Jackie St. Louis, Vancouver’s first homeless resources manager, is leaving his position.

In an email sent to members of the city council on Wednesday, City Manager Eric Holmes wrote that St. Louis had been struggling to relocate his family to Vancouver from the Puget Sound area, where he’d previously served as an outreach coordinator for the city of Seattle.

“Jackie shared with me that over the last several months, it has become clear to him that the impacts to his family associated with relocation are simply too great,” Holmes wrote. “I appreciate Jackie’s contributions to the city’s efforts to establish a homeless resources program.”

St. Louis declined to comment further on his departure, referring inquiries to Holmes’ letter.

St. Louis’ last day will be Feb. 14. He had occupied the role — a brand new position at City Hall created in response to the city’s escalating homelessness crisis — for about six months.

Carol Bua, Vancouver’s communications director, said the city plans to replace St. Louis.

“I would assume that the recruitment to fill the position should be going out shortly,” Bua said.

A major component of St. Louis’ job was overseeing the Navigation Center, a day shelter for people experiencing homelessness near the intersection of Grand and Fourth Plain boulevards. The shelter, which opened in November 2018, helps an average of 99 people per day access basic services including laundry, showers and housing resources.

The center is operated by Share, a local homelessness nonprofit — at least, for another week. Share’s executive director, Diane McWithey, announced almost three months ago that the group was ceasing its involvement with the Navigation Center, with a final drop date set for Jan. 31.

After Share’s announcement, staff from Vancouver’s Parks and Recreation department have been stepping in to take a more hands-on role at the day center. There are usually two parks staffers on-site at any given time, along with the usual security and Share employees.

St. Louis’ duties included overseeing and facilitating that transition. He’s leaving his role two weeks after Share vacates the day center entirely.

In the search for a new operator to run the Navigation Center, the city sent out a request for proposals on Dec. 19. The city held a pre-bid meeting and tour of the Navigation Center last week, mandatory for those interested in operating the shelter, and six organizations attended, Bua said.

The application period closes on Jan. 29.

As of Thursday, no potential service providers had submitted applications, St. Louis said.

If a tree falls in the downtown and doesn’t cause any damage, does it make a fuss?

Well, yeah. Turns out it’s still kind of a pain, as crews experienced Saturday night when a tree near Esther Short Park toppled over.

The offending tree was a fully grown Norway maple. It narrowly missed cars parked along Esther Street when it snapped at the base and fell into the roadway around 9:20 p.m. on Jan. 18. Bystanders reported that city public works crews were on the scene clearing the tree as of about 1 a.m. Sunday.

According to Charles Ray, Vancouver’s urban forester, the maple was about 50 years old — near the end of its lifespan.

“It appears the tree failure was due to root rot, which did not present any outward indications. We are still evaluating the exact cause,” Ray wrote in an email.

“This type of tree failure is uncommon, and we believe it’s likely related to this tree alone. We will be evaluating nearby trees following best management practices,” he added.

Norway maples, or Acer platanoides, are an invasive species native to Eastern Europe and western Asia. While they can live up to 250 years in ideal conditions, their lifespan in North America, where they were first brought in the 1700s, is considerably shorter.

There’s still a handful of Norway maples remaining along Esther Short Park, Ray wrote. The city’s Urban Forestry Commission removes and replaces the trees one at a time, “based on the health, condition or structure of the specific tree.”

“The city has been removing adjacent Norway maples that are in this same age range as they reach the end of their lifespan. We are replanting with other shade trees such as red maple and sugar maple trees, which have a longer lifespan,” Ray wrote.

According to David Bishop, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Portland office, it’s unlikely that wind played a major role in taking the maple down.

The strongest gust of wind recorded nearby, at Pearson Field, clocked in at 18 mph around 9 p.m. Saturday. A wind speed gauge on the Interstate 205’s Glenn Jackson Bridge saw a 21 mph gust around the same time.

“I don’t recall any reports, or at least any anomalous readings or anything along those lines from the office,” Bishop said.

However, it’s possible that heavy rains in recent weeks may have played a factor. Norway maple trees are successful invaders in part because the trees have shallow root systems, which crowd out competitors. But the surface-level roots also anchor the trees more delicately in the ground.

“You have to take into account that the soil has been very, very saturated,” Bishop said. “It definitely has been a little on the breezy side, and the grounds are saturated, so it’s not out of the question that a breeze or a gust of wind could potentially topple over a tree.”

A proposed law to provide electronic monitoring and victim notification cleared a Senate committee Thursday.

