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1986 Swanson, Deborah 3-29-1986; Coeur D' Alene
Topic Started: Jul 6 2006, 10:15 PM (913 Views)
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PIC: http://www.isp.state.id.us/mp_viewer/showM...n?id=M191999400

DEBORAH JEAN SWANSON
LAST DATE OF CONTACT : 03/29/1986

DOB : 07/30/1954 HEIGHT : 5'04"
GENDER : FEMALE WEIGHT : 130 lbs
HAIR COLOR : BLONDE EYE COLOR : GREEN
RACE : WHITE


CASE INFORMATION :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject is a grade school teacher. Subject's vehicle was found in a local parking lot, locked with personal items in it. Keys have not been located. Swanson missed appointments on 3/30/86 and 3/31/86.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THIS PERSON PLEASE CONTACT :
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COEUR D'ALENE PD 208 769-2320
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http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2006/03/26/news/news01.txt

Vanished -- No clues, no remains --
Posted: Saturday, Mar 25, 2006 - 07:07:38 pm PST
By Lynn Berk/Staff Writer

Only theories to explain what happened to missing women

"It's funny you should call now," says Lynn Swanson. "I had a dream about Debbie last night. In my dream, she was 5-years-old.

"But I think I've probably accepted the fact that I've lost her. From the beginning, when my daughter disappeared, I suspected foul play. I knew something was wrong."

And now, officially, so does the Coeur d'Alene Police Department.


Twenty years after special education teacher Deborah Jean Swanson vanished, police are hoping the new Secret Witness Program will bring forward information about the woman police now openly believe was a victim of "foul play."

For Swanson's family, Secret Witness has renewed hope.

"I went back to the church seven years ago, and that's helped. Not knowing is very wearing. Very trying," says sister Ginny Davis. "I've resigned myself to the fact that my sister's in heaven, that her soul is at peace, that someday I'll see her again.

"That's what's gotten me through it."

•••

Katie Newman's family had just moved to North Idaho when Swanson, then 31, went for a run around Tubbs Hill and vanished into thin air.

It was a huge story at the time, as law enforcement used every means necessary -- including infrared, dogs, helicopters and divers -- to search every inch of the 120-acre hill and the waters around it.

But Newman hadn't thought about it in years. Next Wednesday, however, marks the 20th anniversary of the Saturday that Swanson began her trek up the Third Street trail head and into oblivion.

Newman headed down the same scuffed roundabout on a recent chilly afternoon, with a blue sky skimmed by darkening clouds.

She was alone, as Swanson had been. All around her, other hikers made their rounds. Women alone. Couples accompanied by large dogs. Women in tandem.

"It doesn't bother me now," says Newman. "But when it happened, I was younger then and my mother wouldn't let me go up here by myself. I had to go with friends."

There are some who would agree with Newman's mother.

Susan Cuff, a former reporter who first covered the Swanson story, was asked if she would walk the trails alone today.

"No. Unequivocally, no. Not at any time or day of the year," she says. "There was another case of a woman running up there early in the morning who was raped, and I mean brutally raped. Especially after that, I wouldn't go up there alone."

•••

Swanson's car, with her purse and a shopping bag from K-mart locked inside the trunk, was found in the Third Street parking lot, but there were no signs of a struggle.

She was due at a friend's house the next day for Easter dinner. The food she was supposed to bring was found, still wrapped in her refrigerator. On Monday, she failed to show up for work at Sorensen Elementary School.

Complicating the situation, says Carl Bergh, a retired Coeur d'Alene Police lieutenant who first worked the case, was that she wasn't reported missing until April 1 -- and even among her friends, there was a thought that maybe it was an April Fools' joke.

But not to one friend, who asked to remain anonymous. She has tried to put the case behind her as much as possible.

"It was like a trauma. I remember feeling like I was walking around in a fog and there was this strong sense of disbelief. I think it woke a lot of people up, made people realize that this could happen to anyone.

"But somebody must have known something," she says. "Somebody must have seen something. Somebody must have heard something."

In the end, tears clog her voice. She had never spoken publicly about the case.

"The reason I'm here is to honor Debbie."

The friend says Swanson was funny and cheerful and trusting.

"She was a very optimistic and happy person," she says, "just lots of fun to be around. I know everybody says that about someone when they die. But she really was that kind of person. She was very athletic, very social. She hadn't been here very long, but she had lots of friends, and she took such joy in teaching.

