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Hi, how do I go about violence within person? IT was evening, dark and cold in a suburb of parkland organ when the call came into dispatch, a mother reporting a missing daughter.

child, a child, and that there run away a little .

bit strange, the media assumption to twelve year old must be run away. So began the long, strange tale of what happened to actually pond. Not with a bang, but a whipper. As a dawn on a Young mother, what terrors could lie ahead?

Let me have my baby back.

Lorry ponds daughter actually had simply vanished on or so I seemed on a way to school in the town of organ city, january two thousand, two.

IT was very upsetting. A twelve year year old child had disappeared, that this is a child.

lindo neil, as a member of Ashley's extended blended family, lind's husband was once married to Ashley grandmother, not exactly a close relationship, but Linda certainly knew about ashly. How would you describe her?

A little girl.

SHE was kind of known as having an attitude.

But Linda was not just family. He was also a licensed private investigator. And in those first days, her experiences told her actually was probably okay.

My first thought would have been that he probably ran away.

Police in origin ant city apparently agreed, but then a whole weekend, by no sign of actually anywhere, runaway, inevitably contact someone. SHE didn't. And so now local officials, thinking abduction called in the FBI.

warned of the problems of the cases that there was A A wealth of suspects.

Jim ren is a federal crime reporter who worked at the porter tribune at the time. Ashley, he soon learned that disappeared from an apartment complex that was a mulligan stew of troubled souls.

IT had a lot of welfare cases. IT had a number of mental ill people that would be placed there by the county, a lot of single mothers who attracted a lot of really bad boyfriends.

In fact, searching for suspects found no fewer than ninety sex offenders living within a mile of the complex. One possible suspect was actually his own biological father. He had been convicted of sexually abusing her during one of her visits. Had he taken her, and if not him.

who.

as weeks passed, the terrible realization began to stay in around town. Ashleys little group of best friends knew IT everybody seemed to sensitive something awful had happened to actually. Her name is maranda.

As he spoke to a television reporter from K A T U T V. Important SHE had no way of knowing that fate and its I on her too. In the weeks that follow, the task force would chase hundreds of leads.

They were, according to newspaper reports, watched Ashley mother and her mom's boyfriend. Investigators even began tAiling a couple of male neighbors from the apartments. No one that seemed new, anything IT, was as if actually pond that disappeared into thin air. And then two months after actually disappeared, this girl, yes, the one interviewed earlier, the girl name maranda, unbelievably turned up missing two, two girls from the same apartment complex, the same school, even the same dance team, vanished within eight weeks of one another.

When the second girl disappeared, IT caused panic, absolute panic. They were afraid that there was a serial killer among them.

In a suburb, portland dragon, everyone could feel the chill. The disappearance of thirteen year old maranda gtx was a sickening reminder of the way twelve year old actually palm vanish two months before now, the FBI ramped up its investigation and called in scores of agents, soon more than sixty of them. We're working on the case, a true test force, assign, define, the answers about actually a maranda.

Linda began to turn down other world to work on this case full time. A little crazy, maybe, given the size of the official investigation. But remember, Linda felt a real family connection with Ashley. This was personal. What made you think that you could help solve this crime?

The F. B, I would say, we have no suspects, we have no crime scene, and we have no, no clues. So IT appeared that they need a little help.

but where to start suspects were no problem. Narrowing IT down was so on the list. A former neighbor on the wrong end of a restraining order are taken out by an next girlfriend, mandis father, once convicted of abusing two minor girls. And that was just for starters. So linder decided to start with a name she'd heard from Ashley's.

And I asked, who are the people in Ashley's life? And SHE told me about word weave.

ver. Word weaver was a neighbor, a family friend, whose home was right next to the apartment complex in which h and her mother lived. We've did have a criminal record for a self, but IT had been sixteen years before now.

He seemed like a hard working, single father, raising a daughter at least age. And police had already checked out his ali and said several teams of officers and dogs, the searched his house in property and found nothing. After all, there were so many suspects. Why would ward weaver stand out in that group?

Because Ashley had complained that he had sexually molested her.

yet has been to learn those allegations had apparently been investigated, and no charges have been filed. But SHE decided to run a computer check on weather.

and he was done, I get this information.

Word weaver is on death row.

Fellow on death row for cereal murder was word weavers father. Strange.

but true. Weaver's father had been on california air death row for two decades, but surely just having a father who was a killer wasn't reason enough to suspect the sun was IT. Then, just about the time Linda was conducted that question, a second private investigator offered to help.

So work right.

Harry. Ox is a bit of a memri k he runs a four profit search and rescue center. At the time, his partner was a twelve year old pound, rescued much name vallery. Many police departments don't like him, said Harry, don't use them. But in this case, he waved his feet, did some background work, showed gallery some of estyn clothing, and went to work .

the light from the apartment complex of the road, the staircase towards property.

that name, again, word word wever good work. Harry, with his gallery now excited and on the chase, knocked in weaver's door and asked for permission to search the house. He said.