Sen. Lynda Wilson, R-Vancouver, sponsored Senate Bill 5149, which she has named “The Tiffany Hill Act” for the former Marine sergeant and Vancouver mother who was killed by her estranged husband outside a Hazel Dell elementary school in November.

“This technology is about sending an alert to a mobile phone, in real time, when the abuser or stalker gets closer than allowed,” Wilson said in a statement. “Tiffany’s story really brings home the simplicity of what’s being proposed and the value it could hold for the thousands of people in our state who seek protection orders each year.”

The Senate Law and Justice Committee gave the bill a unanimous “do pass” recommendation after a short discussion.

Lauren Boyd, a Clark County prosecuting attorney, testified before the committee last week that Hill’s husband waited in the school parking lot for 30 minutes before killing his wife and shooting his mother-in-law, in front of their three children.

Tanya Wollstein, a Vancouver police detective who worked on the case, told the committee that Hill’s husband had repeatedly violated provisions of a protection order. If he had been required to wear an electronic bracelet with real-time notification to his victim, Hill might still be alive today, she said.

This is the third consecutive year that Wilson and her committee colleagues have backed legislation to provide electronic monitoring and victim notification.

“I really hope we can get this bill all the way through to the House,” Wilson said. “At the very best, it can save lives. And at the very least, it can give the victims of domestic violence some control and some sense of peace in their lives.”

Wilson’s legislation was passed by the full Senate in 2018 but sidelined in the House. The bill stalled in the Senate Ways and Means Committee in 2019.

This year, the chair of the Law and Justice committee chose to send SB 5149 straight to the Senate Rules Committee, which selects bills for the voting calendar.

“I’m on the budget committee and would have been ready to tell Tiffany’s story to my colleagues there,” Wilson said. “But the fewer stops this bill has to make on its way to the governor’s desk, the better. The Tiffany Hill Act needs to become law this year so it can give others the opportunity she deserved but didn’t get.”

When Connections Cafe and Catering gets hopping, the stainless steel ticket holder spins round and round. During a recent lunchtime rush, Ruby Deal and Diana Garner quickly cooked and assembled sandwiches and burgers for employees around the Vancouver VA campus and Center for Community Health.

The cafe is a business venture of Lifeline Connections, a mental health and substance use treatment center that employs people in recovery. Orders are taken primarily online, made fresh in a small kitchen inside Lifeline Connections, and delivered in person (sometimes using a tricycle with an attached food box). The menu is traditional American lunch and breakfast fare; the California chicken sandwich is the most popular item.

The catch is that food can only be sent to buildings on campus sharing the same address: 1601 E. Fourth Plain Blvd.

“We’ve been getting busier and busier,” Garner said, adding that the cafe sees a lot of repeat customers. “I get a lot of compliments and I love that.”

More than 900 people work at the Vancouver VA campus. Another 163 Clark County employees work at the Center for Community Health, which houses several other organizations — all potential cafe customers.

Garner has been sober over a year and has worked in the cafe nearly as long. The cafe job pays her rent, helped her buy a cheap car, get her driver’s license and insurance.

“I have a whole beautiful life now,” Garner said.

It’s a similar story for Deal who, just two years ago, was homeless and sometimes staying at rundown motels. She was nervous about returning to work after using drugs and having a gap in her employment history.

“At first I was so embarrassed about my addiction,” Deal said. “Now, it’s part of my story.”

Today, she has a job she loves, a dog and people in her life supporting her sobriety, including her co-workers. New cafe employees tend to be earlier in their recovery process, so she finds herself mentoring them to be successful — not just in the job’s duties, but also in recovery.

Lifeline Connections CEO Jared Sanford said the cafe concept came about after staff recognized people in recovery have difficulty securing employment. Besides treatment, people need a safe place to live, a job and positive social connections.

“If we can align all those things for an individual, the chances of them maintaining their recovery dramatically go up,” Sanford said.

The model of employing clients is used by other nonprofits, such as Innovative Services NW, which has a janitorial business employing people with disabilities. (Lifeline looks to open a janitorial business, as well.)

Employment at the cafe is meant to be transitional, a step in the right direction. Garner, for instance, looks to become a recovery coach in hospital emergency rooms while Deal has an upcoming test to become a licensed insurance agent.

Overseeing the cafe crew is Chris Attaway, Lifeline Connections’ food services supervisor. Back when he was facilities supervisor, the kitchen was used for storage; before that, it was used as a training kitchen for blind patients. County health inspectors gave Connections Cafe and Catering a perfect score of zero during a Dec. 19 inspection.

“I have a good crew. I taught them well,” said Attaway, who worked for decades in the food industry.