"She loved her job. She loved the social nature of it. She loved her work. She was so committed and dedicated. So many people felt the grief, even people who didn't even know her, because we all thought: It will never happen to us."

•••

In some ways, the disappearance of Swanson left no mark on Coeur d'Alene's beloved Tubbs Hill, and Bergh doesn't want it to. When asked what his gut feeling is about the case, Bergh bristles.

"We really had no evidence of her on that hill other than a sighting by some students, and to this day people may suggest things that may be possible," Bergh says. "But I'm not going to go ahead and guess. I promised the family I wouldn't do that.

"I'd prefer to come to them with a clear answer, and I've never been able to do that."

There was, he says, a lot of activity on Tubbs Hill that day. But nothing to show police what happened to Swanson once her students lost sight of her heading up the trail. The last place she was seen, he points out, may not be where she disappeared.

"I'm not saying something didn't happen to Swanson on Tubbs Hill," he says. "And I'm not saying it did.

"I still can't point to anything that can tell us why she's missing today."

Neither can anyone else.

•••

Adding to the mystery is two other women who vanished, one in 1986 and another in '87.

Sally Anne Stone, aka Sally Anne Ries, was last seen May 16, 1986, in a physical therapist's office in Coeur d'Alene. The car belonging to the State Line dancer was later found at her home in the 1700 block of Elm Street, with newspapers accumulating around the porch.

More than a year later on Sept. 15, Julie Weflen, a power station operator for the Bonneville Power Administration, disappeared. Her company van was found open and abandoned at the Spring Hill substation near Riverside State Park in Spokane.

Back then, as now, there were virtually no clues.

"I wish I could tell you that we had some good leads," Bergh says of the missing women. "That just never happened."

According to Spokane police, Weflen's case remains open.

•••

Cuff is hoping Secret Witness -- where anonymous tips can be phoned in about unsolved crimes -- might bring forward new leads.

"Somebody still knows something about Swanson," Cuff says. "As far as a gut feeling, I didn't have anyone as a suspect. But with so many cases of disappearing women, I knew that it was going to be a bad situation.

"But what's interesting is that every detective, every investigator, every cop on the case, has retired or passed away. So there's a whole new generation of people out there now."

Swanson, says Cuff, "has always been in the back of my mind. I always think of her at Easter time ... when I think of a woman missing, her name always comes to mind. I'm always hoping somebody finds something so we can put an end to it."

•••

Davis thinks her sister's bones remain buried somewhere beneath the heavily wooded acres that overlook Lake Coeur d'Alene.

"This is pure speculation on my part," Davis admits. "I was living in Southern California at the time. But I think it was probably a beautiful day and she was probably enjoying being outdoors, and looking forward to Easter. ... I don't know how this guy approached her but I'm sure she fought for her life ... or tried to.

"She probably tried to escape," Davis adds. "She wasn't a quitter by any means. She had a strong, outgoing personality and was a very active person. I don't think she would have given up easily, but she was a young single woman, too, and with a gun at her back, I think it's likely she would have gone.

"Someone puts a hand over your mouth and pulls you into the trees, if your mouth is covered -- you can't make much noise."

Another former reporter, who regularly hikes Tubbs Hill, has another theory. Ric Clarke thinks it's likely the attacker waited for a victim -- any victim -- in the more remote back country of the hill. Swanson, who regularly made the circuit around Tubbs according to her mother, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Then, Clarke theorizes, the killer dragged her down the side of the hill to the small, secluded parking lot by the 10th Street trail heads. It would explain why nobody heard screams or saw any signs of a scuffle.

Asked why a woman would run the mountain alone back then, after the reign of terror by the likes of Ted Bundy and the Green River killer, Clarke says simply: "It was Coeur d'Alene. Things like that didn't happen here."

•••

It's been a long time since Davis has set foot anywhere near Coeur d'Alene.

"We've been invited there and I just can't go ... I know it's a beautiful town," she says, almost apologetically. "But I can't. I just can't. It's just very painful for me.

"The last time we drove through, I was crying the whole time."

Swanson's friend, however, had her roots here in North Idaho. She couldn't leave. She simply had to learn, at some point, to put the trauma aside and go on with her life.

