The Last Time We Saw Her. Robert Falcon Scott

of unease on the nearby OSU campus as well, especially for female students. A reporter for the Gazette-Times interviewed several female OSU students on this issue. Connie Folse, who was an OSU student, and lived three blocks away from where Brooke had last been seen, spoke about her concerns. Connie was a student and a special-events coordinator for the Women’s Center on campus. Connie said, “I was shocked by the apparent abduction in broad daylight. Honestly, I felt so safe in Corvallis. But am I really that safe? It puts things in perspective. When I’m walking around, it’s in the back of my head.”

      On the same theme of surprise that an abduction had occurred in Corvallis in daylight hours, OSU graduate student Debi Stabler related, “It seems so out of the blue. It has changed my assumption about Corvallis. It made me think it can happen anywhere.”

      Other female students spoke of carrying Mace, air horns and whistles with them whenever they walked alone to and from campus. Many made sure to walk in pairs at all times. And Alisha Bickett, from the small nearby town of Lebanon, said that she was even concerned in that outlying community. Alisha declared, “It’s scary to know someone could be doing yard work, minding their own business, and be abducted.”

      Marisa Birky and Michelle Raethke were two typical female roommates and friends at OSU. They lived in Bloss Hall and were studying nursing on campus. More than ever, they made sure to walk in each other’s company whenever they could. Birky said, “I’m more paranoid than normal. I used to feel so safe, and now I feel unsafe. Any little noise will set me off.”

      What really made the reporter’s ears perk up was a story told by Marisa and Michelle. They said that a friend of theirs, three days before Brooke went missing, had a scary encounter of her own near campus. According to this friend, she had been walking on Twenty-sixth Street at night when a strange man suddenly came up from behind her. At the same moment a car drove up near her. The strange man told the young woman to get into the car. Instead, she bit his hand and fled into the bushes. The man didn’t follow her, but rather jumped into the nearby car and it sped off. This friend of Marisa’s and Michelle’s hid in the bushes, and apparently had a cell phone. She called a male friend, who eventually arrived on the scene.

      Captain Bob Deutsch, of CPD, addressed this story, saying that it was being checked out. In fact, the Corvallis PD had first heard about this incident after it was printed in the newspaper. At present, Deutsch didn’t know if it was true or not, or if it had anything to do with Brooke’s abduction. Deutsch said that there were a lot of tips coming in every hour, and some of them were eventually discounted.

      A short time later, Ron Noble told a reporter for the Salem Statesman Journal, “We unfortunately do not have any good solid leads at the moment. We are waiting for one lead that will give us something solid to go on.” Noble added that more than five hundred tips had come in by this point.

      Then Noble told reporters about a gravel pit on private property that had been thoroughly checked on the previous day. The gravel pit had been searched because a tip had come in about disturbed soil there that looked suspicious. Searchers had not only discovered freshly dug earth, but also what they described as “odors of oil and decay.”

      The gravel pit was owned by the Morse brothers in neighboring Linn County. A team of OSP forensic experts were called in and they noticed fresh footprints and tire tracks around the disturbed soil. The team used a cadaver dog to sniff around the area, but it gave no “hits” that the ground had any connection with Brooke Wilberger. Despite the dog’s reaction, the team members dug four feet down at the area of the disturbed soil. Lieutenant Ron Noble related, “They found nothing. We are discouraged and disappointed.”

      Noble went on to say, at a press conference, that CPD had identified five persons of interest in the case. These individuals had a pattern of behavior with women who matched Brooke Wilberger’s description. Noble added, “We are not calling them suspects. We do, however, have knowledge of a history that makes them more interesting to us.”

      Then Noble told a reporter for the Statesman Journal, “As we’re looking at backgrounds, history, behavior, we are finding things that make us somewhat concerned. These may be important to this case, or just people who treat blond white women poorly. None of the five we’re looking at had previous contact with Brooke Wilberger, that we know of.”

      Noble was, of course, keeping many details of the investigation out of the media. He did admit that law enforcement authorities were constantly in touch with an FBI profiler, and Noble related that polygraph tests had been used with several persons of interest. Just what the polygraph questions were or the results of the tests had been, he did not divulge. Nonetheless, the CPD was looking at these individuals very closely. In fact, before long, several persons of interest would pop right up to the top of the chart. And once they did, their names and stories were all over the region’s newspapers and on television news channels as well.

      CHAPTER 5

      VOLUNTEERS

      The frenzied activity at the LDS stake center did not abate by the fourth day of Brooke’s disappearance. Parties of forty volunteers were still assembling every few hours at the stake center and were being sent out on search missions. While one worn-out team came in from the field, another fresh team went out to replace them. By now, more than two hundred businesses were donating food and drinks to the volunteers. Chambers Construction, of Eugene, where Brooke had once worked, paid for thirteen thousand flyers distributed in the Thursday edition of the Corvallis Gazette-Times. Tammy Crafton, a Chambers Construction Company spokesperson, said that many workers personally knew Brooke and were saddened by her disappearance.

      Many, many more volunteers who had never met Brooke Wilberger considered her to be one of their own by now. One of these volunteers was Janelle Wikel, of Albany. She told a reporter that she was eating breakfast on the morning of May 26 and saw a news report about the missing girl. Janelle said, “There was something about it that touched me.” So Janelle and her young daughter went to the stake center in Corvallis and volunteered. There she saw pink ribbons that were being constructed. The pink ribbon idea was the brainchild of Shannon Reich. Reich had been on volunteer duty for a lengthy period of time; the others finally told her to go home and get some rest. Shannon went home, but she didn’t rest. Instead, she started making bows out of pink ribbons to show support for Brooke Wilberger and her family. Soon ribbons started showing up on members of the Wilberger family, volunteers, and even law enforcement personnel.

      When Janelle Wikel arrived at the stake center, she got an idea of her own. She began making buttons with Brooke’s photo in the center of the button. It would not only show support for Brooke, but also give an idea of what the missing girl looked like to anyone who saw it. Before long, Philomath Elementary School donated button supplies for the construction of hundreds of such buttons, and a button-making machine was donated from Adams Elementary School. Heidi Neuffer, LDS relief society coordinator, noted, “The schools are really supportive.”

      By May 26, all age groups were helping out in the massive effort in Corvallis and its surrounding area. Two Philomath High School students were among the throng of teenagers out in the field and at the stake center. Shelby and Ashley Sparks were just a few of the many students who cut classes, with administration approval, so that they could donate their time. The sisters helped construct “support ribbons” out of pink ribbon and safety pins. They were LDS members who personally knew the Wilberger family, and they said that keeping busy helped them deal with the situation.

      Teachers were involved in the outreach as well. Bob Baker, Brooke’s high-school Spanish teacher, joined a search team on May 27. He described Brooke as being quiet in class, but not shy or afraid to speak her mind. Baker related, “If I had to make a list of people this would happen to least, Brooke would be at the top of that list.”

      Brooke’s parents, Greg and Cammy, were incredibly appreciative of all the outpouring of support from the community. They shook hands with volunteers and hugged others when they went to Corvallis. On May 27, Greg told a reporter, “We’re holding up pretty good.” By late Thursday afternoon, nearly one thousand acres had been thoroughly searched in an arc spreading out from the Oak Park Apartments. But not one substantial clue as to what had happened to Brooke—or