Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer (20 page)

When Dayton returned home, he never told his
wife what had happened. When she eventually found out about the
incident, Dayton told her that he was being falsely accused, the
victim of mistaken identity. Being newly married, young, and naive,
Sherry wanted very much to believe him, and she did. But her hopes
were dashed on January 13, 1976, when Dayton was indicted by a
Clackamas County grand jury on a charge of first-degree rape. He
was allowed to remain free pending a May trial.

On Friday, February 20, 1976, pretty Anna
Buchanan,* nineteen, was walking along the right-hand side of
Highway 22 toward Salem. She had just left the Oregon State
Correctional Institution, where she had visited her inmate
boyfriend, and was headed to the Greyhound depot in Salem, where
she would catch a bus that would take her to Oregon City, forty
miles to the north, then another one to her home in the hamlet of
Beavercreek. With her mind preoccupied about getting home, she
might not have noticed the car when it drove past if it hadn't been
a bright yellow one. Since it stood out, she had looked up just as
it whizzed by. It was a 1970 Ford Mustang, and it was going in the
direction of Bend, some 160 miles to the southeast in central
Oregon. It was 3:30 P.M., overcast, and the landscape was shrouded
in a heavy mist. Anna was wet and tired, anxious to get home.

Before Anna realized what was happening, the
yellow Mustang's driver had turned it around and pulled up
alongside her.

"Hi! Wanna ride?" The driver flashed Anna a
wide smile.

Anna thought for a moment. Although she
wasn't hitchhiking, it was an opportunity to get out of the
inclement weather. And he seemed okay. Besides, he could get her to
the bus depot faster than she could walk there, giving her even
more time to get something to eat before her bus was scheduled to
leave.

"All right. Thanks," she said as she climbed
into the passenger seat.

"Have you ever been to Silver Falls State
Park?" he asked.

"No. Is it near here?"

"It's not far. I've got some pot to smoke,
and some beer. Wanna go up there with me?"

She thought his proposition over for a
moment. The prospect of getting high was enticing, and it soon won
out over getting something to eat.

"Sure. But I've only got a couple of hours
before my bus leaves."

"Oh, we'll be back long before then." He
wheeled the Mustang around again and drove a short distance before
turning onto Oregon 214. Soon they were in a remote area, but Anna
paid little notice to the heavy forest as she puffed on a joint he
had offered her. As she passed it back to her newfound friend, she
saw a sign that indicated the park was not far away.

As they drove into Silver Falls State Park
they made small talk, each more than a little spaced out from the
marijuana. There weren't very many people in the park, it being
still winter. Most people were just getting off work, and for those
who weren't, it was too cold and too late in the day for such an
outing. The two drove on and viewed all of the waterfalls,
including the largest for which the park was named, then turned
onto a gravel road that led deeper into the forest and to a part of
the park that was now all their own.

"I have to go to the bathroom," said the man,
holding a Budweiser. He got out of the car and went into some
bushes. After a couple of minutes he returned, sipping on the
beer.

"Let's listen to some music," he said. "Why
don't you get into the backseat and hand me the box of tapes? Stay
back there if you like. It's more comfortable."

After four more beers and three additional
joints, Anna told the man that it was getting late and that she had
to get back to the bus station. When she tried to get back into the
front seat, he stopped her, saying that he had to clear a place for
her to sit first. In the next instant he opened the glove box and
took out a knife. In her fear, all Anna could see was the
blade.

"You do what I say and I won't hurt you," he
said, emotionless. He told her to sit on her knees with her hands
behind her back. Anna didn't move. "I'm going to count to ten, and
if you don't do as I say, I'm going to hurt you." Anna, seeing the
blade and the evil in his eyes, didn't wait for him to commence
counting. She did as she was told.

Anna, on her knees, turned around and faced
the rear window, her hands crossed behind her. The man took a long
strand of wire and wrapped it around them at the wrists, tightly,
leaving only enough slack so as to not cut off her circulation. He
then instructed her to lie face down on the seat.

"Why did you tie me like that?" Anna asked,
crying.