"Now I love Tubbs Hill," the friend says. "I've had to learn to see it as a positive place.

"It doesn't hold the horror for me anymore."

•••

The 10th anniversary of the disappearance struck Swanson's sister particularly hard.

"When it happened initially, it was so incredibly painful and devastating," says Davis. "But for me, the 10-year mark was kind of a big milestone. One of her friends had Deborah's things stored in her basement and none of us did anything for 10 years. Everything sat there in the basement, in boxes.

"Then I moved to Washington, and at 10 years, I had to close her bank account, I had to take her stuff out of storage. I contacted brothers and sisters and asked, 'Is there anything you want?' Some did. Some didn't."

She remembers getting the phone call when she lived in California.

"I kept hoping she was lost and she'd be found; it was devastating to think she'd fallen while running and was hurt and cold, spending the night in a cave. Your imagination just runs wild. It took me a very long time to accept the fact that she was dead and not coming back."

Now, Davis' children are asking questions.

"Deborah never met my husband and now I have three children, a son who just turned 10 and twin 7-year-old daughters," Davis says. "They've started to pay attention to other family members and now they know they have an Aunt Debbie in heaven. We didn't tell my son any details. We just told him she was killed by a bad guy."

"I miss everything about her," Davis says.

Easter "has never been good for us since that day," Davis says. "We're Christians, we're Catholic, and we celebrate its joyousness, but it's bittersweet for us, too. That big gaping hole is always there."

Her mother remembers relatives who lived in Spokane going down to Tubbs Hill and doing their own searches.

"They went investigating into the caves where the cars couldn't go," she says. "It's just such a mystery."

Lynn Berk can be reached at (208) 664-8176, ext. 2016, or at lberk@cdapress.com.
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http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/swanson_deborah.html

Deborah Jean Swanson


Above: Swanson, circa 1986


Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: March 29, 1986 from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: July 30, 1954
Age: 31 years old
Height and Weight: 5'4, 130 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Blonde hair, green eyes. Swanson's ears are pierced. Her nickname is Debbie.


Details of Disappearance

Swanson was a special education teacher in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in 1986. She was last seen at the entrance to Tubbs Hill trail on March 29, 1986 in the afternoon hours. They believe she went there to go jogging.
Swanson's vehicle was found in the Third Street parking lot near Tubbs Hill later that day. A K-Mart shopping bag was in the trunk and her purse was inside the car, but there was no sign of Swanson. She missed appointments over the following two days, March 30 and 31, and was reported missing on April 1. Swanson has never been heard from again. Extensive searches of the area produced no clues as to her whereabouts.

Investigators believe Swanson was taken against her will; foul play is suspected in her case. Other women have been attacked on the trail where she was last seen, but the attacks have not been linked to her disappearance. Swanson is described as a social, athletic person who enjoyed her job. Her case remains unsolved.



Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Coeur d'Alene Police Department
208-769-2320



Source Information
Idaho Missing Person Clearinghouse
The Spokesman-Review
The Coeur d'Alene Press



Updated 1 time since October 12, 2004.

Last updated April 10, 2006; distinguishing characteristics and details of disappearance updated.

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http://z10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/in...opic=1097&st=0&
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Idaho Missing Person Clearinghouse
208-884-7134
idmpc@isp.idaho.gov
OR
Coeur D'Alene Police Department
208-769-2320
bob.taylor@isp.state.id.us
You can remain anonymous if you wish.

Agency Case Number: 6653

NCIC Number:
M-191999400

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http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/ar...ad8d1f9423.html

Case not closed

Cd'A women still missing 25 years later

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Posted: Monday, May 30, 2011 12:00 am | Updated: 4:12 am, Sun Jun 5, 2011.

Case not closed By DAVID COLE/Staff writer The Coeur d' Alene Press | 1 comment

COEUR d'ALENE - Twenty-five years ago, Coeur d'Alene resident and school teacher Deborah Jean Swanson vanished.

That same spring, Sally Anne Stone, a Coeur d'Alene resident and exotic dancer at a Stateline club, also disappeared.

The cases haven't been solved, but the Coeur d'Alene Police Department hasn't closed the book on them either. Police believe both women were the victim of foul play.

"At the time they might have been viewed differently, though not fairly, in the eyes of the community because one was a teacher and the other was an exotic dancer," said Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Christie Wood. "The police treated them both the same. There were a lot of man hours put in on both cases."

