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

[Murkywaters]

Photograph of Wanda at Age 12, more recent photos are unavailable.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

Wanda was last known to be in a group home in Gresham, Oregon before family lost contact with her in June 1976.

 

[glamourkitty1922]

How sad. I remember in the 1970s that "group home" had a different meaning than it had today. Was she a member of a cult, a commune, or a back to nature co-operative?

 

[Murkywaters]

Wanda Ann Herr – The Charley Project

Herr at age 12 (circa 1969, seven years prior to her disappearance; more recent photos are unavailable)

• Missing Since 06/01/1976
• Missing From Gresham, Oregon
• Classification Missing
• Sex Female
• Race White
• Age 19 years old
• Height and Weight 5'1, 110 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, hazel eyes.

Details of Disappearance
Herr disappeared sometime in June 1976; she was living in a group home in Gresham, Oregon at the time. She has never been heard from again. Few details are available in her case.

 

[Bit of hope]

Wanda at age 7

 

[Beekarina]

Could she possibly be "The Girl In The Fur Coat" from the Alcala series? He was in prison in 1976, but it seems possible with a group home, she could have left that setting and gone elsewhere? Especially at 19.....I can see some similarities, even comparing a photo of a 12 year old....

 

[Bit of hope]

Wanda Ann Herr She is also listed on the THE RESOURCE CENTER FOR COLD CASE MISSING CHILDREN’S CASES. Listed: Date Of Birth: circa, 1957 (she was approx. 19, so that seems accurate)

Also found this Albertina Kerr Centers about the history of the Albertina Kerr Homes situated in Gresham, Oregon.

<snipped> In 1940, the Louise Home and the Albertina Kerr Nursery joined to become Albertina Kerr Homes. ,<located at 722 N.E. 162nd Ave, Gersham, Oregon> Kerr built cottages on the Louise Home campus to provide safe residential treatment to children needing psychiatric care. The campus specializes in both residential and outpatient mental health services and counseling for families.

<snipped> In the late 1970s, Salem’s Fairview Training Center, the state-run institution for people with developmental disabilities, made plans to move its residents to community-based homes. Albertina Kerr opened the Kerr Center for Handicapped Children at Marylhurst University in Portland in 1976 and later built group homes for clients. Albertina Kerr’s Developmental Disabilities Programs expanded its group homes and other services to cities throughout Oregon so that clients could be served near their families.

From this article A legacy of providing aid to the most vulnerable <snipped> Albertina Kerr's mission isn't far off what the Louise Home was originally intended to be. The organization is trying to empower people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, mental health challenges and other social barriers to lead better lives and achieve their full potential. They do this through crisis psychiatric care, family resource centers, treatment programs, youth group homes and much more.

So there were two institutes operating, a state run institution though it was situated in Salem. My conclusion for now is that she resided under the care of the Albertina Kerr Center. The address named in Namus links to the following address in Gresham خرائط ‪Google‬‏‏

I couldn't find a link to this address and the Albertina Kerr Home for now, but maybe the coördinates are just landing somewhere in Gresham.

 

[Bit of hope]

In my humble opinion, her name was officially different....maybe her mother gave birth to her outside America, unmarried, immigrated and married with someone with the name Herr....IMO mostly a German and probably Jewish surname. Also a lot of Mennonites with this name. I searched for a trace of her everywhere, people with the same name...Wanda (not very common IMO) possible ancestors on all kind of Genealogy sites...even everything there is in a tree of the name Herr.... Still nothing..... Somehow the documentary from 2007 "Where's is Molly" comes to mind.....

 

[Bit of hope]

And here is another listing....Wanda Herr

 

[Melt71]

Posted Wanda's link against a case entered into Namus a short while ago - partial skeletal remains found in 1994 some 30mi away of an 'adolescent' of unknown age, gender or race. Though at 19 perhaps Wanda would have been too old to be fall into that developmental age group.
OR - OR - Clackamas Co, adolescent gender not known, UP66279, Sep'94

 

[alb1on]

I am fairly confident that Wanda is/was the daughter of Elton Robert Herr and his then wife Daisy (both of whom are now dead) and who lived in Forest Grove in Oregon at the time Wanda went missing. My belief is based on material in Ancestry. Firstly there is a family tree which seems to belong to another daughter (who would be Wanda's sister) which lists a daughter Wanda with an unknown death date. Secondly, there is a yearbook picture from 1976 of another daughter who looks just like Wanda. There are multiple trees for this Herr family and another gives the full name of Wanda Ann Herr with a DoB of 1 May 1957.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

Did she disappear from the "group home" one day under unknown circumstances?
Her family "lost contact" = confused by what this means.

