By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
Assistance from FBI field agents and the agency’s behavorial analysis unit is helping two Lincoln County cold case investigators make progress on solving the killing of Kelly Disney more than 41 years ago.
The cold case investigators had been requesting FBI help for years, but only last fall began to get assistance from Oregon-based agents and analysts from Quantico, Va.
“They have been tremendously helpful,” cold case investigator Linda Snow said in an interview with YachatsNews. “They have so many resources.”
Kelly Disney was 17 years old when she disappeared March 9, 1984, and the investigation into her death has confounded detectives since. Disney’s skull was found 10 years later but the rest of her body has never been recovered.
Her death is one of three unsolved homicides involving young Newport girls. On Jan. 27, 1995, Jennifer Esson, 15, and Kara Leas, 16, left a friend’s house in north Newport and headed into town. More than two weeks later their bodies were found north of the city near Moolack Beach covered with brush. They had been strangled.
Last week, the Lincoln County district attorney’s office issued a news release on the 41st anniversary of Disney’s disappearance, once again asking anyone with information on the case to call its investigators.
On Friday, Snow, fellow investigator Patricia Miller, district attorney Jenna Wallace along with Disney’s sister, Angela Dodds of Prineville and her sister-in-law Jennifer Disney appeared at a news conference at the county courthouse to help publicize the case. Snow has volunteered her time to work on the Disney, Esson and Leas cases since 2009.
Snow said Oregon-based FBI agents helped convince Disney’s former boyfriend, Robert Ellis, to finally talk to investigators. Ellis, who until recently lived in Seal Rock, has moved away from the coast.
Snow said FBI agents stopped by his house and again asked if he would talk to investigators. “When people see the FBI they pay more attention … and Mr. Ellis agreed to be interviewed,” she said.
“I’ve been wanting to talk with him for 16 years,” said Snow, adding that after her interview she no longer considers Ellis a suspect in his former girlfriend’s death.
“No, he is not a suspect,” Snow said. “He was sincere about the loss of Kelly.”
Disappeared March 9, 1984
Disney grew up in Siletz, the oldest of Stan and Betty Disney’s four children. She fell in love with Ellis, then 20, and threatened to quit school if she could not be with him. So the Disneys agreed on the condition she attend and graduate from Newport High School.
On March 8, 1984, there was a low-key party at their Hurburt Street apartment. Ellis left but Disney stayed behind. She eventually got mad and also left about 12:30 a.m. March 9.
Ellis returned, but was told that Disney had left. He began searching and found her standing along Highway 20 just east of Highway 101, but couldn’t convince her to get in the car.
Two men on their way to work saw Disney and offered her a ride, but she refused. The men relayed their story to a Newport officer, who called dispatch and a Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputy found Disney along the highway near what is now Southeast Moore Drive. She refused help, saying she was going to a girlfriend’s house nearby.
It was 1 a.m. March 9, 1984.
Investigators now believe there was a 15-20 minute window after that when Disney finally accepted a ride. Investigators have a theory that one or two people Disney knew – likely from the Siletz community — picked her up that night, took her somewhere, sexually assaulted her and then killed her.
Someone knows
Snow says the district attorney’s cold case unit continues to get a smattering of tips and the assistance and training from FBI agents has been invaluable. But unlike some old homicides that are eventually solved using DNA, there is none available in Disney’s case.
Investigators believe there are people still in the area who know what happened that night and that as they get older may want to clear their conscience.
“We want people to know we’re still actively working the case and we know there are people who know what happened,” Snow told YachatsNews. “We’re trying to get someone to come forward.”
On Friday in the grand jury room of the Lincoln County courthouse, splayed across a table were remnants of Kelly Disney’s life. There’s the work permit she obtained so that she could get a pizza parlor job, a small music box, old photographs, a green Bible and various newspaper clippings from the decades that went by while her friends and family were left with questions about her disappearance and death.
“41 years and this is all I have left of my sister,” said Dodds.
She thumbed through the Bible and the underlined passages. On difficult days, Dodd revisits her sister’s Bible and reads the passages her sister marked. In addition to items on the table, there are memories Dodd turns over in her head.
“She was an amazing sister,” she said, smart, good at school.
She remembers when her sister saved her from falling when Dodd was sleepwalking. Going to the store with her to buy a nail polish and makeup.
“Delayed justice isn’t really justice is it?” Dodd said. Because Kelly didn’t get to grow up, to do the things that her killer got to do, she said.
Still, the revisiting of the cold case makes her hopeful.
“I just want my sister home,” she said.
- YachatsNews reporter Shayla Escudero contributed to this report. Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
I have lived in Lincoln County my whole life and knew the Disney family. Living in a small community you know a lot of the locals. When I heard of Kelly’s disappearance I was attending Toledo High School in 10th grade. I have not ever forgotten that date March 9, 1984 — my birthday. This saddened me and was scared for her. Through the years hanging out with friends there was a couple times where Kelly had been brought up in discussion. I have been told a couple stories from ones that knew her what they thought happened to her. One story in particular stands out the most because I have heard it from more than one person at different times. I pray for the family and hope that they get closure.
Hi Andrea.
I would like to hear the stories you are talking about.
Can you give me a call or send me an email at:
541-265-0284
lsnow@co.lincoln.or.us
Kara Leas was a best friend in high school, and the close calls we’ve had with possible leads that have fizzled are still heart-wrenching now, 30 years later. I’ve since experienced other losses, but murder creates a different kind of wound that never heals right.
I really hope that fresh eyes and enough time has passed that they can find justice for the Disney family, and finally some small bit of closure.