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1982 Pearsall , Steven 9-14-1982; Lewiston
Topic Started: Jul 6 2006, 10:09 PM (716 Views)
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PIC: http://www.isp.state.id.us/mp_viewer/showM...n?id=M090131294

STEVEN R PEARSALL
LAST DATE OF CONTACT : 09/14/1982

DOB : 03/08/1947 HEIGHT : 5'11"
GENDER : MALE WEIGHT : 160 lbs
HAIR COLOR : BROWN EYE COLOR : BROWN
RACE : WHITE


CASE INFORMATION :
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IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THIS PERSON PLEASE CONTACT :
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LEWISTON PD 208 746-0171
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http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/pearsall_steven.html

Steven R. Pearsall


Above Images: Pearsall, circa 1982


Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: September 14, 1982 from Lewiston, Idaho
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: March 8, 1947
Age: 35 years old
Height and Weight: 5'11, 160 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian male. Brown hair, brown eyes.


Details of Disappearance

Pearsall was last seen at the Lewiston Civic Theater in Lewiston, Idaho on September 14, 1982. He was employed as a janitor there, and asked his friends to drop him off so he could do some work and practice his clarinet. He has never been heard from again.
Pearsall disappeared on the same night as stepsisters Kristina Nelson, 21, and Jacqueline "Brandy" Miller, 18. The two women were last seen leaving Nelson's apartment to go to a grocery store. They would have passed the theater on their way, and may have gone inside. Nelson and Miller's bodies were found in Kendrick, Idaho almost two years after their disappearances; their homicides remain unsolved.

Christina White, 12, disappeared from the Asotin County Fair in Asotin County, Idaho on April 28, 1979, and was never found. Photographs and vital statistics for her are unavailable. Kristin David, a student at the University of Idaho, disappeared while riding her bike from Moscow, Idaho to Lewiston on June 26, 1981; her dismembered remains were found in the Snake River eight days later. Authorities believe White's disappearance and David's murder are connected to Pearsall's disappearance and Nelson and Miller's homicides. A suspect has been interviewed numerous times by police, but has not been charged in any of the cases; nor has he been publicly identified. All of the cases remain unsolved.



Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Lewiston Police Department
208-746-0171



Source Information
Idaho Missing Person Clearinghouse
The Internet Crime Archives
The Lewiston Morning Tribune



Updated 2 times since October 12, 2004.

Last updated July 30, 2006; details of disappearance updated.

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http://z10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/in...opic=8116&st=0&
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http://www.argusobserver.com/articles/2008...63047146476.txt

Police wait for hot tips on cold cases


By BRAD W. GARY
Lewiston Tribune
Saturday, October 25, 2008 11:45 PM PDT



Barry Kough | The Lewiston Tribune, AP Lewiston Police evidence officer Brian Birdsell keeps track of row after row of boxes full of evidence in the secure basement of the Lewiston Police Dept.
LEWISTON (AP) — The black binders are loaded with notes, and visible to anyone who peeks inside Lt. Alan Johnson’s office.

Those neatly kept files, with both typed and hand-scrawled notes related to five unsolved murders, will remain in Johnson’s care until he walks out the door of the Lewiston Police Department for good.

He’s not the first officer to investigate the cases, but Johnson hopes to be the last. His department reopened a series of murder cases in 1997, continuing an already decades-old investigation into the deaths of Christina White, Kristin David, Steven R. Pearsall, Kristina D. Nelson and Jacqueline (Brandy) A. Miller from 1979 to 1982.

Investigators at the time believed all five cases involved the same ‘‘person of interest.’’ No arrest has ever been made.

‘‘You’re always hoping to find that one piece of evidence that either puts it over the top or identifies the criminal suspect, or provides closure to the family,’’ Johnson said.
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They aren’t the only unsolved murders in Lewiston. And Johnson’s list isn’t the only one that has aged in the depths of detective offices around the region. As many as 19 suspected homicide cases, going back to 1961, remain unresolved in southeast Washington and north central Idaho.

