Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer (21 page)

"He drove over the bridge into West Salem and
stopped at a park about two miles out from West Salem," Janine
continued. "He got out and went to the bathroom. We still had no
reason to be afraid. He parked in the gravel near the Polk County
side of the Wheatland Ferry. I think he drank at least one six-pack
and most of the other. Linda and I were both sitting in the
backseat. It was about three-thirty by then, I guess, and I told
him I had to get home. He said he had to finish the one bottle
first.

"He finished the beer and put it back in the
carton, looked out the front window, and then he turned around and
said, 'Do as I say and you won't get hurt.' He told us to get on
our knees, face toward the back window, and to put our hands behind
our back. I told him I wouldn't do it. He said he had a knife and I
told him he couldn't have one because I hadn't seen it. He then
reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a knife about
four inches long, black with a brown wooden handle.

"Then we started crying and did what he said.
He kept asking why we were crying. He took some brown twine from
the glove compartment and tied me up first. He tied my hands
together behind my back, my feet together, and then tied my hands
to my feet. I was still kneeling. He pushed me over on the backseat
and tied Linda up between the front and back seats. I broke my
hands loose and he said, 'Come here and I will untie you.' But he
retied me with white string. He told us he wanted to make love to
us. He said his cousin had taught him how to do it and how he
wouldn't get caught."

Burnum and Cummings stared at each other,
each thinking the same thing. The scenario, the method of
operation, was identical to the attack on Anna Buchanan. Not only
that, both of these girls were blond, just like Cindy Jones and
Anna Buchanan. Despite their observations they remained quiet and
let Janine continue her story.

"He started the car and drove us back to this
park and said he was going to untie us and let us go. He untied us
both, but said he still wanted to make love. He said if we did as
he said we wouldn't be hurt. We were still in the backseat. Linda
was really crying and going crazy. I told him he could do anything
to me but to leave Linda alone. He took off my shoes and socks.
Linda was huddled in the corner, she was in bad shock. He told me
to remove my shirt. He had taken my pants down and told me to take
them off. He just slid his pants down. I was in the backseat and he
was lying between the bucket seats.

"He placed his, er, his penis inside of me.
It was erected. He was on top of me for about one minute. He said
that his cousin had told him not to come, because if he left his
sperm they could trace it. He said his cousin had gotten away with
it before. He then finished and said he would take us home. I asked
if I could go to the bathroom, and he said okay. I got my clothes
all back on. Linda got out, too. He wanted her to stay there, but
she wouldn't. He told Linda to leave her purse there, but she
refused. I had left my belt there and Linda went back to get it and
he grabbed her purse. She said 'Fuck you' and ran away. We ran off
to the Wheatland Ferry road. He called at us as we were running
away and asked if he could help us. We got his license number. We
went to a house near the ferry and called my dad."

"Is this the way you remember everything that
happened?" Burnum asked Linda.

"Yes, everything happened just that way,"
responded Linda. She explained that during the sex act on Janine,
the man demanded that she look out the side window.

"I didn't see any of it," continued Linda. "I
was in the backseat on the driver's side, and Janine was in the
middle. I didn't see any of the sex act. I heard Janine tell him it
hurt, and he said, 'Relax.' Janine was crying. He gave her her
clothes and shoes back."

Janine and Linda described the assailant as a
white male adult, five feet nine inches to five feet eleven inches
tall, about 160 pounds, early twenties. He had brown hair, brown
eyes, a "funny-shaped" nose, and a thin light-brown mustache. He
was wearing a brown leather jacket, white shirt, and brown pants.
The girls said he told them that he lived in East Salem, that his
name was Steve Davis, and that his parents lived in Mexico. He said
he was a salesman.

Each girl described "Steve's" car as a newer
yellow Mustang, fastback, with black interior and an automatic
shift. He had a blue Panasonic radio inside, and there was a box of
cassette tapes on the floor along with a gray-black lunch bucket.
They said the license plate number was KXY 646.

As a formality, Burnum would run the license
plate number through motor vehicles. But he didn't need to. He
already knew that the driver of the yellow Mustang was Dayton Leroy
Rogers, the same man who had attacked Cindy Jones and Anna
Buchanan. Only the car was different in this latest case.
Apparently Dayton was no longer driving the blue Malibu.