I don't have any problem with you. Searched in the body brand, seven different search dog teams. I have nothing to high. During the search of the house, he gave me a death ert on at least ent in words.

how we did a valery alert anywhere else.

Yes, when we went outside to the back area, there is, there is a slab that have imported concrete slab, crete slab, where the slab meant with the grass, the dirt, where they came together. My dog was snowing, actually sent coming out there.

Did you call nine one one?

I made a report turn turn IT into organ city police department.

A record of Harry report shows IT was indeed turned into police on march twenty, less than two weeks after amErica a disappeared. But was there any reaction from the police?

They basically ignore this.

but about the FBI ignore .

IT .

this but not long after Harris report found its way to the desk of private eye and 都， what did his reports say to you as an .

investor? IT said red flag, his dog had alerted a default over a freshly pored concrete slab in our world waver backyard.

And something about that slab resonated with Linda. Remember when he was digging into the background award, rivers father, the serial killer on death row, SHE, found out what he had done with one of his victims.

buried her in the middle of his backyard and then covered IT with concrete.

a concrete slab.

Yes, a concrete slab.

And lindon suspicions were about to grow. Over the next few weeks, teachers, dance coaches, even rivers x wise, would tell her stories of disturbing and inappropriate behavior. There was a teacher who saw we've had drop actually off at school, and here was this man and his late thirties, locked in a passionate kiss with twelve year old age.

Later, there was the family friend who said, actually spent weeks at a time at rivers house, often sleeping in his bed with him. There was the girlfriend who said that river was angry with maranda because he had been telling girls in the neighbor od, stay away from drivers house. He might not less you. By june, Ashley now gone six months and maranda three months, the story had hit the cover of people magazine, but that seemed to reporters that the FBI wasn't anywhere close to close in the case.

IT was very much. We have a range of suspects, maybe six to eight different men. The entire impression that I got was the are not, in fact, focused on any particular individual.

The reporter didn't know IT, but he was about to play a key role in the case, and Linda niel said he was about to get the scare of her life. Returning home one day to see her son working on his car with a stranger .

came face to face with word wever .

with your son.

He's with my son. He said, kids are so nai aren't and I said, mister weaver, I don't think that my family is any of your business and he said, misonne, that's what I came here to tell you. I dug out my gun and loaded IT, put IT in my purse.

Did you really think he might be coming after you or your family?

I thought that he was capable of anything.

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By june two thousand, two ashly pond had been missing for six months around the gatti for three. All of our gan cities seem to be cleaning to find hope. Their dance team.

we love on our praying for all the time.

their mothers.

And then we can't rap arms around them. I mean, whoever did this took that away from us and hopefully they're going to give our babies back so we can do that again.

FBI canines were dispatched once again to snifter around the apartment complex where the girls in even around wavers house, but apparently found nothing. And FBI spokeswoman continued to insist the agency had no suspects and virtually no clues. But this private eye disagreed, you must be going that .

I couldn't think of anything else.

Remember a lindo? Neel was part of achieve extended family. And I had been working the case for months, and SHE believed the FBI should by now have focused on ward weaver, a thirty nine year old single father who lived in a house near the apartment.

I was getting very upset and nervous about what was gonna en next, who was gonna next?

Linda thought I was time to take what he knew to the FBI. Did the FBI understand that you were a recognized private investigator who was going on? yes. What did he say you?

He said, we really don't need help from private investigators. You know, where were the FBI? We really don't think the word weather is a suspect.

We don't think ward weaver as a suspect.

Something like that.

How did you feel when you got off the phone? Devastated more on the fbs version of that phone call later. Still, whatever happened on that call got Linda so mad, so angry and so hurt that SHE got in touch with reporter jim redden.

SHE thought that he had legitimate information that they should be interested in, and they weren't responding the way you .

thought they should.

And yeah, SHE said, have you ever heard of word weaver? And at that point, I had not heard award river .

the private eye and the reporter came up with an idea, what about an interview with ward river? And so on sunday morning, the reporter got up early and draw over the weaver's house, knocked on the door and wonder wonders. Weaver invited him in for an interview that would lift law enforcement trade of secrecy on the case and put one name in the spotlight for the very first time. Did he seem to you at all like a potentially a sociopathic c killer?

He really seemed like a very Normal kind of guy. The more he talked, the more nervous he got. And that's when he said, i'm the fbs prime suspect.

What was your feeling? As you said.

they're talking to the man. Well, he was coming across to me as .

honest and candid. The reporters got feeling put in the back on her heels.

Jim redden said to me, you know, he seems like a okay guy.

Baby, you are the crazy one.

