OR OR - Wanda Ann Herr, 19, Gresham, 1 Jun 1976

[Andreee]

Mental illness of some kind? What about an addiction, where she was found to not be capable/fit to live on her own yet, maybe in some legal trouble (speculating, not victim shaming here) and instead of serving time, sent to a home, and counseling, etc? Would that have existed in the mid-70s? I was a very young child then, so not sure how things worked

I'm not sure really, there isn't any indication of why she was in a group home. I just think it is going to be difficult due to the passage of time to find out what happened re. her demise, due to lack of DNA available to LE on part of whoever murdered her. Sometimes it isn't an issue, but being only a partial skull was found...

 

[Andreee]

Mental illness of some kind? What about an addiction, where she was found to not be capable/fit to live on her own yet, maybe in some legal trouble (speculating, not victim shaming here) and instead of serving time, sent to a home, and counseling, etc? Would that have existed in the mid-70s? I was a very young child then, so not sure how things worked

I'm not sure really, there isn't any indication of why she was in a group home. I just think it is going to be difficult due to the passage of time to find out what happened re. her demise, due to lack of DNA available to LE on part of whoever murdered her. Sometimes it isn't an issue, but being only a partial skull was found...

Odd case.

If Wanda had significant disabilities, either physical or developmental or of any other type, then you would expect surviving family members to know that even if she was raised elsewhere. And physical difficulties would seem to be an impediment to being a chronic runaway. But from the pleas for information from LE it seems they have little information from family members so I would start from the assumption that any problems she had were not obvious.

It is unclear from reports whether she is believed to have been in a group home at the time of her disappearance or to have previously been in one but moved to live independently on reaching an appropriate age. This seems a critical issue in determining where to start an investigation. If she was in a home an investigation starts there by tracing any staff or residents at the time, understanding her life and asking whether there were any other concerns related to the home. If she had moved on the question is to where, and who was in her circle of contacts at the time.

Having established some sort of understanding of her situation when she disappeared, only then is it time to move onto the question of how she came to be found some miles away in a more remote area. Does her situation explain why she would be there or is some other explanation needed?

What I do find odd is how little information LE seem to have. Even if the family were not very connected to her, surely they must have been able to supply the names of those who raised her and probably others who were closer? That alone should enable a much clearer view of her circumstances.

I still feel the same as I did some time ago. This case has an odd smell.

From what I've read, her sisters were raised in different home or time frame than Wanda, and that LE was able to get DNA from them for testing or at least got information of some kind from them. I got the impression that she somehow got lost in the foster/group home system and of course so much time has passed, that it will take a bit of investigation to try and find records, etc.

 

[Backabeyond]

I'm not sure really, there isn't any indication of why she was in a group home. I just think it is going to be difficult due to the passage of time to find out what happened re. her demise, due to lack of DNA available to LE on part of whoever murdered her. Sometimes it isn't an issue, but being only a partial skull was found...


From what I've read, her sisters were raised in different home or time frame than Wanda, and that LE was able to get DNA from them for testing or at least got information of some kind from them. I got the impression that she somehow got lost in the foster/group home system and of course so much time has passed, that it will take a bit of investigation to try and find records, etc.

She would've aged out of foster care at 18. As pointed out by another commenter, it's not even clear if she was living in a group home. That was just what her sisters thought might've been the situation. Last they saw her was when their grandma died, which I think is the June 1976 date.

 

[Beekarina]

Hmm....I wonder then if a "group home" at 19 might have also been a communal living situation? i.e. a group of roommates, an actual "commune", something along those lines?

It is odd. Someone must have known her. Reminds me a bit of Julie Soracco.

CA - CA - Julie Elizabeth Soracco, 15, Placerville, 1 Aug 1977

 

[Andreee]

Mental illness of some kind? What about an addiction, where she was found to not be capable/fit to live on her own yet, maybe in some legal trouble (speculating, not victim shaming here) and instead of serving time, sent to a home, and counseling, etc? Would that have existed in the mid-70s? I was a very young child then, so not sure how things worked

I'm not sure really, there isn't any indication of why she was in a group home. I just think it is going to be difficult due to the passage of time to find out what happened re. her demise, due to lack of DNA available to LE on part of whoever murdered her. Sometimes it isn't an issue, but being only a partial skull was found...

Odd case.

If Wanda had significant disabilities, either physical or developmental or of any other type, then you would expect surviving family members to know that even if she was raised elsewhere. And physical difficulties would seem to be an impediment to being a chronic runaway. But from the pleas for information from LE it seems they have little information from family members so I would start from the assumption that any problems she had were not obvious.