Although the girls had been picked up in
Marion County, Dayton had driven them just over the Yamhill County
line, near the Polk and Marion county boundaries, where the alleged
offenses occurred. As a result, Burnum and Cummings had to bring in
Yamhill County authorities when the arrest was made at Dayton's
home later that afternoon.

Dayton was eventually indicted on a charge of
first-degree rape in Clackamas County for the attack on Anna
Buchanan. He was also indicted in Yamhill County on one count each
of first-degree rape and coercion in connection with the attacks on
Janine Phall and Linda Morris. He pleaded not guilty by reason of
mental disease or defect. On May 14, 1976, he was acquitted of the
alleged rape of Anna Buchanan.

On June 25, 1976, Dayton's probation stemming
from the knife attack on Deniece Raymond in Lane County nearly four
years earlier was revoked. He received a five-year prison sentence
for violating the conditions of his probation.

On August 27, 1976, a jury acquitted Dayton
on the alleged rape charges against Janine Phall and Linda Morris,
but convicted him of the coercion charge. He received the maximum
sentence, five years in prison.

"This was in a less enlightened time," said
Yamhill County District Attorney John L. Collins, "when juries
often felt that if the woman or girl contributed to the rape in any
way, they would not convict him. In this case, I think it was
because they drank beer and smoked marijuana with him."

In an after-sentence report that was sent to
the state parole board on January 4, 1977, Collins urged that
Dayton not be released early, citing that he was extremely
dangerous.

"In my contact with criminal defendants,"
wrote Collins, "I have not dealt with another person I consider
more dangerous than Dayton Rogers.... If I could pick only a
half-dozen of the most dangerous people I've been involved with, he
would be on that list."

Likewise, following up Dayton's probation
revocation from Lane County, Darryl L. Larson, then a Lane County
deputy district attorney but now a Lane County district court
judge, wrote in an after-sentence report: "This man is an extreme
danger to the community, particularly young women. He is both
sexually and physically violent and, without question, is a murder
case looking for a place to happen."

Despite the two five-year sentences and the
urging of law enforcement officials to keep him behind bars, Dayton
Leroy Rogers was paroled from the Oregon State Correctional
Institution in January 1982. A year later, his parole supervision
was terminated and he was again a free man who could roam the
streets at will.

When Detective John Turner was finished
reading about Dayton's past, it just didn't seem reasonable to him,
from a lawman's point of view, that Dayton's nefarious activities
could have been dismissed so lightly by a system that was in place
to punish such abhorrent behavior. Turner felt that Dayton's was a
case in which the system had failed miserably. Sure, he had been
punished, but clearly the punishment had not fit the crimes.
Comparatively speaking, Dayton had only been slapped on the wrists
for all the pain and suffering he had caused others. But if Turner
had his way, that was all going to change. He was going to see to
it that Dayton Leroy Rogers never walked the streets a free man
again.

PART THREE

The Molalla Forest Killer

Chapter 12

Monday, August 31, 1987 was the eighth day of
the legal deer hunting season in Oregon, and forty-six-year-old
Everett Lee Banyard, a crossbow hunter, was determined to roust one
of the gentle creatures out of the dense Molalla forest before dark
that evening. Banyard left his home in the nearby town of Molalla
about 7 P.M. and headed east on Highway 211. He was going to a
secluded, somewhat mountainous and out-of-the-way area, part of a
90,000-acre timber farm owned by an East Coast forest industries
company, about ten miles south of Molalla. Although it wasn't far
away, getting there was not an effortless chore unless a person
knew where he was going. Banyard did. He had been there many times
over the years.

He turned right off of Highway 211 at the
Mathias Intersection, drove about one-quarter mile to Fryer Park
Road, turned left, and continued until Fryer Park intersected with
South Dickie Prairie Road. There Banyard turned right onto Dickie
Prairie Road and continued in a southeasterly direction, crossed
the Glen Avon Bridge over the Molalla River, and made a right turn
that put him onto the Molalla Forest Road, which followed the
winding course of the river and took him past recreation areas that
are popular with fishermen, swimmers, hunters, hikers, and other
outdoor types. After about 500 yards he came to a fork in the road,
where it swung to the left and right. The right portion became a
gravel road and was blocked off. Banyard stayed to the left and
continued for about three miles until he reached Molalla Forest
(MF) 75, an old logging road that took him deeper into the rugged
mountain forest of evergreens and deciduous trees.

