ID ID - Lonnie Jones, 13, Orofino, September 1951

[Ausgirl]

Or, one might equally argue, the story was hinky because it had to serve too many functions at once - adequate reason for his tire tracks and bootprints to be leading in and out of the area where Lonnie was found. As well as reasons for being on the road around the exact time Lonnie went missing, just in case he happened to be seen. Also reason for him to insert himself into the investigation, after having plenty of time to clean his vehicle.

You're probably right, though. I think the Keddie case has seriously messed up my ability to assume Law Enforcement might actually check things out properly. The ones in this county do seem pretty efficient to me. Except the sleeping through night duty guy, but there's always one in every bunch. :B

I wonder how the perp knew, in the dark of night, in a stressful situation, where exactly the easiest place to pull over and leave a body was on that particular stretch of road, and why he chose that bit of public highway (the night of the fair, when there's likely more chance of late traffic than any other time of year) rather than some lonely patch of logging territory on a back road somewhere.

Maybe he liked the idea of driving past the crime scene the next day. Maybe he was already really late home and had to hurry. Or he wanted Lonnie to be found quickly - though that didn't exactly pan out.

Was the side of the road he was found on the same side which takes traffic into Orofino? (Our roads are opposite to yours, as are our steering wheels - I can never picture American road directions correctly!)

 

[kline]

Or, one might equally argue, the story was hinky because it had to serve too many functions at once - adequate reason for his tire tracks and bootprints to be leading in and out of the area where Lonnie was found. As well as reasons for being on the road around the exact time Lonnie went missing, just in case he happened to be seen. Also reason for him to insert himself into the investigation, after having plenty of time to clean his vehicle.

You're probably right, though. I think the Keddie case has seriously messed up my ability to assume Law Enforcement might actually check things out properly. The ones in this county do seem pretty efficient to me. Except the sleeping through night duty guy, but there's always one in every bunch. :B

I wonder how the perp knew, in the dark of night, in a stressful situation, where exactly the easiest place to pull over and leave a body was on that particular stretch of road, and why he chose that bit of public highway (the night of the fair, when there's likely more chance of late traffic than any other time of year) rather than some lonely patch of logging territory on a back road somewhere.

Maybe he liked the idea of driving past the crime scene the next day. Maybe he was already really late home and had to hurry. Or he wanted Lonnie to be found quickly - though that didn't exactly pan out.

Was the side of the road he was found on the same side which takes traffic into Orofino? (Our roads are opposite to yours, as are our steering wheels - I can never picture American road directions correctly!)

Lol! Yeah,heading too Orofino he would have been on the Right Side of the road which is where Lonnie was found facing the river.
Your points on his story are well taken and I agree could equally indicate deception.
My faith in Law Enforcement is not high either...I know there are well intentioned,bright men and women who beleive in Justice and and conduct themselves and their investigations with total professionalism but there are also their opposite number.
I doubt local LE in Orofino was that far removed from the Wild West in 1951.
And picking that spot to drop Lonnie...it still speaks of someone with a damn good familiarity with this area.
I would just about have to conclude Lonnie was placed there by the killer because he wanted him to be found.
Anyway you slice it stopping on a narrow dark two lane road at any time,not just to dump a body BUT COMMIT A MURDER was a tremendous risk.
And yes your right he could expect more traffic then usual because of the Fair.
This area is honeycombed with thousand of square miles of logging trails, back roads,deadends where you could re-ennact the St,Valentines Day Massacre and bury Congress and no one would be the wiser yet he chooses to do that...
and besides this is 1951,your driven to commit a homosexual rape and savage murder and he WANTS people to find his victim?
And I still lean towards a local because of the window of opportunity he had to grab Lonnie.
After the teens dropped him off it would take two minutes to walk across the bridge into Greer another three to walk through Greer and then he's walking up the deserted Greer Grade in the dark.
If he wasnt intercepted in Greer by someone sitting there with a car ready someone was driving up the grade on the way home and stopped for him.
Of course my whole opinion could change tommorow.

 

[Ausgirl]

Of course my whole opinion could change tommorow.

Ain't it the way of it, though? A single shred of information can spin a year's work down a whole 'nother direction in half a second.

Greer Grade looks hella scary just from the aerial map. I've been on roads like that, here. Strangers drive them at a snail's pace, and the locals hate them for it. I can't imagine what it was like to drive it in the dark - imo, only a local would be on that thing that time of night on purpose.

If Lonnie was picked up on that road, chances seem slim that it was a passer-through.

