Five missing people in five years. And that’s far from the only fact that aroused suspicion of a serial killer operating along the Idaho-Washington border in the early 1980s. While some victims have been found, the hunt for the killer is still on. Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the Lewis Clark Valley Murders?
This episode includes discussions of murder, rape, dismemberment, and suicide. For mental health support, visit Spotify.com slash resources. Today's story is still an open FBI investigation. Because of that, today's serial killer doesn't have a name. They're yet to be caught, and they may not be guilty of all the crimes we'll cover.
But there are so many connections between today's victims, it's worth investigating the serial killer theory. Because 40 years later, they might still be out there, waiting to be caught. Welcome to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. I'm Janice Morgan. You might recognize me as the voice behind the investigative docuseries Broken and the true crime podcast Fear Thy Neighbor.
I'll be your host for the next few weeks, and I'm thrilled to be here. we'd love to hear from you. Follow us on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast and share your thoughts on this week's episode. Or if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and leave a comment. Today, we're going to the Lewis Clark Valley, a collection of small remote towns on the Idaho-Washington border.
Between 1979 and 1982, five young people went missing from that area. Those who were found had been murdered. Their disappearances changed the valley forever. and cast a shadow of suspicion on one man. Stay with us.
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Chapter 2: Who were the victims of the disappearances?
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The Lewis-Clark Valley sits along the border of Washington and Idaho. It's known for its natural beauty. There's rolling hills, tall trees, and the Snake River. Amid the stunning vistas sit a number of small, tight-knit towns. One is Esoton, Washington. In 1979, Esoton had a population of just 1,000 people.
Think quaint, charming, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone and nothing bad ever happens. At least, until today's story starts. In such a small community, annual events were a big deal. So even though April 2nd, 1979 was an unseasonably hot day, people came out for the Esoton County Fair. The fair still happens to this day, and even in 1979, it was a major production.
Think games, rides, and of course, a parade. That year, Betty Wilkes dragged her two daughters out of the house for the festivities. Her youngest, six-year-old Carlin, seemed to have a pretty good time. But 12-year-old Christina White got bored fast. The heat didn't help. Christina was a bit of a tomboy, not too interested in the glittery, bright colors of the parade.
She'd much rather be with her friends, fishing on the Snake River or playing in the nearby woods. Around noon, when the sun was at its peak, Christina poked her mom and asked her if she could go to her friend's house. She had her bike at the fair. She could ride there herself and come back home for dinner. Betty nodded. The heat was starting to bother her, too.
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Chapter 3: What happened to Christina White?
As Christina jumped on her bike and rode away, Betty and Carlin started home on foot. They passed Christina's friend's house on the way and saw her outside. She'd arrived safely. They waved and carried on. Later that afternoon, Betty's phone rang. It was Christina calling from the friend's house. She had symptoms of heat stroke. This had happened before, so Betty wasn't too worried.
She told her daughter to drape a cold, damp towel over her head, then lie down for a bit. Then as soon as she felt better, bike home. Betty expected to see her daughter fairly soon, but hours passed with no sign of Christina and no call back. When she didn't show for dinner, Betty grew worried. She called Christina's friend's house, but her daughter wasn't there anymore. Nobody knew where she was.
So Betty contacted the police. As you probably know, in a lot of disappearances, authorities wait anywhere from 24 to 48 hours to begin an official investigation. But in this case, Chief Tom Pryor immediately sprang into action, likely because Christina was so young and the Esotan community was so tight-knit. That said, Betty and the authorities thought they'd find Christina quickly.
She was probably riding her bike around, totally unaware of the commotion she'd caused. Or maybe she was still having heat stroke symptoms and decided to lie down somewhere. Betty and the police scoured every nook and cranny of the small town, but they couldn't find Christina or her bike anywhere. As far as they could tell, she left her friend's house to bike home, then vanished.
News spread fast in Esoton. That night and the next morning, the community came together in support of Betty and her family. They offered help in whatever way they could, searching the town, putting up posters, or simply lending a sympathetic ear. But one man was incredibly quick to offer his services. For privacy, we'll call him Frank. He was a local guy with a wife and kids.
He worked at a local theater, sometimes performing on stage. So far, pretty normal. Except he seemed a little too invested in the search, especially right at the start, which detectives found odd. According to one Esotan police officer, it's rare for innocent bystanders to get highly involved in an investigation, but it's actually quite common for the perpetrator of a crime.