Police suspect homicide in many of the cases, even when a person is still legally declared missing. Bodies of others have turned up years after the initial reports were made.

‘‘It’s really important that these folks are not forgotten,’’ said Nez Perce County Chief Deputy Bill Madison. He has two cases on his department’s evidence shelf.

Johnson admits the days in which new notes are added to his binders have winnowed. Working a two-decades-old murder case can often lead to dead ends, detectives say.


‘‘It’s true — 48 hours are the most critical hours in a homicide, witness interviews, that’s when the information is going to be at its best,’’ Johnson said.

But the boxes of evidence have swelled since he took on the investigation that began when 12-year-old White disappeared from the Asotin County Fair on April 28, 1979.

In June 1981, David, 22, was last seen riding her bicycle from Moscow to Lewiston. Her remains were found dismembered in the Snake River days later, and no killer has been found.

And in September 1982, Nelson, 21, Miller, 18, and Pearsall, 35, disappeared from the Lewiston Civic Theatre.


Nelson and Miller’s bodies turned up two years later at the bottom of a hillside near Kendrick. Pearsall has never been found, but police suspect him to be a victim in the case.

Witness memories fade over time, and family member addresses spiderweb across the country. Some interviews are now conducted by phone, Johnson said. Decades-old cases often don’t get the resources of a full-time detective, and often take years to work through.

That is why former Lewiston Police Chief Jack Baldwin made contact with a group of retired detectives in 1997. Then living in northern Idaho’s Kootenai County, the retired Los Angeles-area officers had formed a group to aid peace officers in their investigations.

Officers Without Legal Standing, as the group is called, looked over the Civic Theatre murders and White’s disappearance. It was the only such instance Johnson can remember his department sharing an investigation with an outside agency.

Tom Johnston, a retired lieutenant from Los Angeles County, was the lead on that investigation, Johnson said.

‘‘In his opinion, the investigations were looking at the right individual,’’ Johnson said. That individual is the ‘‘person of interest’’ in both cases, and the case of David, he said.

That person of interest has never been named publicly, Johnson said. While not officially classifying the man as a suspect, Johnson said there were inconsistencies in his statements to investigators.

‘‘That is why he has never been removed as a person of interest in our case,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘He was also one of the last individuals to be seen with Christina White.’’

He was later one of the last to be seen at the Civic Theatre before Nelson, Miller and Pearsall disappeared.

David’s case was eventually taken over by the FBI, Johnson said, primarily because of the jurisdictional issues regarding her disappearance and subsequent discovery.

Follow-up interviews suggested by the law enforcement group led to the use of cadaver dogs, and excavation of separate sites in Asotin and Clarkston. The city contracted with a geophysics expert to conduct ground-penetrating radar at a few locations.

‘‘There was never any physical evidence recovered at any of the sites,’’ Johnson said.

Their efforts left the murder investigation open for eight years. Investigative efforts continued intermittently until 2007.

The cases were reopened without much fanfare — the same as many investigations throughout the region. Unsolved cases are periodically reviewed by the region’s detectives in an effort to find any potential information.

Idaho County sheriff’s Capt. Skott Mealer brought in the help of the state police, FBI and even psychics in efforts to help detectives solve the murders of Lynn and C. Bruce Peeples. The Grangeville couple was found strangled in their burned home on April 1, 1994.

Mealer said he’s still collecting pieces of a puzzle that could one day lead to a resolution in the case.

‘‘There are victims out there, and we have an obligation to do our job,’’ Mealer said.

The Peeples homicide is routinely investigated, he said, as is the 1982 disappearance of 2-year-old Ricky Barnett, who was visiting his grandparents near Grangeville.

‘‘Every time we have something new we check it,’’ he said, noting calls do come in occasionally on both cases.

Sgt. Earl Aston also gets calls about missing persons. The Latah County Sheriff’s Office detective is trying to find Gayla Schaper, a 27-year-old who was last seen feeding her horses on Lenville Road, southeast of Moscow, in June 1979. Clothing was later discovered in a nearby meadow, but Schaper has never been found.