He continued along the gravel-covered,
steep-graded road in a westerly direction, past a flat portion or
plateau surrounded by dense fern, brush, and Douglas fir. From
there the gravel road began another steep ascent for approximately
a quarter mile, at which point it swung to the left and continued
around the mountain in a somewhat southerly direction.

However, at the point where MF 75 swung to
the south, there was another road, a small dirt and partially
graveled logging spur road that wound around to the north. Banyard
took that road, which he followed for about 200 feet until he came
to yet another fork, or Y. Although one part of the road continued
straight at that point, it wasn't accessible by vehicle because it
was blocked by fallen trees and dense brush. The other part of the
road continued up a steep grade in a northwesterly direction for
about 300 yards, where it dead-ended at another landing or flat
area. Banyard turned his pickup around there, just before the Y in
the road, and used the extra "turnaround" space to park. He had
about an hour of daylight left.

Much of the area contained spent casings,
trash, and debris. It was obvious that the area was used by
shooters for plinking, hunters, teenage beer drinkers, and people
who inconsiderately dumped their trash there. But Banyard also knew
it to be a good area for hunting, a place that he returned to from
time to time.

Armed with his crossbow and a quiver full of
arrows, Banyard climbed out of his pickup and took a cursory look
around the area. He looked for signs of deer or other wildlife,
particularly droppings, hoof marks, or a path in and out of the
forest. He soon spotted a fern that had been smashed down and,
farther toward the forest, he saw what looked like a fresh path
that might have been a deer crossing. Curious and envisioning fresh
venison steaks, he readied his crossbow and walked in.

After only a few yards, he detected an
unpleasant odor. Being employed at a fertilizer plant, however, his
sinuses often gave him problems and made smelling difficult. As a
result, he was undaunted by the smell at first, when someone else
with normal sinuses might have been repulsed, and he proceeded on
into the forest. He soon decided that what he first thought had
been a deer crossing was actually a man-made disturbance, likely
made by teenagers who came up to drink beer or by someone who had
been there target shooting.

In a small clearing off to the right, only a
few yards before the forest sloped downward into a steep decline
that soon turned into a cliff, Banyard saw some more ferns, brown
and dry, that had been smashed down. From his vantage point it
looked like there was something lying beneath them, but he couldn't
quite make out whatever it was. As he approached the ferns to
investigate, the unpleasant odor grew stronger. He now believed
that someone had poached a deer before hunting season opened and
had hidden the guts from view with the ferns. But he couldn't have
been more wrong.

Using the toes of his boots, he gently pushed
back the dried ferns. Instead of uncovering deer guts, he stared in
horror at the exposed buttocks, thigh, and calf of a human body.
Reeling with fear and revulsion, Banyard quickly went back the way
he had come, jumped in his truck, and headed for home. Sick and
trembling, he called the Clackamas County Sheriff's Department and
reported his grim discovery.

Deputy Randy Oxford was the responding
officer. Being the road deputy nearest to Molalla, Oxford arrived
at Banyard's home a short time after receiving the dispatch. He
took a brief statement from Banyard, who was somewhat distraught,
after which Banyard agreed to lead him to the location where he
found the body in the Molalla forest. It was completely dark by the
time they arrived.

Using flashlights, Banyard and Oxford made
their way into the clearing, and Oxford, too, soon detected the
telltale odor of decaying flesh. After shining his light over the
area, he saw all he needed to see. There was indeed a dead human
being at the secluded location. Oxford returned to his car and
confirmed the dead body report to Sergeant Sam Metzger in the
detective division. Because of the remote location and the
unlikelihood that it could easily be found, Oxford was instructed
to meet other deputies and the medical examiner at a market on
Highway 211, just east of Molalla, then lead them to and secure the
crime scene for the night.