The Snake River Killer

The Asotin County Fair comes to the town of Lewiston every spring, bringing with it the Hells Canyon Rodeo and the start of the planting season.  But some residents still remember the spring of 1979, when a 12 year old girl named Christina White disappeared and the Snake River Killer began his reign of terror.

On the day of the fair Christina visited a friends house complaining of a headache, and was offered a cool cloth and use of the telephone to call her mother for a ride.  The home belonged to Patricia Brennen, who asked Christina to wait for her ride out on the porch.  They had thought her already picked up and home when her mother arrived over an hour later to retrieve her, and she could not be located.  At the time, Patrica was dating a man named Lance Voss, who would soon enough become her husband, and a suspect in the case.

For two years parents locked their doors and children were kept inside, but as the fear began to ease tragedy struck again.  In the summer of '81 22 year old Kristen Davis vanished while out riding her bike on the road leading up to Moscow.  The University of Idaho student had worked at the Lewiston Civic Theater, the most purportedly haunted location in town.  It was two weeks before her body was recovered floating in the Snake River.

It was over a year later before the killer struck again.  Steven Pearsall worked as a janitor at the Lewiston Civic Theater, and recently had worked together with Lance Voss to help built a pirate ship setpiece for the theater, complete with rope rigging for pirate actors to swing from.  On the night two girls, stepsisters Kristina Nelson and Brandi Miller, went missing from near the theater Steven had been looking for a quiet place to rehearse his music and asked his girlfriend to drop him off at the theater after midnight, when the building should have been deserted.  

It was 18 months before the girls' bodies were found in a ditch outside Kendrick, bound in rope identical to that used on the pirate ship, but Steven was never seen again and his body never recovered.  It is suspected the Snake River may have carried it out to sea.

Lance Voss admitted to being at the theater the night of the murders but claimed to have been sleeping there, and not to have seen his friend.  Voss had also been present at the disappearance of Christina White, and frequently drove along the road where Kristen Davis disappeared.  Police suspect him strongly of the crimes but to not feel they have sufficient evidence to convict.  However when Voss moved away after the investigation started no more murders have occurred.