He teaches employees skills such as how to wash dishes, prep food, box and deliver meals, stock inventory and interact with customers. Employees typically work 20 to 25 hours a week earning minimum wage, which increased to $13.50 hourly this month. Work hours are scheduled around therapy.

“Recovery always has to come first, and then everything else is just gravy,” Attaway said. “We want to break down as many barriers as we can to move them toward long-term recovery.”

Juggling a job and therapeutic schedule can be challenging, and if therapy falls to the wayside, relapse becomes more likely. Attaway knows firsthand the ups and downs of addiction.

“I started using when I was 7,” said Attaway, adding he was abused during his childhood. “I was a pint a day user by 10 and a fifth a day user by 13.”

He found his way to recovery at Lifeline Connections at age 41.

“I didn’t even know about detox till somebody said, ‘Hey you know about Lifeline detox? You should go there,’ ” Attaway said. “It took me a while to get it. … But it finally took. I had 10 years clean and sober last July.”

That’s about the same amount of time he’s been employed by Lifeline Connections where, he said, he’s blessed to work with people who are early in their recovery.

“Lifeline took a chance on me and changed my life. That’s what I hope to do with these guys,” he said.

For now, the cafe remains in the virtual world, but someday Attaway plans to have a sit-down restaurant. Besides serving employees on campus, Connections Cafe and Catering makes food for conferences or parties.

Last year, Clark County awarded Connections Cafe and Catering $79,207 from the mental health sales tax fund. It needs to make about $7,000 monthly to break even, which the restaurant recently started earning.

Jerin Dinkins grabbed an iPad and climbed out of her Waste Connections company car, lifted the lid of a blue recycling cart and took a quick but thorough look at its contents.

“We have clamshells and freezer boxes,” she told her partner, Gina Evans, who started filling out an “Oops!” tag as Dinkins snapped a photo of the cart’s contents.

The pair, Waste Connections recycling specialists, were out in the Burton-Evergreen neighborhood in east Vancouver on Thursday morning during the first week of a yearlong program to check for items that don’t belong in recycling carts.

They are on the lookout for overzealous recycling, or what Waste Connections calls “wishful recycling.” The customer’s intentions are good, but the results are not.

It’s still early in the program, but Dinkins estimated that up to 90 percent of the carts have had some type of “contamination.” These items take time and money to remove from the recycling stream, and end up in the landfill with other garbage.

Josy Wright, recycle manager for Waste Connections, said recyclables become her company’s property when customers roll their carts to the curb. The recycling specialists do not dig through the carts, primarily for safety reasons, she said.

During the program’s first few days, Dinkins and Evans have found lots of run-of-the-mill contamination. The top five have been plastic bags, produce and takeout clamshells, freezer boxes, plastic foam and lids from food containers.

“We haven’t seen any diapers yet,” Dinkins said, her voice expressing gratitude.

Do’s and don’ts

The recycling rules can be difficult to stay up with — and counterintuitive.

Milk cartons are recyclable; boxes for frozen foods are not.

Plastic tubs for yogurt, sour cream and other food can be recycled; plastic lids for these containers go in the garbage.

Cardboard is welcomed; pizza boxes soiled with grease are not.

Empty aerosol cans are OK; nails, screws and other tiny scraps of metal should go in the garbage.

Screw-on caps can remain on plastic bottles; all caps should be removed from glass bottles. (Glass goes in a separate bin, not in the blue recycling carts)

Confused?

Here are a couple of tips for what can be recycled. Plastic and metal should be larger than your fist. Paper should be larger than a postcard.

“We always tell people, ‘If you don’t know, it’s better to throw it out,’ ” Dinkins said.

All cans, bottles, tubs and containers should be empty, clean and dry.

Residents who want to learn more can use the “Recycling A-Z Directory” on Waste Connections’ website, wcnorthwest.com, or download the RecycleRight app at the same location.

Recycling rules can change with time. Consider shredded paper. Waste Connections used to tell people to put the tiny pieces in a paper bag before placing them in the recycling cart.

Those bags break open and cause a mess at Waste Connections’ sorting operation, where workers pull out some recyclables and use magnets, screens and conveyor belts to separate others.

“It would be just poof, confetti everywhere,” Evans said.

Waste Connections now suggests taking shredded paper to a transfer station for free recycling or dumping it into a backyard worm bin or composting container.

Early start

Dinkins and Evans get to work early, at 5:30 a.m., before heading out at 6 a.m. for five hours peeking into carts, filling out tags, and logging data.

One person drives the hybrid sedan while the other tags, and they trade roles the next day.

“The driver picks the music,” Evans said.

“Because they are in the car more,” Dinkins added.