And yes -- the location was risky, and there were far safer choices nearby. That says to me the killer was in a terrible hurry, or he wanted Lonnie discovered. Or he liked the thrill of it.

Since Lonnie had the skin off his hands, which may have been tied for some time after his death, and the time of his last sighting leaves a lapse of several hours between the teenagers' ride and the murder - somehow, I don't think this guy was in any particular hurry. I also think Lonnie was with the killer for those 'missing' hours while he was still alive.

It's not unusual at all for killers of this kind to return to the body a few times, for several reasons including gloating, reliving the thrill of the murder, a sense of possession, or checking for bits of evidence left behind. I can imagine the killer driving past that place often and feeling a rush every time he did so.

Think the cops would be open to helping out with, say -- research for a book, Kline? There's next to no chance Lonnie's killer is still alive now (Lonnie himself would be 73 years old, if he'd lived this long) so I can't see how allowing a few case documents loose would significantly reduce the chances of an arrest.

 

[kline]

Ain't it the way of it, though? A single shred of information can spin a year's work down a whole 'nother direction in half a second.

Greer Grade looks hella scary just from the aerial map. I've been on roads like that, here. Strangers drive them at a snail's pace, and the locals hate them for it. I can't imagine what it was like to drive it in the dark - imo, only a local would be on that thing that time of night on purpose.

If Lonnie was picked up on that road, chances seem slim that it was a passer-through.

And yes -- the location was risky, and there were far safer choices nearby. That says to me the killer was in a terrible hurry, or he wanted Lonnie discovered. Or he liked the thrill of it.

Since Lonnie had the skin off his hands, which may have been tied for some time after his death, and the time of his last sighting leaves a lapse of several hours between the teenagers' ride and the murder - somehow, I don't think this guy was in any particular hurry. I also think Lonnie was with the killer for those 'missing' hours while he was still alive.

It's not unusual at all for killers of this kind to return to the body a few times, for several reasons including gloating, reliving the thrill of the murder, a sense of possession, or checking for bits of evidence left behind. I can imagine the killer driving past that place often and feeling a rush every time he did so.

Think the cops would be open to helping out with, say -- research for a book, Kline? There's next to no chance Lonnie's killer is still alive now (Lonnie himself would be 73 years old, if he'd lived this long) so I can't see how allowing a few case documents loose would significantly reduce the chances of an arrest.

Your take on the Greer Grade being scary is 100% correct.....and your looking at the widened and 'improved' version as to how it must have been in 1951.
Steep and switch back after switch back that if you missed one on the way down you might stop rolling when you hit the railroad tracks by the river.
Meeting a logging truck on its way down is a rare thrill as well.
Yeah,thats one thing I have a hard time wrapping my mind around:OK lets say he's determined to dump Lonnie where he did rather then spending fifteen minutes at the end of some logging road with a shovel and letting everyone speculate that Lonnie ran away with the Carnival for the next 60 years(Hell. we wouldnt even be talking about this if he had.) but rather then just dump a body after he killed him in some remote spot ( to heck with blood in his vehicle, how hard would it be to strangle a twelve year old?) He decides to drive Lonnie to that spot ALIVE having no idea if Lonnies family were driving the road looking for him,and then marches him out to the side of the road and cuts his throat right there???
Why was leaving him there so obviously important?
My initial idea was that he was trying VERY hard to point attention away from the Grade and Pierce and Weippe at the top.
If he had went any further towards Orofino he would have been entering the suicidally reckless zone.
Of course all of that could have been avoided by just making Lonnie disappear...
So much could have gone wrong....It speaks of an extremely confident and cold blooded killer....I have to wonder if a stranger to the area would be so comfortable.
And yeah if the killer lived up on the hill or up river in Kamiah or Kooskia he could drive by that spot quite often and of course its only about twelve minutes from Orofino if that.
And yes I agree his killer had him all that time, God only knows what that poor kid went through.
Hopefully Ill have news soon on getting access to some of the case material.
Keep your fingers crossed.

 

[scriptgirl]

Do we know the name of the company the logger drove for and if it is still in existence? Also, do any articles mention where this driver is from?

 

[Ausgirl]

Keep your fingers crossed.

Fingers and toes, Kline.

According to the Death Index an Orrin C. Wood of Clearwater, Idaho, died in 1993.

He was stated to be living in Weippe when he gave evidence at the coroner's inquest in 1951.

The article states he left the fair at 12.45 (ausnote: kinda late?) to go home on the night of the murder.