Whenever an unidentified person is discovered that could match Schaper, a description is sent to the sheriff’s office for review, he said.

‘‘Generally it happens less and less frequently,’’ Aston said. ‘‘It can go in spurts, you might get a few inquiries, or you might get a few pieces of information.’’

As time passes, the frequency of inquiries lessen. An inability to give closure to the families can also be difficult, Aston said.

‘‘You try to think what it would be like for you if you were in their shoes,’’ Aston said. ‘‘I think it would be extremely difficult. Hopefully it gets dulled by time, but I don’t know.’’

In Pullman, Police Chief Ted Weatherly said the investigation of a 2004 serial rapist has run cold. Police have collected DNA from three suspected rapes in the city, and a warrant has been issued using the DNA signature absent a name. A suspect has not been identified, but may if the DNA ever gets a hit on national databases.

While DNA has proved a useful tool for today’s homicide investigations, it might have to be ruled out in cases opened at a time when detectives never thought of collecting such evidence.

Prior to DNA’s commonplace role in investigations, many detectives didn’t seek it out as evidence that would be material to their case. Some evidence has been destroyed over the years, Johnson said, while other DNA evidence was just never collected.

‘‘At the time the evidence was processed, people didn’t know about DNA, and you can’t make up 15, 20 years later, and can’t anticipate what to do 15, 20 years later,’’ he said.

But departments do keep the evidence they have, Johnson said. Laws require police to maintain evidence in a murder until either the perpetrator has served his sentence, or dies.

Investigative reports into the Civic Theatre murders have swelled into three binders of reports and notes, each three inches thick. The David case consists of two such binders. Boxes of evidence from the crimes fill shelves in the department’s basement.

‘‘They are inactive,’’ Johnson said, a labeling that allows a case to be reopened but in which no current leads are being explored. When new information does come in, it typically passes over Johnson’s desk.

And new leads often aren’t publicized, in part to keep family members from building anticipation in the event detectives come up empty handed. Detectives say they also don’t want to ruin a criminal case, and note that same feeling of cracking a case often ebbs and flows among themselves.

‘‘You get that anticipation or that feeling that something’s going to happen, that’s going to clobber this,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘That doesn’t happen, so it goes back to inactive status. It’s disappointing, frustrating.’’

Still, investigations continue, but slowly. Johnson said those efforts will continue even after he leaves his office.

‘‘If and when I leave, somebody will inherit these books,’’ he said.

But he likes to think the murders will be solved before then.

———

Information from: Lewiston Tribune, http://www.lmtribune.com

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AKA: Sahlim, Steven R.; Sahlin, Steven R.
Dentals: Available
Lewiston Police Department
208-746-0171


Agency Case Number: 82-4015

NCIC Number: M-090131294

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http://lmtribune.com/civic-theatre-murders...11e20268fe.html

'Civic Theatre murders' case revived
Updated DNA testing techniques open new door on L-C Valley homicides and missing person cold cases
By TOM HOLM of the Tribune Aug 23, 2017 Updated 3 hrs ago

New testing of DNA with updated scientific techniques has revived interest in a three-decades-old string of homicides and missing person cases in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley.

Nez Perce County Prosecutor Justin Coleman announced in a news release Tuesday that a cold case task force comprised of multiple law enforcement agencies is investigating the "Lewiston Civic Theatre murders," in which three people went missing in a single night Sept. 12, 1982.

Brandi Miller, Kristina Nelson and Steven Pearsall all disappeared from Lewiston the same night. Miller and Nelson's bodies were found two years later on a hillside near Kendrick, victims of an apparent homicide. Pearsall has never been located and the murders remain unsolved. The suspicious deaths were dubbed the Civic Theatre murders due to each victim's connection to the midtown theater and a man who has been a suspect in the disappearances. The man was active in the theater. No charges have ever been brought against him.

Coleman said some DNA evidence from the original scene was never tested and new forensic tools have bolstered the investigation in the case, which he said will need additional review.

