Family of ID’d Jane Doe hope for clues in 1980 cold case
Sandy Morden vanished sometime after May 1977
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“How, why, who? A 17-year-old girl murdered? Why, why would somebody do that?”
Leslie Brophy has so many questions, made almost impossible to answer because so much time has gone by since her cousin disappeared. Still, she is hoping someone will be moved to phone in a critical tip, by sharing her memories of Sandy Morden, now that she’s been finally identified after 40 years.
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Sandy, born in 1962, was the daughter of Andrew “Andy” Bain Morden and Kathryn Irene Morden, who divorced in the early 1970s. Sandy lived with her father, moving around Clark County and Portland. She went to Binnesmead Middle School (now called Harrison Park) from 1974 to 1975 and Gaiser Middle School from 1975 to 1976, then Wilson High School in Portland in 1976 and 1977.
Leslie Brophy only has a handful of pictures of her younger cousin Sandy and her uncle Andy, mostly from Thanksgiving 1974.
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Leslie also has a picture showing the trailer Sandy and her father lived in near Amboy, Washington. She said she remembers Andy being gone for two weeks at a time to work on tug boats. Sandy would be left alone, except for her dog — a St. Bernard mix named Barfy.
One day, Andy came home to find Sandy missing. Leslie said Barfy was still inside the RV and had destroyed it, perhaps in his desperation to escape.
Leslie said her uncle hired a private investigator but Sandy had vanished.
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The family assumed Sandy left to live with her mother who Leslie described as “not mom material at all.”
“Sandy’s mom abandoned her and apparently a previous family. Lindsay discovered before she married my Uncle Andy she had a relationship with someone down in San Francisco and had three children, and left them to go become a movie star in Hollywood,” Brophy said.
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Leslie said she has considered the possibility a serial killer took her cousin’s life.
“When I first met with the police department that was my first question: could this be
Ted Bundy, could this be the
Green River Killer,” said Leslie. “And they said, ‘No no, we looked at that.'”
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Detectives also looked at
suspected serial killer Warren Forrest, because he would leave his victims in remote parts of Clark County. They ruled him out because he was already behind bars when Sandy went missing.
Leslie is one of the few people left who remember Sandy. Her mother, Kathryn Irene Morden, died in San Francisco in 1988 and her dad died in Ilwaco, Washington in 1999 after retiring there.
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Detectives want to hear from any friends, neighbors, coworkers or anyone who knew the Morden family, especially in the 1970s. If you know anything, contact Det. Schultz at lindsay.schultz@clark.wa.gov or call 360.397.2036. Tips can also be reported to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office at 360.397.2211.
Family of ID’d Jane Doe hope for clues in 1980 cold case
Edit to add: There is a bit confusion with different news articles reporting her age different due to gap between her going missing and being found in 1980. She was 15 years old when she was last seen in 1977, so depends when her demise happened she could have been 15 up to 17 when she was murdered.