It helps that the two women are friends.

“We hang out outside of work,” Dinkins said.

“She’s my partner,” Evans said. “We both have a couple different communication styles. Together, we make a really strong team.”

Evans takes a friendly approach in filling out “Oops!” tags and adds a few words of encouragement, telling customers they are doing great and drawing a quick smiley face. A personalized tag, she said, is more effective at getting people to adjust their behavior.

“Most people, they want to do the right thing,” she said. “They want to recycle right.”

While out Thursday morning, Evans spotted a man sitting on his porch, smoking a cigarette. Dinkins took a few moments to let him know why she was peeking into the recycling cart and pointing out the problems she saw.

Most people are friendly. Hostile people, Dinkins said, “are few and far in between.”

Educators, not enforcers

Occasionally, Waste Connections recycling specialists or drivers will find a cart with an excessive amount of unaccepted items.

In these situations, the recycling cart will not be emptied, and the customer will need to remove the unaccepted materials or request that a Waste Connections garbage truck empty the cart, at an additional charge to the customer.

To date, the recycling specialists have come across only one recycling cart that merited such treatment.

“It was full of block foam,” Dinkins said. “And it had a fake Christmas tree.”

Both women emphasized they are educators, not rule enforcers.

“If you see us in the neighborhood, approach us and ask questions,” Dinkins said. “We are not here to enforce any codes.”

“I am not here to shame anyone,” Evans said. “I am not here to guilt anyone. I am not here to be the hard-core environmentalist, ‘You are ruining the Earth.’ “

Vancouver police responded to a crash involving a school bus Friday afternoon in east Vancouver, according to emergency radio traffic monitored at The Columbian.

A car struck a school bus near the intersection of Northeast 109th Avenue and Burton Road, just east of Interstate 205, according to radio traffic. No one was injured.

Vancouver police Sgt. Pat Johns said the school bus was turning left from 109th Avenue onto Burton Road; a witness said the bus had a green light. There were no students on the bus, Johns said.

The driver of the car was westbound on Burton Road when he crashed into the rear axle of the bus, breaking it, according to the sergeant. The man told police he looked down for a moment and didn’t have time to react before colliding with the bus, he said.

He was not impaired or cited, Johns said.

Officers were called to the scene to shut down the westbound lanes of Northeast Burton Road at Northeast 112th Avenue, according to radio traffic. The road reopened by 4:30 p.m.

A Portland man was sentenced Friday in Clark County Superior Court to more than three years in prison for a 2017 armed robbery in the Vancouver Costco parking lot.

Isaiah Malik Harden, 22, was sentenced to 39 months, Senior Deputy Prosecutor James Smith said. The court also imposed 18 months of community custody to be served when Harden is released, Smith said.

Harden pleaded guilty to the robbery charge in November, court records show. He had been out of custody for the majority of time since his arrest, according to Smith. He was taken into custody Friday.

According to an affidavit of probable cause, Clark County sheriff’s deputies were dispatched shortly after 10:30 p.m. Feb. 1, 2017, to an armed robbery in the store’s parking lot at 6720 N.E. 84th St. The suspect, later identified as Harden, met with Brendan Algire and Kaley Bernard to purchase a camouflage jacket. They arranged the meetup online.

Algire said that before Harden paid him, he noticed a pistol grip hanging out of Harden’s jacket. Harden then pulled out the pistol, which had a laser on it, and pointed the gun at Algire, who jumped back into his vehicle, the affidavit states. Harden fled in his vehicle.

Bernard decided to follow Harden and keep authorities apprised of his location, she said, because she worried he wouldn’t be caught otherwise, according to court documents. Deputies found Harden’s vehicle still running on Petticoat Lane east of St. Johns Boulevard, and subsequently detained him, court records state.

Smith said he emphasized in his remarks to the court that Harden was armed with a loaded gun when he tried to rob two strangers. Judge Gregory Gonzales appeared to have placed weight on that fact when handing down his sentence.

As a professional, Gaydena Thompson is remembered as a force, a trailblazer, a woman with integrity. To those who knew her personally, she was all that and a woman whose kind smile stayed true to the end.

Thompson, former Clark College athletic director and the first woman to hold the position at a Washington community college, died Dec. 31. She was 84.

“Her patience, caring, loving warm heart is what she needs to be remembered for,” said her son, Brad Thompson.

“A woman of noble character,” added his wife, Nancy Thompson.

Gaydena Thompson’s career at Clark College began in 1962, where she was a physical education instructor who taught swimming, fencing, dancing and fitness classes. In 1977, she was promoted to athletic director following the retirement of Skeet O’Connell; she held the position until 1982, when she stepped into a department chair role so she could focus on teaching.