It is unclear from reports whether she is believed to have been in a group home at the time of her disappearance or to have previously been in one but moved to live independently on reaching an appropriate age. This seems a critical issue in determining where to start an investigation. If she was in a home an investigation starts there by tracing any staff or residents at the time, understanding her life and asking whether there were any other concerns related to the home. If she had moved on the question is to where, and who was in her circle of contacts at the time.

Having established some sort of understanding of her situation when she disappeared, only then is it time to move onto the question of how she came to be found some miles away in a more remote area. Does her situation explain why she would be there or is some other explanation needed?

What I do find odd is how little information LE seem to have. Even if the family were not very connected to her, surely they must have been able to supply the names of those who raised her and probably others who were closer? That alone should enable a much clearer view of her circumstances.

I still feel the same as I did some time ago. This case has an odd smell.

From what I've read, her sisters were raised in different home or time frame than Wanda, and that LE was able to get DNA from them for testing or at least got information of some kind from them. I got the impression that she somehow got lost in the foster/group home system and of course so much time has passed, that it will take a bit of investigation to try and find records, etc.

She would've aged out of foster care at 18. As pointed out by another commenter, it's not even clear if she was living in a group home. That was just what her sisters thought might've been the situation. Last they saw her was when their grandma died, which I think is the June 1976 date.

A group home could've been a non-foster situation. No, it isn't completely clear if she was in one, just going by what the Charley Project webpage and LE have thought was the case: "Herr disappeared sometime in June 1976; she was living in a group home in Gresham, Oregon at the time."

 

[Andreee]

Hmm....I wonder then if a "group home" at 19 might have also been a communal living situation? i.e. a group of roommates, an actual "commune", something along those lines?

It is odd. Someone must have known her. Reminds me a bit of Julie Soracco.

CA - CA - Julie Elizabeth Soracco, 15, Placerville, 1 Aug 1977

That's what I was thinking. In that case, she wouldn't have necessarily been a foster child, or at least not anymore.

 

[Backabeyond]

I'm not sure really, there isn't any indication of why she was in a group home. I just think it is going to be difficult due to the passage of time to find out what happened re. her demise, due to lack of DNA available to LE on part of whoever murdered her. Sometimes it isn't an issue, but being only a partial skull was found...


From what I've read, her sisters were raised in different home or time frame than Wanda, and that LE was able to get DNA from them for testing or at least got information of some kind from them. I got the impression that she somehow got lost in the foster/group home system and of course so much time has passed, that it will take a bit of investigation to try and find records, etc.


A group home could've been a non-foster situation. No, it isn't completely clear if she was in one, just going by what the Charley Project webpage and LE have thought was the case: "Herr disappeared sometime in June 1976; she was living in a group home in Gresham, Oregon at the time."

I thought the same thing originally, until someone pointed out that other sources said it was less clear.

 

[Backabeyond]

Hmm....I wonder then if a "group home" at 19 might have also been a communal living situation? i.e. a group of roommates, an actual "commune", something along those lines?

It is odd. Someone must have known her. Reminds me a bit of Julie Soracco.

CA - CA - Julie Elizabeth Soracco, 15, Placerville, 1 Aug 1977

That would be the first I've heard a commune called a group home. I would imagine that they just would've said "commune" since it was a word in widespread usage for such situations. Group home implies a very distinct set of circumstances. It either involves at-risk youth, and/or people with psychological, behavioral or developmental disabilities. Given the report that she was a chronic runaway would fall right in line with one or more of those things. and the fact that she was raised in a different household from where no one reported her missing seems to suggest some instability and that could lead to some of these issues requiring a group homes services. MOO.

 

[Andreee]

I thought the same thing originally, until someone pointed out that other sources said it was less clear.

Well, hopefully the investigators or any family that is left will give some kind of update at some point.

 

[Andreee]

That would be the first I've heard a commune called a group home. I would imagine that they just would've said "commune" since it was a word in widespread usage for such situations. Group home implies a very distinct set of circumstances. It either involves at-risk youth, and/or people with psychological, behavioral or developmental disabilities. Given the report that she was a chronic runaway would fall right in line with one or more of those things. and the fact that she was raised in a different household from where no one reported her missing seems to suggest some instability and that could lead to some of these issues requiring a group homes services. MOO.

oh yes, I agree group home wouldn't likely be a commune as such.

 

[Backabeyond]

A very strange aspect of this case is that Wanda seems to have been wiped from the family (and others) memory. The obituary of her mother (Obituary for Daisy Lou Markham at Donelson Funeral Chapel & Cremation Services) makes no mention of Wanda, either as a survivor or predeceasing her, whilst her siblings all get a mention. I cannot find any references to her living in Forest Grove, despite it being easy to find such references to her siblings.

