EVERETT – Nearly 31 years after a woman who was strangled and shot was found in blackberry bushes in south Everett, detectives today released a forensic artist’s sketch of how they believe she may have looked in life.
Cold case detectives at the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office want to identify the woman.They’re asking anyone who might recognize her to call police.
Her body was found in August 1977.
It is a case where the killer has been identified, but the name of the victim has long remained a mystery.
In 1979, David Marvin Roth, who then lived in south Snohomish County, was arrested and convicted of first-degree murder in the woman’s death. Roth told police he picked up the woman hitchhiking near Silver Lake. He strangled and shot her after she refused to have sex, according to court papers.
Roth, now 50, has since been released from prison. He is cooperating with detectives but continues to maintain he doesn’t even know the victim’s first name, sheriff’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said.
The admitted killer’s older brother, Randy Roth, also was convicted of murder. Randy Roth was sentenced to prison for 50 years following a sensational trial in 1992. Jurors found that he had drowned his wife for insurance money in King County and then tried to make it look like an accident.
In 1992, police used a plaster cast of the woman’s skull to try to recreate what David Roth’s victim may have looked like at the time of her death. The effort produced no new leads.
On April 1, detectives exhumed the woman’s remains to collect more evidence, Hover said.
She is believed to have been between 15 and 21 years old. She was 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 155 pounds. She had short brown hair and was wearing a tank top, cut-off jeans and tennis shoes.
Detectives today also released photos of her clothing.
Anyone who has any information, including people who reported a young woman missing in the late 1970s, is asked to call the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office Tip Line at 425-388-3845.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