Then on the Thursday after the murder, he left his home in Weippe in his car (ausnote: not his truck) at 4am. About 5am he was four miles east of Orofino on the Lewis & Clark Hwy (ausnote: what took him an hour to get there?) when, he said, he suddenly got "stomach cramps" and made the emergency roadside stop which led him straight to the site of Lonnie's body.

He then went directly to Orofino, where he went to the police station. Finding nobody there, he went to the Clearwater County Courthouse, and tried to rouse somebody at the police station there. "He was not successful in awakening the night deputy".

Then he "went down the river a little ways" because he had another bout of cramps.

Returning to Orofino at about 6am, he called an emergency police number.

This must have put him in touch with Sheriff V. L. Holloway, since "Holloway went to the scene with him."

-- I'd like to know where all these locations are, in relation to one another. I want to see a map of that man's travels that morning.

Also, I wonder why that 'emergency number' wasn't called in the first place, especially seeing that it must not have been real comfortable for a man with apparently terrible diarrhea to be driving around for that hour between 5 and 6am. I'd love to know what he was doing driving around in his car between 4 and 5am, actually.

I notice that Lonnie's last meal included popcorn. He was, in one doctor's opinion, killed less than four hours after eating it, which puts the time of his last meal at no earlier than 8pm or so, seeing as he got that lift from the teens around midnight.

I really, really want to know what time the food vans at the fair closed down. Not to mention the fair itself. The movie times ought to be checkable, too. Did Lonnie make it to that movie, after all?

Mentioned in this article is also a comment that made me blink a little. The two teenaged boys picked Lonnie up at the Orofino bridge, drove him eight miles and dropped him off at the Greer Bridge because Lonnie had told them "he was certain" he'd get a ride in Greer.

Was that a figure of speech? Or was Lonnie really certain he'd get a ride in Greer? If so, from whom?

 

[liz b.]

Fingers and toes, Kline.

According to the Death Index an Orrin C. Wood of Clearwater, Idaho, died in 1993.

He was stated to be living in Weippe when he gave evidence at the coroner's inquest in 1951.

The article states he left the fair at 12.45 (ausnote: kinda late?) to go home on the night of the murder.

Then on the Thursday after the murder, he left his home in Weippe in his car (ausnote: not his truck) at 4am. About 5am he was four miles east of Orofino on the Lewis & Clark Hwy (ausnote: what took him an hour to get there?) when, he said, he suddenly got "stomach cramps" and made the emergency roadside stop which led him straight to the site of Lonnie's body.

He then went directly to Orofino, where he went to the police station. Finding nobody there, he went to the Clearwater County Courthouse, and tried to rouse somebody at the police station there. "He was not successful in awakening the night deputy".

Then he "went down the river a little ways" because he had another bout of cramps.

Returning to Orofino at about 6am, he called an emergency police number.

This must have put him in touch with Sheriff V. L. Holloway, since "Holloway went to the scene with him."

-- I'd like to know where all these locations are, in relation to one another. I want to see a map of that man's travels that morning.

Also, I wonder why that 'emergency number' wasn't called in the first place, especially seeing that it must not have been real comfortable for a man with apparently terrible diarrhea to be driving around for that hour between 5 and 6am. I'd love to know what he was doing driving around in his car between 4 and 5am, actually.

I notice that Lonnie's last meal included popcorn. He was, in one doctor's opinion, killed less than four hours after eating it, which puts the time of his last meal at no earlier than 8pm or so, seeing as he got that lift from the teens around midnight.

I really, really want to know what time the food vans at the fair closed down. Not to mention the fair itself.

Did Lonnie make it to that movie, after all?

I hadn't realized that the same guy who found Lonnie's body,the logger dude, was also driving back from the fair at around 12: 45 ...That seems just a bit strange MOO Is it known that he went to the fair alone ? He seems somehow to be all over this case, doesn't he ???

Ausgirl, good catch , popcorn might well = going to the movie...

ETA He lived in Wieppe at the time of the inquest.... If he lived there at the time of the murder,driving back home at around 12 :45, wouldn't he probably have been driving up the grade at around the time when Lonnie was walking up the grade,after having been dropped off at around 12 :30ish ?

 

[kline]

Fingers and toes, Kline.

According to the Death Index an Orrin C. Wood of Clearwater, Idaho, died in 1993.

He was stated to be living in Weippe when he gave evidence at the coroner's inquest in 1951.

The article states he left the fair at 12.45 (ausnote: kinda late?) to go home on the night of the murder.

