potential witnesses awayfrom investigators. Tompkinsdescribed the man as a “person ofinterest” in the case.

The man agreed to a polygraphtest, administered in April at theLewis County Sheriff’s Office. Theman told Tompkins he assistedwith the search. The man failedthe test, court documents state. Atechnician recorded the strongestdeception reading when the manwas asked, “Do you know wherethe body is?”

The man also told Tompkins hepassed a polygraph test in May1968, court documents show.However, the test is not included inthe modern-day Adams case file.

No conclusive evidence links theman to the disappearance. TheIssaquah Press typically does notname people until they arecharged with a crime.

Patrick Tiekamp, 64, is the olderbrother of the man interviewed byinvestigators. Tiekamp saidTompkins targeted his brotherbecause the former neighbor hap-pens to be “the last man standing.”Tiekamp said the investigationaggravated the post-traumaticstress disorder his brother devel-oped in Vietnam.

“If my brother had done any-thing like that, he would have con-fided in me,” Tiekamp said.

Tiekamp said his brother servedin Vietnam soon after David disap-peared. In Vietnam, the manworked in a military morgue, andthe word body still provokes strong

reactions, Tiekamp said. “Corpsman don’t kill people,” he

added. “They save lives.”

‘All is well with David’Ann and Don Adams never left

Tiger Mountain where the familysettled with David in 1968.

“There for a long time, we keptthinking maybe one day therewould be a knock on the door andthere he would be,” Ann Adamssaid. “We wanted to be there.”

They raised a close-knit family— six children in the house. Adaughter was born a few yearsafter David disappeared. Despitethe disappearance and unsolvedmystery, the Adamses said tragedynever forced them to become over-protective with the other children.

“We’ve had a happy, good life,”Ann Adams said. “Whoever wasinvolved with this, I think I feelsorrier for them than I do for us.My life is just overflowing withgood memories and happy days,but they must be carrying a terri-ble burden.”

The children biked, swam, hikedand picked berries in the thick for-est nearby. Still, questions aboutDavid remained. Jill Stephenson,the Adamses’ oldest daughter,recalled how she walked throughthe woods as a child and won-dered, “What if I came across himor his bones?”

When detectives renewed theinvestigation in April, the newattention the case received forcedthe Adamses to relive the painfrom 41 years earlier.

Eileen Erickson, a longtime fam-ily friend, described Ann and DonAdams as hospitable, open peopleunlikely to become distracted byself-pity.

“I don’t think they’re the kind ofpeople who would sit there andsay, ‘Why me?’” Erickson said.

Searchers left the Adamses’house about a week after Davidvanished. Grief lingered long aftera family friend hoisted a bullhornand ended the search.

“You just deal with grief as any-one deals with grief,” Ann Adamssaid. “Actually, when they contact-ed us last spring that they weregoing to open the case again, nowand at this point, I can’t say that Ihope they find out what happened.We’re at peace. I know all is wellwith David, whatever the circum-stances are or were.”


BY GREG FARRAR

Scott Tompkins (left) and Jake Pavlovich, King County Sheriff’s detectives,working out of their office at the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent,have a three-inch binder compiling the available information on the unsolveddisappearance case of David Adams.

LostFROM PAGE A1


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