 

[Melt71]

Did she disappear from the "group home" one day under unknown circumstances?
Her family "lost contact" = confused by what this means.

No idea, but possible either the original police report can't be found (so there are few details) or a comprehensive report was never made (not uncommon in group home runaway cases back then I believe).

 

[alb1on]

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.

 

[Bit of hope]

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.

Thank you for sharing this with us. Exactly my feeling about all of this. I'm glad you found some traces of her through Ancestry...but when I first searched for her it looked she was somehow swept under the carpet. I (we) sadly can't pinpoint down in what home she was....the Albertina Kerr homes took care of children with (learning) disabilities and maybe psychological problems....maybe it was all with good intentions...her parents yelling out for help...I don't know...I would very much like to know more. Where is Molly...I really meant that.... It's not for nothing I sketched the scenario that Wanda was a "not wanted child" from another man, maybe born outside America...recognizes by the new husband...but a "pain in the "....sorry don't want to sound harsh but this is what real live looks like.....some people are capable of that.

 

[Melt71]

Well, something has prompted LE to put her into Namus very recently. Unlike some other states, they don't seem to be doing a bulk upload of multiple old cases. So I'm intrigued.

 

[Suglo]

Bumping!

 

[apearn]

Could she be Carbon County Beth Doe?
She disappeared right around the time Beth would have beeen going into her second trimester ("showing"). I know the isotopes are off but they were off in the Rainbow Falls Jane Doe case.

Height is ok
Age is OK

Could WSR (written on Beth's hand) actually be WAH?

 

[Melt71]

Could she be Carbon County Beth Doe?
Could WSR (written on Beth's hand) actually be WAH? View attachment 260920

Theoretically there's nothing to rule her out, though if her parents & sister resided in OR it would be hard to find her motive for being so far away. However we've seen so many young deceased found on the opposite side of the country from their origins that it's not impossible.

 

[Bit of hope]

She might be this Jane Doe, The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) found in Multnomah County, Oregon in 1984 (Namus map points between Portland and Gresham but is probably at random) 16-20 Years. No PMI. Sadly nothing more to know.....

According to the Doe Network file there is DNA.
The Doe Network: 1262UFOR
I'm not sure they have it for Wanda.

 

[freefallzzzz]

Decades-old skull identified as belonging to young woman who died in 1970s; detectives seek tips (Photo)

Release

86-025724-WandaHerr-Age12.jpg
Decades-old skull identified as belonging to young woman who died in 1970s; detectives seek tips (Photo) - 10/22/20


Please reference CCSO Case # 86-025724

In 1986, two U.S. Forest Service workers found a partial human skull near Government Camp, Oregon.

Earlier this year, genetic and genealogical investigators finally identified the skull as belonging to 19-year-old Wanda Ann Herr. Today, the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office is asking for the public's help as it resurrects a decades-old cold case -- and investigates Wanda's mysterious disappearance and death in the late 1970s.

A mysterious skull
The case began on Aug. 2, 1986. Two Forest Service workers discovered a partial skull, several bone fragments, and a single human tooth on Still Creek Road 2612 and Road 145, near Government Camp off Highway 26.

Eleven days later, an Oregon State Police forensic examiner determined the skull likely belonged to a twentysomething woman or small man. He also estimated the skull had been in the woods approximately 10 years -- putting the subject's death on or around 1976.

In 2005, the remains were re-inventoried and re-curated at the Clackamas County Medical Examiner's Office. But the case otherwise lay dormant until 2008, nearly 22 years after the initial find, when Dr. Nici Vance -- the State Forensic Anthropologist with the Oregon State Police -- re-examined the skull. This, combined with DNA analysis of the skull at the University of North Texas, allowed for a refined victim description: The skull belonged to a female in her late teens to early 20s.

That same year, 2008, Sheriff's *more at link