Then on the Thursday after the murder, he left his home in Weippe in his car (ausnote: not his truck) at 4am. About 5am he was four miles east of Orofino on the Lewis & Clark Hwy (ausnote: what took him an hour to get there?) when, he said, he suddenly got "stomach cramps" and made the emergency roadside stop which led him straight to the site of Lonnie's body.

He then went directly to Orofino, where he went to the police station. Finding nobody there, he went to the Clearwater County Courthouse, and tried to rouse somebody at the police station there. "He was not successful in awakening the night deputy".

Then he "went down the river a little ways" because he had another bout of cramps.

Returning to Orofino at about 6am, he called an emergency police number.

This must have put him in touch with Sheriff V. L. Holloway, since "Holloway went to the scene with him."

-- I'd like to know where all these locations are, in relation to one another. I want to see a map of that man's travels that morning.

Also, I wonder why that 'emergency number' wasn't called in the first place, especially seeing that it must not have been real comfortable for a man with apparently terrible diarrhea to be driving around for that hour between 5 and 6am. I'd love to know what he was doing driving around in his car between 4 and 5am, actually.

I notice that Lonnie's last meal included popcorn. He was, in one doctor's opinion, killed less than four hours after eating it, which puts the time of his last meal at no earlier than 8pm or so, seeing as he got that lift from the teens around midnight.

I really, really want to know what time the food vans at the fair closed down. Not to mention the fair itself. The movie times ought to be checkable, too. Did Lonnie make it to that movie, after all?

Mentioned in this article is also a comment that made me blink a little. The two teenaged boys picked Lonnie up at the Orofino bridge, drove him eight miles and dropped him off at the Greer Bridge because Lonnie had told them "he was certain" he'd get a ride in Greer.

Was that a figure of speech? Or was Lonnie really certain he'd get a ride in Greer? If so, from whom?

You know when you lay out his movements like that it does look very strange.
I dont know about 1951 but in my experience Saturday night at the Fair is usually done by 11:00pm.
But maybe it did stretch out to midnight back then.
Left the Fair at 12:45 translates out to me as left the fair went to the Bars until they closed(Last call for alcohol would be 12:45 as the bars back then closed at 1:00am)
Then he drives an hour home to Weippe (through Greer up the Grade)it amazing he didnt see Lonnie.
It would be inetresting to know what he says he was doing Sunday morning.

If you look at your satelite map on Google locate Weippe and then put your finger on HWY12 just about exactly halfway between Greer and Orofino you can trace this guys movements Thursday morning pretty easy.
Very,very strange.
I dont know why he felt he had to go 'down the river' to get his stomach together you would think he could find a place to go to the bathroom in Orofino.
Yeah this guys story just gets hinkier the more you go over it.
The Jail was on the top floor of the courthouse though.. if the entrance doors were locked on the ground floor and no one answered the buzer it would be hard to get someones attention.
And another thing: if Lonnie was 'certain' others would be returning up the hill to Weippe why didnt he solicit a ride from one of them at the Fair?
Unless he recognized a vehicle parked in front of a Bar(which he was too young to enter) on Johnson avenue (a main drag in Orofino only two blocks over from the Fair Grounds where most of the Bars were located.)
and yes Ill bet the popcorn does signify that he went to the movie.
I guess you could probably get popcorn at the fair but Ill bet it came from the Rex Theater...also on Johnson Avenue by the way.

 

[liz b.]

LE would have eyeballed the logger so closely though.Also the two HS boys who picked Lonnie up. The detective who worked this case seemed so dedicated and determined. This killer was very clever.He managed to get away with murder. I would LOVE to read the case file,look at LE's notes.... MOO

 

[Ausgirl]

Me too, Liz! I've still got everything crossed in hope Kline can get a look at those.

And yeah - it's a bit disheartening when a real cop puts his all into a case and still no arrest. It was good to read about all that effort, even pulling the high school kids out to help, when so many LE departments fall down on the job.

I figured the trucker was looked at with a microscope but still, his story really is 'hinky' as Kline puts it.

I can't shake the feeling that this killer was ruthless, prepared to kill, had killed before and likely did again. With the blindfold and all, it seems more like an execution than the act of a panicked, opportunistic rapist.

 

[scriptgirl]

Yeah, this guy was not panicked. Old boy was acting like he had all the time in the world. Which makes you wonder-WHY did he feel like he had all that time? Was there a hiding spot nearby-any old abandoned shacks or such.

 

[Ausgirl]

The more I stare at this, as well as the maps and all those back roads into nowhere he could have picked, the more I see the murder location as a deliberate choice. And I wondered the same thing, SG. Mainly when I was exploring the hobo option, but it's very possible Lonnie was taken to a building nearby for a time and the location was just the nearest, quickest to get to bit of forest from there. Another thing that occurred to me when Kline mentioned bars was booze - if he'd been drinking, that would increase the killer's confidence, too.