"It's been a long process that has included family members inquiring at different times," Coleman said. "We've identified things to be tested and we will see if any additional evidence is derived and we will take a look into that."

The release said the "Cold Case Unit" is comprised of Coleman, a deputy prosecutor, three Lewiston police detectives and Asotin County Sheriff's Office Detective Jackie Nichols.

Nichols has been working for years to figure out what happened to a 12-year-old Asotin girl who disappeared in April 1979. Christina White never made it home after visiting the Asotin County Fair on her bicycle.

"Jackie has really been a big driving force on this and trying to connect cases across the river," Coleman said.

Nichols said the new testing is preliminary and hasn't led to any breaks in any of the unsolved cases. But she said she's hopeful an increased interest in these cases will lead to a connection between the homicides and missing persons. Nichols said she has labored over White's case since she was assigned to it in 2007, and sometimes renewed interest can lead to tips from people who have yet to disclose information.

"My hope is if one of those (Lewiston) cases is solved, it can help solve our case as well," Nichols said. "Basically, I'll continue to do what I have been doing investigating my case, but also working in collaboration with other agencies."

The release said the unit has been quietly working on the unsolved homicides since earlier this year. Lewiston police Lt. Budd Hurd said in the release that DNA testing was in its infancy when the homicides occurred and has advanced greatly since then. Anyone with information into the unsolved cases is encouraged to call the Lewiston Police Department at (208) 746-0171.

Coleman said in the release the team of investigators wants to solve the cases and bring closure to the families that have had so many unanswered questions for more than three decades.

"There are a few areas of interest that could bear some fruit in this investigation, but it involves a slow review process to make sure we cover everything," Coleman said. "You never know when a key piece of evidence might break loose."
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https://lcvalley.dailyfly.com/Home/ArtMID/1...-Cases-Reopened

Nearly 35-Year-Old Unsolved Murder Cases Reopened

LEWISTON, ID - The Nez Perce County Prosecutor's Office and Lewiston Police Department are reopening three cases that have stumped investigators for nearly 35 years. On the night of September 12, 1982, 18-year-old Jacqueline "Brandy" Miller, 21-year-old Kristina Nelson, and 35-year-old Steven Pearsall disappeared from Lewiston.

Pearsall, a former US Air Force Corporal, was last seen at the Lewiston Civic Theatre where he was employed as a janitor. That same night, stepsisters Miller and Nelson were last seen leaving Nelson's apartment on 4th Street to go to the grocery store. It is believed they had walked past the theatre either on their way to the downtown store or on their way back.

"Two years later the bodies of Miller and Nelson were discovered miles away on a hillside near Kendrick, the apparent victims of homicide. Pearsall has never been located. To this day the disappearance and death of these individuals has remained unsolved despite numerous efforts by law enforcement," a press release states.

Officials have now reopened the investigation into the deaths of Miller and Nelson.

An official unit of investigators, prosecutors, and staff has been formed to review the case one more time, in hopes of finally bringing justice and some level of closure to the victims and their families.

“There are a few areas of interest that could bear some fruit in this investigation, but it involves a slow review process to make sure we cover everything. You never know when a key piece of evidence might break loose,” Nez Perce County Prosecutor Justin Coleman says.

The ‘Cold Case Unit’ began the long process of looking at all of the evidence in the case earlier this year. According to Lt. Budd Hurd of the Lewiston Police department, the Unit has been reviewing the written reports and evidence that was collected and will continue to analyze the information through the coming months.

One goal of the team is to submit some of the items collected 35 years ago for more advanced testing.

“DNA testing was in its infancy in 1982 and has advanced a long way since then,” Hurd says.

The Unit consists of three Lewiston Police Department Detectives, the Nez Perce County elected Prosecutor, a Deputy Prosecutor and other staff. The Unit is working closely with other agencies, including Detective Jackie Nichols from the Asotin County Sherriff’s Office. In addition, the Unit has been in consultation with former investigators on the cases.

If anyone has additional information concerning these cases, they are asked to contact the Lewiston Police Department’s Investigation Section at 208-746-0171.

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