Grays Harbor Incident Investigation

In January 2007 Beaverton (Oregon) resident Beverly Johnson disappeared from her home, and was found dead 11 days later on a rural Forest Service road, some 175 miles from her home.

A witness reported Johnson's car driving erratically less than two hours after police took the missing person report from her family, and entered the license plate into NCIC. That person called the Grays Harbor (Wash.) comm center and reported the make, model and license number of the car, and that he was following it. The license plate triggered an NCIC missing person hit at both the State Patrol and the Grays Harbor comm center, but that information wasn't given to the witness. The information was passed to the Washington State Patrol, and then back to Grays Harbor for handling. At least one local city officer looked for Johnson's car, but the sighting was not broadcast to all county units because of another high-priority incident occurring at the time of the sighting. The incident was eventually closed out.

Two hours later, the witness saw an Oregon TV report that Johnson was missing. He again dialed Grays Harbor's comm center and asked about the vehicle he had seen, and if it matched the missing person's vehicle. A trainee dispatcher who was being monitored by a veteran told the witness, "No." The witness questioned that answer, and the trainee checked with the veteran, who looked up the incident, and again told the witness it was not the same vehicle. The investigation determined that both dispatchers mistakenly believed the witness was referring to the high-priority incident that occurred earlier, compared the two plates, and saw they didn't match.

Meanwhile, in the intervening 11 days, the Beaverton police were conducting an extensive investigation of Johnson's disappearance, including handing out several versions of flyers, going on TV, and investigating leads that made Johnson's husband a person-of-interest.

The day after Johnson was found dead, the witness saw news coverage of the death, and realized that the vehicle he had sighted was indeed Johnson's vehicle. He reported that fact, setting off an investigation of how the incident was handled.

The resulting report was 528 pages long, and included police reports, CAD print-outs, transcripts of telephone calls and radio traffic, compilations of units status during the time of the sighting, and other records. The report also included some conclusions and recommendations for the Grays Harbor comm center.

Because the report was compiled from a wide variety of sources, it's available only on paper. However, I have scanned and converted to Acrobat (pdf) several pertinent sections of the report. You can download these sections, read and draw your own conclusions about how the incident was handled.

Because the documents were scanned, some of them are large files. The largest files are indicated.

• Introduction & recommendation - The introductory portion of the report, prepared by the county's law enforcement subcommittee. The recomendations are wide-ranging, and many barely relate to the circumstances of the original incident.
• Timeline of the incident - Shows the date and time of various events. You can tell what events overlap, and which are related to the Johnson case, and which to the high-priority incident that was occurring at the time. (6.8 Mb)
• Investigation of the incident - A 20-page investigative summary by two city of Aberdeen (Wash.) detective. It gives a comprehensive account of the actions that took place surrounding the sighting of Johnson's car. (20 Mb)
• Sheriff's summary - A summary of the incident by the Grays Harbor Sheriff, focusing more on the post-sighting activities and investigation.
• Interviews - A summary of interviews with key persons who handled the incident, including the answers to some "key" questions.
• Interview notes - Notes from the interviews that were conducted. (3.1 Mb)
• Transcripts - Transcripts of telephone calls and radio traffic during the period surrounding when Johnson's car was sighted.