"I'm going to fuck you," he replied. "I don't
want you to be able to hurt me." He then hog-tied her left foot to
her hands, leaving her right foot and leg free.

He took the knife and, holding it in his
right hand, cut Anna's shirt. After the cut was started, he put the
knife on the seat and ripped her shirt the rest of the way off. He
repeated the process with her pants and underpants. When she was
naked, he touched her breasts, then began squeezing them. He moved
downward, between her legs, and placed his middle finger inside her
vagina. Anna gasped, and her whole body stiffened as he pushed it
in deeper, as far as it would go, and rhythmically repeated the
process. When it grew tiresome for him, he moved on down to her
feet, kissing and biting them.

As he acted out his foot fetish, the man
mumbled other women's names. It was as if he were fantasizing that
Anna was someone else he knew, perhaps a family member. He was
really turned on by now, and his mumbling became even more strange.
He began talking about how he had slept with his mother and father
as a boy, and muttered things about a cousin who had a foot fetish
and had told him about kissing and biting women's feet. He told
Anna that he had done what he was doing to her to other women, and
that it really aroused him sexually. It was one of the few ways he
enjoyed sex, he said.

Suddenly a red pickup came out of nowhere and
roared down the road near where they were parked. The man was
jolted out of his fantasy state and was thrown into a near panic.
Had the pickup's driver seen them? Had he gotten a good look at his
car? Unnerved, the man moved to another location within the
confines of the park. After trying to convince himself that he was
safe from detection, he attempted to resume his activities.
However, it just wasn't the same. He was rattled, frightened that
he might have been seen. He untied Anna and threw the wire out of
the window toward the forest.

"I'm going to have to kill you," he told the
terrified teenager.

"Why? I won't tell. Just let me go."

"Shut up! I need time to think about how I'm
going to kill you."

He mumbled something about kidnapping her
instead, holding her for ransom. But Anna told him that her parents
didn't have any money.

"That's okay. The police will pay the
ransom," he said.

He handed Anna a white T-shirt and her orange
leather jacket, and allowed her to put them on. Then, without
saying anything, he drove back down Highway 22 to Interstate 5,
leaving Anna wondering where he was taking her. With a faraway look
in his eyes, he took the Woodburn exit and drove north on 99E
through the community of Canby, where he cut over to Highway 213
and headed south again, toward Molalla. It was dark when he turned
off onto a logging road that runs parallel to the Molalla River. He
brought the Mustang to a stop at a narrow turnaround just before
reaching a logging bridge that crossed the river.

"I can't let you go," he said calmly. "You
would go to the police."

"No, no, I wouldn't," Anna assured him,
cowering in the backseat. "You could let me out near my
grandmother's house in Oregon City. She's not at home, but I can
get inside. I can find something else to wear before going home.
You'll see; I won't tell."

"Get on your knees again," he commanded.
"I'll take you to your grandmother's house tied up, and if she's
not at home I'll leave you there."

He bound Anna again, just like before. But
this time, because he had thrown the wire out at Silver Falls State
Park, he used strips of cloth that he cut from her jeans. Satisfied
that she was securely tied, he ripped one of the ties from Anna's
blouse and went toward her neck with it.

"I have to kill you," he said as he wrapped
the ligature around his hands and moved closer to her. "I don't
have any choice."

As he wrapped the ligature around her neck
and began to pull, Anna struggled violently, so fiercely that one
of her hands broke free. Reacting instantly, she picked up one of
her shoes that was lying on the seat beside her and smashed it with
all of her might into the side of his head. Dazed and confused, the
man let go of the ligature and backed away. Strangely, he no longer
seemed threatening, but was now, instead, himself afraid. Anna
continued to thrash about until all of her bindings came loose, and
she continued to fight him, trying to get into the front seat. But
he kept pushing her back. Finally she sat still and started talking
about her grandmother's house again, hoping to take his mind off
killing her. Anna's talking and the sight of two cars crossing the
bridge nearby prompted the man to start the car and drive away. He
headed toward Oregon City.