Sorry, I was looking at that way.

but the reporter wrote the article putting ward weavers name and print for the first time. Weaver was now the center of attention, and he seemed to be enjoying IT. And just days later, what did local police and the FBI do? They launched a huge RAID, executing a search warrant, toling away vehicles that might contains suspicious materials, and informing the target of all of this attention that he had failed a polygraph test.

The surprise, well, the surprise was in the man's name, IT was not ward weaver. And I started saying, you know, i'm i'm the number one suspect. And you know, they they think that I did IT another prime suspect, a neighbor of the girls who denied any role in the murder, said he had been interviewed five or six times, questioned about a camp trip he took the day around to disappeared, and his friends had been warned stay away from him. What no one knew is that the big break was about to occur, and IT would come not from the FBI task force or from local police, but from a woman, a teenager at the time who'd never force spoken about ve, what happened to her, or how SHE somehow found the strength to survive.

By August two thousand, two, seven months of past since actually pond disappeared, more than four months since maranda GTA vanished, and still oregon city police and the FBI appeared to the publi C2Be no clo ser to an arr est, even though neighbor or ward weaver had told whoever would listen that he was the prime suspect, and though actually step grandmother lindu neil firmly believed there was enough probable cause to search es property for the two bodies, police did not appear to her to be interested. No a search warrant was asked for or issued by early August. Linda and weaver had apparently had enough media attention.

He told people he was going to mexico or idaho yet empty his entire house of all of his possessions.

With his house empty and aren't ready to move out of organ wird. Weaver made a move that misdirected everybody involved.

He was nice person. Be around. He full people.

I guess that's the voice of radio. Ea, who was the girlfriend award? We've son, the mother of words, grandchild, when we spoke to her. He had never before revealed publicly what happened that day in August two thousand, two, when the age of nineteen SHE got in the car with weaver, a man SHE assumed he could trust .

all the way to his house. He was an acting different.

and then he walked into the house.

That's when he snap. That's when I noticed a different face.

He threw wear to the floor door, offer clothing and raped her. SHE couldn't talk about the worst of IT, SHE said, and her bodies seemed to stick en at the memory. Do you remember the look as I .

he was possessed IT wasn't him a look like state was inside of him. But the second he stood up off for me, his like face and went back to Normal.

And then.

and yeah, and I pushed them with my family, pushed him back, and I ran on the way .

out SHE grab a tarp covering the concrete slab and wards backyard. And then he ran naked and trembling after a savage sexual assault into the street where SHE flagged down a passing car. And within hours, ward weaver was arrested, booked and behind bars charged with rape. Mister way, you have any knowledge about the disappearance of ashlea maranda?

That was the moment that I really thought. This is the guy .

the donnell says she's noted for months known that a gut, that weaver was a violent man who killed ashly, a maranda and the head of in custody now for a violent rape. So he felt sure the FBI would move quickly to charge him in the disappearance of actually a Manda. Well, once he was in custody was a search warning issued for his property.

There was a search conducted that had everything to do with the rape, with the crime that had occurred that day. But then they took down the yellow crime tape, and they left.

And without crime scene tape or a steady police presence, weaver's house became kind of an open house after weeks of people seeing weaver's name in the papers, of seeing him on the news, sitting near that freshly pored concrete slab and hearing of his arrest for rape, many of the locals have come to the same conclusion as Linda.

What was the FBI waiting for? And here say they should dig IT up in mid August, in the days after war was arrested for raping his son's girlfriend, protesters gathered at the property and left. They're accusing signs lying around the on exam backyard.

Find those girls. They may not be their previous wrong.

How long was IT between the time ward driver was arrested? At the time somebody got a search, warn to look into his property.

Well, he was arrested August thirteen th, and IT was August twenty third when they got the search for ant.

Then, with crowds gathering again as if they knew what was to come, the FBI showed up in force directing two White tents, bringing in dozens of agents, tons of equipment, and hours later, the first discovery, a box in the shed behind the house.

the organ state medical examiner has positively identified the remains discovered as the body of maranda etas.

The following day, another vigil, another discovery, investigators finally dug up that concrete slab, the very spot at which that search dog that issued a death alert five months before. And they are beneath that, they found another body. These remains have been identified through dental records as those are actually pon.

IT was very sad news because I think you always hope until there's a body, you always have hope. And even though I always believe the bodies for their the reality of IT was .

difficult.

these two beautiful Young .

girls were .

gone forever.

During all those days, weeks, months, variety and hope, the long investigation, the scores of officers, the bodies of two little girls, were right there all along in ward wavers, backyard and weaver himself. At first, he claimed he had not a thing to do with IT. I personally have no .

clue how they got there in the end.

word weaver, without explaining how or why, simply pleaded guilty and was sentenced to remain in prison for the rest of his life.

