The body of a seven-year-old . . . discovered by a nine-year-old
“We were looking for blackberries,” the little girl later told police. “We knew there were lots of blackberries down that trail because we had picked them before. It was about seven o’clock when we decided to go play at the forest. People dump all sorts of stuff there—leaves and things. We were walking and my friend saw a skate. At least she thought she saw one, but we didn’t know for sure. We walked down further and that’s when we saw it.”
“We were walking side by side,” the other little girl confirmed. “We went around to the other side of the bushes, but we couldn’t find the skate. On the way back up the trail, I saw a human foot. It was under some grass clippings. It looked like a kid’s foot. I screamed, and the other kids came running over.”
From his pickup truck, Wesley Coulter heard the screams and saw the two crying girls. “On every other telephone pole in all of Everett, there was a poster of Roxanne Doll. I just had a feeling, so I grabbed my phone and went down to where the kids had been playing. I saw some little toes sticking up out of the grass. I looked at them and I didn’t believe they were real.”
Coulter grabbed a tree limb and prodded the foot to see if it was indeed real, or that of a doll. It was real. “I was filled with anger when I touched the toes. Then I knew for certain that Roxanne had died.”
BROKEN DOLL
BURL BARER
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
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Table of Contents
The body of a seven-year-old . . . discovered by a nine-year-old Title Page Dedication Acknowledgments Prologue Part 1 - MISSING
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7
Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11
Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17
Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21
Epilogue Author’s Note Copyright Page
For Jaja
Acknowledgments
This book is an account of events adapted from trial transcripts, police records, and interviews. Conversations, statements, legal arguments, testimonies, and all other remarks quoted herein are adaptations of such as recalled from memory. For purposes of clarity, concision, and continuity, statements and conversations often necessitated condensation and emendation. All efforts have been made to retain the original intent, and any errors are unintentional.
This book would not have been possible without the exemplary cooperation of the Everett Washington Police Department, and the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office.
Heartfelt appreciation is expressed to the dedicated health-care professional, Donna McCooke, RGN, of Great Britain, whose views of the issue at hand were of significant value in helping the author retain a sense of perspective.
My editor, the patient and unflappable Michaela Hamilton, deserves credit for the book’s readability. Heartfelt gratitude to Charlotte Dial Breeze, my literary agent for a decade, my dear friend for life.
An individual who chooses to surrender to the promptings of his material nature can sink to levels of depravity and bestiality which are abhorrent to the discerning eye, and which are totally unworthy of the human station.
—’Abdu’l-Bahá
The more often the captain of a ship is in the tempest and difficult sailing, the greater his knowledge becomes. Therefore, I am happy that you have had great tribulations and difficulties.... Strange it is that I love you and still I am happy that you have sorrows.
—’Abdu’l-Bahá
Prologue
May 28, 1988
On a pleasant spring evening in Everett, Washington, an innocent after-dinner game of hide-and-seek turned traumatic for Angela Rono and her youngest daughter, four-year-old Feather Rahier. “It was about nine P.M,” recalled Rono, “and I had just called my four kids to come in from outside because it was bedtime. They all came right in, except Feather.
“I sent the kids back outside to get her,” Rono said, “and they were calling her name and looking all over for her. When they couldn’t find her, I sent them to the neighbor’s house to ask if they had seen her. Then I sent them across the alley to the Clark residence.”
Carol Clark, a kindly woman with a great love of children, had a twenty-year-old nephew named Richard, who often lived there with other members of Carol’s family. Richard Clark knew Feather, let her play with his puppy, and even gave her gifts. He primarily