It was 8 P.M. when he pulled up in front of
the grandmother's house. After making her give back the T-shirt she
was wearing, the man let Anna out of the car, wearing only her
orange leather jacket. When she was safely inside her grandmother's
house, Anna called the Clackamas County Sheriff's Department.

A report was taken by a road deputy that same
night, and Anna was taken to a local hospital, where she was
examined and released. Because it was a weekend, it would take
until the following Tuesday for the report of Anna's attack to
reach the detective division.

Chapter 11

Unfortunately, before Clackamas County
Sheriff's Detective Sergeant W. H. Burnum could interview Anna
Buchanan and put two and two together to come up with Dayton Leroy
Rogers as his prime suspect in Anna's case, Dayton, driving his
wife's yellow Mustang, was trolling Salem's streets again. It was
ironic that Dayton would add two more young victims to his growing
list while Burnum and Marion County Sheriff's Detective Jan
Cummings interviewed Anna on February 24, 1976.

By 3 P.M. Anna had finished relating her
terrifying ordeal to the two detectives, and they had only a few
more questions for her. When they walked out of the interview room
at the Marion County Sheriff's Office, located in the basement of
the county courthouse, Burnum and Cummings were alerted to the two
new sexual assaults. The reports, taken a couple of hours earlier,
hadn't even had time to filter down through the law enforcement
bureaucracy. If not for the astuteness of an inquisitive deputy who
recognized the similarities between the new reports and the one
Burnum and Cummings were investigating, not to mention the one
Burnum had already cleared involving the alleged rape of Cindy
Jones, it might have taken a couple of days to reach the
detectives. As it turned out, they heard about it almost
immediately and scheduled interviews with the two new victims for
midmorning the following day.

The girls showed up shortly past 11 A.M. and
were led to the austere interrogation room. Both seemed nervous and
were still visibly upset over their violent encounters with the man
in the yellow Mustang a day earlier. Linda Morris,* fifteen, and
Janine Phall,* sixteen, took seats next to each other, facing the
detectives. Shamefaced and embarrassed, they cast their eyes
downward and nervously played with their hands as they told what
happened.

"I went outside my house to start my car to
go to school," said Janine. "It was about 8:30 A.M. Linda called me
and told me that she had missed the bus and asked if she could have
a ride. But my car wouldn't start."

Janine explained that she called Linda back
and told her she would walk over to her house, located in the 4100
block of Pentiction Court Northeast in Salem. She arrived at
Linda's house fifteen minutes later, at 8:45 A.M. After deciding to
skip their first two classes of the day, they finally left Linda's
house at 10:30 A.M. and began walking to McNary High School. They
got as far as the Chemawa Indian School on Chemawa Road, near where
Chemawa Road crossed Interstate 5 and less than a mile from Linda's
home, when the yellow Mustang fast-back pulled alongside them from
behind.

"I hadn't seen him pass prior," said
Janine.

"He just came from nowhere. It was pouring
down rain. He asked if we needed a ride. We told him yes. After we
got into the car, we told him we wanted to go to McNary High. He
said he wanted to stop at Bob's Big Boy first 'cause he was hungry.
It was about eleven A.M. by then. He got us a hamburger, Coke, and
French fries. He was really a nice guy. We weren't afraid. By then
it was lunchtime, so we didn't have to be back at school for a
while."

"What happened next?" asked Burnum.

"He asked us if we liked to fish, and if we
wanted to go to Cascade Park to watch the people fish there," said
Janine. "We told him we had to get back to school. He said he would
get us back. We went to Cascade Park and watched other people fish,
then he went to a store and bought two six-packs of Budweiser. I
think the store was on 12th Street Southeast. He then went to a gas
station on 12th and we all went to the bathroom."

"Did you drink any beer with him?"

"He offered us some. I had two bottles during
the entire incident. I kept telling him I had to get back to
school. He told me it was too late, that school was out. I guess it
was about three P.M. by then. He asked if we had ever been to the
Wheatland Ferry that crossed the Willamette River. I had, but Linda
said she hadn't. He told her she couldn't miss it. He was still
being very nice.