They offer to help, but they really just want to see what the police know. Frank's behavior struck detectives as off-putting, but that was just gut instinct, not real evidence. Right then, the most important thing was finding Christina, so they took any help they could get. While the police dealt with Frank, Christina's father, Gary White, raced to Esoton to join the search.
By the time he arrived in town, he had his own theory. Someone from the county fair kidnapped Christina. He tried to get the police to search the trailers and campers, but there wasn't enough evidence to obtain warrants. Gary was frustrated, but he had another idea. He asked a local man, Jim Pope, for a favor.
Jim owned a helicopter, and Gary thought they might have an easier time spotting clues from above. So they took the chopper all over the county. In the air, Gary kept his eyes peeled, desperate to find his daughter. They didn't see anything. But Gary wasn't giving up. When the carnival left town, he followed it 150 miles to the Tri-Cities area.
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Chapter 4: How was Kristen David's body discovered?
Officials hoped they could salvage a DNA sample from the newspapers, but it would be a long shot. With the technology available in 1981, they'd need to get a sample, then compare it against a suspect's DNA. Meaning that, without a suspect, the evidence was useless. But law enforcement still had to try. Kristen David's case became a top priority for multiple jurisdictions.
Two states and three separate counties searched for her killer. Eventually, even the FBI got involved. Yet all this manpower uncovered nothing. No clues, no potential suspects. Kristen David's case hit a dead end. It was difficult for the community to swallow. The Lewis-Clark Valley was once a safe haven. Now it felt like the setting for a horror movie.
Locals couldn't help but connect Kristin David's story to Christina White's, the 12-year-old who disappeared on her way home from the county fair two years before. What if Christina suffered the same terrible fate? It felt like anybody's daughter could be next. chilling thought that soon became reality. Less than a year later, three more people vanished from the Lewis Clark Valley.
On the evening of September 12, 1982, 21-year-old Christina Nelson and her stepsister, 18-year-old Brandy Miller, hung out at home in Lewiston. Both young women were known as kind and bubbly. Christina Nelson dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. Brandy was in her senior year of high school. That evening, they decided to run some errands.
They didn't want to worry their parents, so they left a note saying they were going to the shop. They walked out the front door and were never seen again. This was the third disappearance in an area where things like this never happened. Naturally, people thought it was related to the previous two disappearances. But something was different this time.
Christina White and Kristen David both went missing while biking alone. Christina Nelson and Brandy Miller were two young women who vanished together. There's more. The same night Christina Nelson and Brandy Miller went missing, a local man also disappeared from Lewiston, 35-year-old Steven Pearsall. Police immediately noticed that Stephen didn't match the established victim profile.
Up to this point, they'd all been girls or young women. Stephen was a man in his mid-30s. For law enforcement, this was a red flag. Then another popped up. Stephen knew Christina Nelson and Brandy. He was a janitor at the Lewiston Civic Theater, where Nelson worked part-time and Brandy often stopped by. Detectives wondered, maybe Stephen was the killer they'd been looking for.
He quickly became the prime suspect, not just in Christina Nelson and Brandy's case, but all three crimes. Officers talked to Stephen's girlfriend. She said on the night of his disappearance, they went to a party together. Afterward, she dropped Stephen off at the Civic Theater to do laundry and practice his clarinet. Apparently, the clarinet was Stephen's most prized possession.
According to his family and friends, there is no way he would have left town without it. And yet, police found his clarinet in Lewiston. They also discovered his car still in town, along with a number of uncashed paychecks. Detectives faltered. Maybe they had the wrong idea. As the days went on, a more likely scenario emerged. Steven wasn't responsible. He was probably a victim himself.
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Chapter 5: What connections link the victims?
When Stephen's girlfriend dropped him off, Frank killed him, so there wouldn't be any witnesses. That's the idea, at least. But for every question investigators threw at Frank, he gave a quick answer. He admitted he went to the theater that night, but told detectives a story about accidentally injuring himself and then taking a nap.
He claimed he was asleep and never heard Nelson, Brandy, or Stephen enter the building. Later, he said he did move his car around back to load something up, but he swore it was just his tools. Everything about this story felt too convenient to investigators. But it's not enough to arrest Frank. And as of 2025, he's never been charged for any crimes related to the murders.
He also declined interview requests. With Frank free to go, investigators were at a loss. For the next 18 months, there were no new leads. Five people were gone. One most definitely murdered. In all likelihood, this was an active serial killer. And it felt like there was nothing anyone could do. Tension built until March 1984. A 15-year-old boy named Marvin Meade went out to collect cans.