I think everyone probably shares in the hope that there is a special person health for people like you.

How could word weaver have gotten away with IT so long? And how could the FBI have seen so well off, especially when others seem to have figure IT all out so easily? So there was sad as yes for the loss of those two girls, but also now anger. Your headline was .

wide to take so long, and that was the question that we were trying to get answered.

Although there is no evidence that the faster investigation might have saved ashlea maranda, the question remained, what about Randy, the Young woman whose presence of mind and physical strength in the face of rape and maybe something worse, save your own life, you know, Better than anybody else on earth, would actually Mandated to? If you hadn't had the the abilities you had, what would have happened to you?

That would be exactly. Rand.

you angry?

Yeah, very angry.

What does that angry feel like?

Is angry frustration that this happened to me? I really think .

who and the FBI.

the organza police.

if they were watching word weaver, how do you move all of his possessions out of his house, give notice and rape and almost kill one more girl? How indeed.

we wondered how the release of the FBI would respond to allegations that they had taken too long or bangle their investigation. What could they say? The radio ita.

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After all, the waiting, the investigating, the discovery of the bodies have actually pond a maranda etas and the arrest and conviction of their killer word, weaver. That's when the questions really began. A question flashed in a banner headline, why exactly had had taken so long? Police and the FBI agreed to answer their port than critics. Were they in some way ashamed of their investigation? Well, as a matter of fact, absolutely not.

This was a very, very successful investigation.

Robert Jordan was special agent in charge of the FBI is off as important when we SAT down with them. He came important after the murders resolved. Gordon heroes was the chief of the organ city police department at the time there, two agencies made up the task force on this case, and they bzzzz suggestions that they didn't move as quickly as they should have.

The investigators involved were driven to solve that case. They put their heart and soul. In that case, they would have arrested someone just as soon as they had probable cause to make arrest. In that case, there are those who believe, though, the problem, because he just did long before the rape radio need people who .

are not associated with the investigation.

People like gLinda or neel, who later code a book detAiling her investigation, called missing the organ city girls. Remember, IT was Linda, who said he called the FBI in june two thousand, two, two months before weavers arrest, to outline what he said was solid circumstantial evidence that wever was the killer and to the girl's bodies were buried on his property. Information that turned out that was true, Linda said the FBI agency spoke to wasn't interested in her opinion, reporter jim redden confirmed Linda told him the same story, but the head of portal land's office told the line no record of such a call exists.

The first and only documented contact our investigators had with the author was in in march, march twenty seven, and he said that he had a tip SHE wanted to pay us on the tip was a psychic tip, and that is the only documented contact this investigation had with the author.

But we wanted, could an agent have spoken to Linda, heard her allegations about ward weaver without keeping a full record of the call.

that absolutely, we had over four thousand tips that came into us, but yet many people wanted to tell a sword. We've did IT, but all those people were interviewed, and none of those interviews provided us with a witness or something. We could put IT in an affidavit for provable cause to arrest mister weaver or search es property.

If I said weaver was always among the top three suspects, especially after flocking a polygraph.

our polygraph followed out to his car, literally hurrying him, trying to get him to confess, and he wouldn't. Now, this is the united states of america. We don't have any physical ways to make somebody confess.

And so the investigation continued, said police, until weaver was arrested for rapping radio united and with his own sons came forward with incriminating information that allowed prosecutors and the test force to agree that finally, ten days after the arrest, they now had probable cause to search his property.

We were working in an investigation to try to a find the girls, and we couldn't find them safe and alive, find out who did IT, and we did that. That's a successful investigation.

Is that what you'd say to rent you need IT?

No, I I don't think I say that to and I SHE was at risk. There's no question about IT. SHE was at risk from ward wever.

And as for Linda and her book, the task force came out swinging the FBI saying the book was not credible and pointing to an author's note, the tells of reconstructed conversations, composers of characters and the fact that some names have been changed.

The book is fictionalized in some manner. And so um what's fiction? What's real? It's hard to say. Well.

I was offended, Linda said.

He made IT quite clear that while some names and narrative details were altered, her story is a true telling of events from her own perspective. Do they have some point that easy for you to say we could have move quicker, but you weren't part of the investigation. So how would .

you know what went on? I wasn't part of their investigation. I was on my own conducting my own investigation. And all I know is what I did and what I found out.

We contacted actually ponds mother for comment on our original report. SHE says that SHE will be forever grateful to the FBI and all the police agencies who worked on the case, and that any criticism of their efforts is unfair. So should ward weaver have been stopped sooner than he was? The question for randi uni ted was altogether two personal. What has he done to you?

He's ruined me. I really believe that they could have stop him before he gone. As far as he did .

around organ city, oregon, the strange disconnect is lingering bitterness among some who believe IT took too long to solve the murder of two little girls and among police satisfaction for a job well done.

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