The cases got a lot of public attention at the time. Everything from fliers being posted by volunteers to psychics calling in with tips for police. No solid leads materialized, Wood said.

"The community got very involved. For a small town like Coeur d'Alene this was pretty big news."

The two cases will remain open and active until solved, she said. Crime Stoppers of the Inland Northwest recently announced it is offering a cash reward for information leading to the resolution of the two cold cases.

Here's what police know about the Coeur d'Alene cases:

On March 29, 1986, Swanson was reported missing after she had parked her vehicle in the Third Street parking lot and made her way onto Tubbs Hill.

She was last seen at 4:40 p.m. walking onto the hill. Her vehicle was found in the lot by detectives. It was undisturbed and locked with her purse, wallet and identification in it.

An extensive search of the recreational area revealed no evidence as to the reason for her disappearance.

Swanson was employed by the Coeur d'Alene School District.

She was 31 years old at the time of her disappearance and would be 56 today. She is described as white, with blonde hair and blue eyes, 5-feet-4 inches tall, and weighed about 130 pounds.

About a month and a half later, on May 16, Stone, aka Sally Anne Ries, was reported missing.

She was last seen in Coeur d'Alene at the office of her physical therapist on May 16, but failed to show up a day later for her next scheduled appointment.

Her vehicle was found at her residence undisturbed. She was off work due to an injury at the time from her job as an exotic dancer at the Stateline.

She was 21 at the time of her disappearance and would be 46 today.

She is described as white, with brown hair and hazel eyes, 5-feet-2, and weighed about 125 pounds.

She had a tattoo on her right shoulder of a parrot standing on a branch in front of a half moon. There is a ribbon under it with the letters "Teko's" on it.

She has a scar approximately 5 to 6 inches long on her abdomen that is possibly from a cesarean operation.

Anyone with information on either of these cases is asked to call Crime Stoppers of the Inland Northwest at (208) 667-2111. Callers are asked to use a code name or number and do not have to give their own name to be eligible for a cash reward.
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http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_news/ar...1a4bcf887a.html
Crime Stoppers seeks info on cold cases
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Deborah Jean Swanson
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Related: Case not closed . Posted: Wednesday, May 9, 2012 11:27 am

Crime Stoppers seeks info on cold cases 1 comment

Crime Stoppers of the Inland Northwest is offering a cash reward for information leading to the resolution of two cold cases that were opened 26 years ago. These cases were profiled by Secret Witness in Spokane in 1986.

On March 29, 1986 Deborah Jean Swanson, a 31-year-old Coeur d'Alene School District teacher, was reported missing after she parked her vehicle in the Third Street parking lot and went onto Tubbs Hill to jog.

She was last seen at 4:40 p.m. walking onto the hill. Her vehicle was found in the lot by detectives. It was undisturbed and locked with her purse, wallet and identification in it. An extensive search of the recreational area revealed no evidence indicating the reason for her disappearance.

Deborah, described as a white female, 5 feet 4 inches tall, 130 pounds, blond hair, and blue eyes. She would be 56 now.

Her disappearance remains unsolved and it is believed by police that she was a victim of foul play.

On May 16, 1986 Sally Anne Stone aka Sally Anne Ries was reported missing. The 21-year-old was last seen in Coeur d’Alene at the office of her physical therapist on May 16. She failed to go to her scheduled appointment with her therapist on May 17.

Her vehicle was found at her residence undisturbed. She was not working at the time, due to an injury she received working as an exotic dancer at Kontiki Bar at Stateline. Stone is described as 5 feet 2 inches tall, 115-130 pounds, brown hair, hazel eyes, with a tattoo on her right shoulder of a parrot standing on a branch in front of a half moon. There is a ribbon under it with the letters ‘Teko’s” on it. She also has a scar approximately 5-6 inches long on her abdomen that is possibly from a cesarean-section.

Stone's disappearance remains unsolved and it is believed by police that she is a victim of foul play.

The Coeur d’Alene Police Department has kept the two cases open, and continues to seek new leads in the whereabouts of these two women.

Anyone who has information on either of these cases is asked to call Crime Stoppers of the Inland Northwest at (208) 667-2111. Callers are asked to use a code name or number and do not have to give their own name to be eligible for a cash reward.

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