I am wondering what led her to being in a Group Home. Post #6 above has some interesting information on what may have been the type of home she was in. If she did have disabilities it makes it all the more worrying that she could disappear and more surprising that nothing seems to have been done to find her if she was especially vulnerable.

This entire case seems to have a strange smell about it.

I don't have a clue what her sister meant when they say she didn't grow up in the same household. Is there any family dynamic you can think of that might have her with the last name but unrelated to Daisy and therefore unlisted, but still considered a sister? It doesn't seem too far of a stretch that maybe she was just given away to a relative and was still part of the family but not considered a daughter, though still a sister. I've actually seen something very similar with my own eyes. Or maybe the sister assumed she lived in a group home, because she'd pretty much always lived in one. Sorry, maybe getting a little too speculative.

 

[alb1on]

I don't have a clue what her sister meant when they say she didn't grow up in the same household. Is there any family dynamic you can think of that might have her with the last name but unrelated to Daisy and therefore unlisted, but still considered a sister? It doesn't seem too far of a stretch that maybe she was just given away to a relative and was still part of the family but not considered a daughter, though still a sister. I've actually seen something very similar with my own eyes. Or maybe the sister assumed she lived in a group home, because she'd pretty much always lived in one. Sorry, maybe getting a little too speculative.

I am as confused as anyone. I simply find it hard to reconcile a situation where a daughter is sufficiently close to the family to attend a family funeral, but also apparently so distant that she is left out of her mother's obituary when other siblings are listed and where the surviving siblings seem to have almost no knowledge of her life.

 

[Backabeyond]

I am as confused as anyone. I simply find it hard to reconcile a situation where a daughter is sufficiently close to the family to attend a family funeral, but also apparently so distant that she is left out of her mother's obituary when other siblings are listed and where the surviving siblings seem to have almost no knowledge of her life.

the result of a fathers affair? the situation i have seen was a lesbian couple. The biological mom, gave this girl to her SO and that is who she knew as mom. And the other siblings knew it.

 

[Beekarina]

I also agree "group home" and "commune" are very different. I mentioned this because I have seen a few other cases where it was very unclear which situation a missing person had been living in, and different sources appeared to indicate different situations.

I wouldn't use the terms as synonyms, but I am thinking more along the lines of how sometimes we will see a name spelled one way, and then it is a different way, or we hear a person had green eyes, but then no they were blue. Almost like the old game of telephone, and with so much time having passed, how can we know?

Hopefully this makes sense!

 

[faithx]

New sketch released of young woman whose remains ID’d decades later | KOIN.com

"A new age-progressed sketch of a young woman whose remains were finally identified this year, decades after being found, has been released by detectives working with a forensic artist.

The black-and-white age-progressed sketch of Wanda Herr is at 19, her age when she disappeared in 1976."

 

[Beekarina]

I still wonder if Wanda could be "the girl in the fur coat....." from the Alcala series Comparing the new sketch...

 

[Andreee]

I still wonder if Wanda could be "the girl in the fur coat....." from the Alcala series Comparing the new sketch...View attachment 273005 View attachment 273006

I don't think so as Wanda was said to be at some kind of group home in the Gresham area before disappearing to the fairly nearby northern region where she was found.

 

[DSCrime]

I was intrigued by the resemblance between Wanda Herr's updated sketch and the photo of the girl in the fur coat plus the fact that Alcala had a storage unit in Seattle, so he was at least in the Pacific Northwest.

But it looks like according to his Wikipedia timeline that he was incarcerated in California from 1974-1977

Rodney Alcala - Wikipedia

 

[Beekarina]

Yes, he was. He was released in June of 1977.

1977-1979 was when he was known to be particularly active, so that is why I consider this possible.

It also seems Wanda's date of disappearance is a bit murky.

 

[TedMac]

Skull found on Mount Hood in ’86 was missing 19-year-old woman, DNA reveals; cold case reopened

"New DNA analysis has definitively matched a skull found on Mount Hood in the mid-1980s to a young woman reported missing a decade earlier, officials said Thursday.

Now, nearly 50 years after her disappearance, investigators are hoping the information will help them determine what led to the death of 19-year-old Wanda Ann Herr.

The mystery began in 1986 when two Forest Service workers happened upon the partial skull, some bone fragments and a tooth near Government Camp off U.S. 26, said the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office, which is overseeing the investigation and issued a news release Thursday..."