I haven't been on this site very often in the last couple of years, but came on hoping to find more information about Merrilee Cooley. I live only a few miles from where she lived and know the apartment complex where her car was found. It did not sit right with me that there didn't seem to be much information out there before she was found, and I haven't heard anything much at all since she has been found. I'll go back through the thread to find if there are any leads.
The apartment complex where her car was left is very near a major bus line and the MAX line (lightrail, for people not local). The MAX stop is across the street, maybe 1/4 mile up the hill, and it runs between 4:50am and midnight. The bus line in that same area begins at 4:50am weekdays, 6:00am weekends, and runs until 12:40am weekdays and 2am weekends. The MAX station will have security cameras there, but I don't believe the bus stations do. However, all the public transport has cameras on them. I wonder if these have been checked? The person dropping the car had to go somewhere, and those apartments aren't really close to anything and located on a busy highway; that side of the highway isn't so well lit at night, but it does have a wide sidewalk.
Ack! Went back and read through the threads. It's alarming that they didn't consider this hinky right from the beginning and a shame they let the family stay in her house, possibly destroying evidence. The family lives in Lebanon, which is just over an hour's drive away in regular traffic.
I found the video where the car was found. The apartment complex is really big and spans across the bottom of a hill, below the highway. The place where the car was found is this sort of back road above the complex. There are garages up there, and that is where the car was left. I work in social services and a client of mine used to live in that complex. It really isn't any more sketchy than any other apartment complex; my client had a brain injury and drank a lot and she was kicked out of her apartment for simply looking intoxicated while walking through the complex and then getting lost and asking for help. (Unfortunately, her brain injury made her appear intoxicated even when she wasn't.) But that stretch of road there loops around above the complex; there are fairly dumpy looking houses along that road, cars are parked there that look abandoned, and there are often people in that area car camping, at least in warmer weather. It may be different in the winter. It is very dark at night in that area. Up around the top of the loop where it connects to McLoughlin Blvd is a gun shop and a sketchy motel. The gun shop may also have security cameras.
I would have to believe that the person dumping the car there would have to have been familiar with that area, and would have had a plan to be transported out of the area by bus or on foot to the bus due to its out of the way location. They also could have easily left the car during the daytime without anyone really noticing.
Here's the Google street view where the car was found (based on what I know of the complex and the news video of the police removing the car):
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.433...v324ZdtXGbaK61SRNg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
You can "walk" up to the main street in street view (it loops up and around to the right, follow that until you come to McLoughln Blvd; the gun shop and motel is on the left). Then you can turn left and "walk" down McLoughlin and enter the apartment complex main entrance (on the right), and follow SE Short Road and then SE Whitcomb through the complex to get a better idea of the complex and where the car was left.
Here's the Google street view of Merrilee's trailer park. I haven't "walked" the park too much yet and haven't been able to find her house, but as you can see, it is a very nice community, and not what people think of when they think "trailer park".
https://www.google.com/maps/@45.405...KcsyA1RWCiJvHRvWYg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
raying:
