(Court documents are attached to the article. I don't know how to copy them to this thread.)
A judge sentenced Jordan Bowers to 43 months in prison Monday after she accepted a last-minute plea deal in an identity theft case, not linked to her missing daughter Oakley Carlson.
www.fox13seattle.com
GRAYS HARBOR COUNTY, Wash. - Jordan Bowers is scheduled to appear in court Monday morning in
Grays Harbor County to be sentenced after she accepted a
last-minute plea deal in an identity theft case, not linked to her
missing daughter Oakley Carlson.
Bowers and her husband Andrew Carlson are the prime suspects in the
disappearance of six-year-old Oakley Carlson. She was last seen in Feb. 2021.
Recently released court records show that that prior to her disappearance, Oakley was kept in a locked "cell" underneath the stairs.
When her sister was interviewed by investigators looking for Oakley, she told them that Oakley had started the house fire with the mother’s torch and was subsequently beaten for it. She also told them that Oakley was "under her mother’s bed and in the woods."
That's one of the details mentioned in a Washington Court of Appeals opinion published this month involving the release of Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF) records regarding Oakley and her siblings to the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Office. Jordan had tried to block the release of dependency and juvenile court records to the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Office, who requested them in an effort to find information to locate Oakley. The juvenile court specified that it was releasing the records on the "emergent basis" of locating OC, who remained "missing…and [was] extremely endangered."
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In the court ruling, her sister confirmed another sibling's statements regarding the mother’s physical abuse of Oakley and that Oakley was not safe in her mother's care.
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When questioned by a police officer, her parents reported that they had "lost track" of Oakley between 5 and 10 days prior, in late Nov. 2021. Carlson then filed a formal missing person report in early Dec. 2021. That was 10 months after anyone else reported seeing the girl.
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The appeals court upheld the decision to release the records to the sheriff's office for the purpose of aiding in the investigation of Oakley’s disappearance. However, they ruled the court erred in releasing the records involving Oakley's sibling (DC). There was an open case for abandonment with that sibling, but that's not why the sheriff's office said they were asking for them, so they should not have been released. Same with the other sibling (BB-P).
"Because DC’s investigation was not the basis for her record release, DC was not ‘the juvenile in question.’ Therefore, the juvenile court erred when it released DC’s records."
Same with the other sibling (BB-P).
We affirm the juvenile court’s order permitting disclosure of OC’s, DC’s, and BB-P’s juvenile court dependency records to the sheriff’s office for the purpose of aiding in the No. 56609-5-II 24 investigation of OC’s disappearance. We reverse the language in the order purporting to unseal BB-P’s, DC’s, and OC’s juvenile court records, and we remand for the trial court to remove the unsealing language from its order. We also conclude that any transcripts of dependency hearings that were not closed to the public are not sealed absent a sealing order from the juvenile court. Finally, we decline to adopt additional procedures for disclosing confidential juvenile court records.