I had the most horrible thought. What if the killer was playing some sort of sick 'game' - like, he let Lonnie out of the car blindfolded and with his hands tied and let him run. Just thinking on reasons for that blindfold, which isn't making much sense - I truly do not believe he ever intended to let Lonnie go. Could have been a control thing, a way to keep him quiet - make Lonnie believe he was being taken somewhere and released, if he just kept his mouth shut.

It could just be an act of depersonalisation, too. Like a prisoner of war is 'the enemy', not a human being. Or as Liz suggested, an animal to slaughter. A way to put distance between Lonnie and his humanity.

Maybe I think about things way too much, sometimes. :S

 

[kline]

The more I stare at this, as well as the maps and all those back roads into nowhere he could have picked, the more I see the murder location as a deliberate choice. And I wondered the same thing, SG. Mainly when I was exploring the hobo option, but it's very possible Lonnie was taken to a building nearby for a time and the location was just the nearest, quickest to get to bit of forest from there. Another thing that occurred to me when Kline mentioned bars was booze - if he'd been drinking, that would increase the killer's confidence, too.

I had the most horrible thought. What if the killer was playing some sort of sick 'game' - like, he let Lonnie out of the car blindfolded and with his hands tied and let him run. Just thinking on reasons for that blindfold, which isn't making much sense - I truly do not believe he ever intended to let Lonnie go. Could have been a control thing, a way to keep him quiet - make Lonnie believe he was being taken somewhere and released, if he just kept his mouth shut.

It could just be an act of depersonalisation, too. Like a prisoner of war is 'the enemy', not a human being. Or as Liz suggested, an animal to slaughter. A way to put distance between Lonnie and his humanity.

Maybe I think about things way too much, sometimes. :S

Boy your observation that it was like an execution is spot on.
Heck,it WAS an execution,
The Japanese used to blindfold prisoners during WW2 and behead them.Very simular.
and as you said once you look at all the area where he could have disposed of Lonnie far more safely the spot was deliberate.

 

[scriptgirl]

So we are looking at someone who MAY have been a vet-what you said about how people were executed in Japan during WW2-it could be someone who was in Japan during the war. I also read about the Beverly Potts case-she was a young girl who disappeared from a fair in Cleveland in the early 50s. Years later, LE thought it very likely a carnie killed her. He was tried in 51 for the murder of a young girl. He couldn't have killed Lonnie as he was in jail and he was into young girls, but it is not far fetched to say our killer could be a carnie.

 

[Ausgirl]

The killer could just have wished to either depersonalise or confuse Lonnie and the handkerchief was there, so he used that.

Whatever the reason, it really strengthens my belief that the killer was used to killing. Slaughterhouse, army, serial murder, could be any of those things.

I've been looking pretty hard at a lot of child murders lately. Lonnie wasn't killed in a frenzy of stabs or simply strangled and dumped. In fact, I couldn't find many murders like this at all, compared to others methods. I'll keep looking, see if I can't turn up similar crimes in other states.

 

[Robin Hood]

Excellent stuff guys, incredible sleuthing.

 

[Robin Hood]

Sept 23, '52: Mystery Still Shrouds Savage Lonnie Jones Murder
-Lonnie's last meal described

Now, this may not be much, but there is another article to the right of the article about Lonnie that tells of resurfacing work having been finished. The work was started the prevous year (1951) maybe Kline would know if the area is close to where Lonnie was left. Could the murderer have left Lonnie where he did so he could move him and do what a lot of folk have done, bury him in the road works ?

 

[kline]

Sept 23, '52: Mystery Still Shrouds Savage Lonnie Jones Murder
-Lonnie's last meal described

Now, this may not be much, but there is another article to the right of the article about Lonnie that tells of resurfacing work having been finished. The work was started the prevous year (1951) maybe Kline would know if the area is close to where Lonnie was left. Could the murderer have left Lonnie where he did so he could move him and do what a lot of folk have done, bury him in the road works ?

That section of road wasnt being worked on at the time though it has been widened and improved several times over the years since Lonnie's death.

 

[scriptgirl]

Haven't heard about this case in forever-updates?

 

[kline]

Haven't heard about this case in forever-updates?

Hi Scriptgirl! There has been some family drama interupting my computer and sleuthing time but things are finally settling down(Thank God.)
Hopefully Ill have some updates soon!