He stopped on a remote property about 40 miles away from Lewiston. After grabbing the cans, he walked through the tree line back to his truck. Just then, a branch knocked his hat off. It blew down the hill and stopped near a strange gray object. Marvin figured it was an animal bone, and he thought, hey, that would be cool to have on display.
So he reached down to pick it up, only to realize it was a human skull. Horrified, Marvin alerted the police. When crime scene technicians got there, they made another grisly discovery. It wasn't just one skull. There were two badly decomposed bodies. Detectives sent the remains back to the lab for testing. Through the clothing and jewelry found with the bodies, they could ID them.
Sure enough, it was Christina Nelson and Brandy Miller. A year and a half after the women went missing, the police finally had some answers, just not the ones they wanted. Christina Nelson and Brandy Miller's case was now a murder investigation. Detectives brought Frank in for another round of questioning, this time as an official suspect. He repeated his claims.
He didn't see or hear Nelson, Brandy, or Stephen come into the theater that night. But given the layout of the building and where Frank said he was sleeping, that seems nearly impossible. Investigators kept pressing. Frank was nervous and fidgety. Every time he repeated his story, details changed. Detectives still thought he was hiding something.
But they didn't have any physical evidence to tie him to Nelson and Brandy's murders. Without that, they needed a confession. And Frank wasn't going to give one. So once again, Frank was free to go. This frustrated the police, especially after they looked into Frank's past. It doesn't paint him in a very good light.
For example, his acquaintances recalled that a woman he once dated died by suicide. Frank was the one who discovered her body. At the time, her loved ones wrote it off as an unexplainable tragedy. But as news came out about the Lewis-Clark Valley murders, they noticed it was awfully suspicious that so much violence and death surrounded one man. They wondered if Frank was capable of murder.
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Chapter 6: Who is Frank and what is his connection to the cases?
Until they could find something more definitive, they had to stop investigating him. So the cases went cold. Although Christina White and Steven Pearsall's bodies hadn't been found by this point, most people assumed they were dead. Because of this, all five cases became known as the Lewis-Clark Valley Murders.
Over the coming decades, most of the officers who worked the original investigations retired. The pain of the crimes dulled, but nobody in the valley forgot. Then, in the 2000s, a new detective joined the Esotan County Sheriff's Office. Her name was Jackie Nichols, and she breathed new life into the cold cases. Since she was based in Esotan, she specifically focused on Christina White.
Although nearly 30 years had passed since her disappearance, Jackie considered it her job to figure out what happened. She hoped to finally give Christina's family answers. So she poured over all the evidence. She re-interviewed the witnesses. She retraced the steps of both the victims and her prime person of interest.
Like her predecessors, she believed Frank was responsible for at least four of the disappearances and deaths. In her mind, there was only one that could potentially be the work of another, second killer. That's Kristen David's case, the 22-year-old who went missing on her bike ride. Jackie thought the way Kristen's body was dismembered didn't match the M.O. in the other cases.
So Jackie looked into a lead for a potential suspect, a convicted murderer named Harry Hantman. In 1968, when Hantman was college-aged, he was arrested for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and was sentenced to stay in a psychiatric hospital. Five years later, he escaped and went on the run.
He spent the next two decades hiding out in a cabin on the Idaho-Oregon border. It's about 100 miles away from the Lewis-Clark Valley, but still close enough that he could have easily made a day trip. Eventually, Hantman was caught and returned to prison in 1993. But that was 12 years after Kristen David's death. It's possible he killed her.
So Jackie went to Hantman's old cabin and searched the place. As she walked the grounds, she spotted something half buried in the earth. The remains of black trash bags. Disintegrated, like they'd been sitting there for years. Jackie couldn't help but think, maybe these are the same garbage bags used to wrap up Kristen's dismembered body. It was a glimmer of hope.
Remember, years earlier, police thought they might be able to get DNA from the garbage bags or newspapers, and genetic technology had advanced a lot by the 2000s. If samples of these items still existed, police might be able to salvage DNA from them and compare it to Hantman's genetic profile. there was a major problem.
Jackie had no idea where the original garbage bags and newspapers even were, certainly not in evidence storage, and there was actually a pretty good chance they'd been thrown out in the last four decades. In the end, Jackie's discovery didn't amount to much. But it wasn't a dead end, because Jackie wasn't the only one searching for answers. Remember Christina Nelson?
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