“I could have more contact with students instead of being in meetings,” Thompson told The Columbian in 1997.

Thompson was hired at a time when women in administration, let alone in the athletic department, were scarce.

“She was a path blazer for women,” said Dori Hawkey, who was hired by Thompson in 1979 to coach the Chicklet volleyball team. Hawkey added that Thompson was committed to equity in the department, particularly in the aftermath of the 1972 adoption of Title IX. The educational amendment prevents schools that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of gender.

“She was the best boss I’d ever had,” Hawkey said. “She was classy and professional.”

Roger Daniels, who succeeded Thompson, recalled his former co-worker as an innovator who helped develop classes and programs focused on helping students live a healthy lifestyle. She established the Clark College fitness center, which was later named for her.

“It wasn’t just a place to build a resume and move on,” Daniels said. “She chose to make Clark College her life’s work, and the campus really benefited from that commitment. We need more people like her.”

Brad Thompson followed in his mother’s footsteps, pursuing a career in education and even doing a short stint as Clark College athletic director from 1995-96. He remembered spending time with his mother in the physical education department. She encouraged him to explore ballet, tap and jazz dance.

“She wanted us to have experience being gentlemen,” he said.

Nancy Thompson was a student at Clark College on the track team, and one of her future mother-in-law’s students. She recalled Thompson’s follow-through with students, gently reminding them to keep track of their performance to continue improving.

More than that, she remembered Thompson as a kind woman who always found the good in everyone.

“She loved life,” Nancy Thompson said.

Thompson earned local and national accolades during her time on campus, and following her retirement. In 1994, she received the Service Honor Award from the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance; she was the first Northwest community college staff member to win it. She was named one of Clark County YWCA’s Women of Achievement in 1995. Thompson received the Clark College Foundation’s Exceptional Faculty Award in 1996.

In 2002, she was inducted into the Northwest Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. Clark College launched its own Athletics Hall of Fame in 2012, inducting her into the first class.

“I was very proud of everything she accomplished in her life,” Brad Thompson said. “She followed through with whatever her goals were.”

A celebration of life Thompson’s life will be held at 2 p.m. Feb. 1 at Gaiser Hall on the Clark College campus, 1933 Fort Vancouver Way. Those who wish to do so can donate to the Clark College Foundation in Thompson’s by visiting www.clarkcollegefoundation.org/campaign/give/, selecting “Other” in the drop down menu and specifying the “Gaydena Thompson Fund.”

Emergency responders are at the scene of a single-vehicle rollover crash on southbound Interstate 5 south of Ridgefield, according to emergency radio traffic monitored at The Columbian.

Firefighters were dispatched around 5:38 p.m. to southbound I-5 at Milepost 11 for the report of a traffic crash.

The first arriving crew reported a rollover crash in which a vehicle struck a tree and then caught on fire, according to the radio traffic.

Responders shut down two lanes of the freeway near the crash. One of the lanes was reopened in about 20 minutes.

One patient was being treated at the scene, according to the radio traffic.

This story will be updated.

Clayton Jones was afforded little time to be a kid, which is why his parents got him two puppies — Bonnie and Clyde, pitbull-border collie mixes, who are sister and brother.

The Vancouver boy was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in November 2017. He died in July at only 4 years old.

“We wanted him to have a puppy and experience that,” his mother Taylor Jones said.

Tending to the puppies became a challenge, though, when Clayton was placed in hospice care for a month with Community Home Health and Hospice in Vancouver. The family — Clayton’s mother, father, Ryan Jones, brother Milez, 10, and sister Pyperann, 1 — wanted to be with him at the end of his life.

But who would take care of the puppies at home? Who would walk them? Who would play with them? And who would clean up their messes?

That’s where Community Home Health and Hospice’s Pet Peace of Mind program stepped in. The program paid for Bonnie and Clyde to be in a kennel for two weeks during the last half of Clayton’s hospice stay.

“They’re part of our family,” Taylor Jones said of the dogs. “It was a huge relief for us knowing that they were being fed, going out for walks, they were being taken care of. Because we couldn’t at the time. We knew it wasn’t fair to them.”

Sheryl Reeder and Debby Carter, who run and coordinate the program for Community Home Health and Hospice, said it covers all pets of hospice patients. The program is funded through donations.

According to a press release from Community Home Health and Hospice, Pet Peace of Mind “provides grooming and veterinary care, pet food and supplies to hospice patients’ homes, pet exercise and waste management, pet care transport, temporary foster care and at times, adoption services.”

The program has re-housed horses for patients, who wanted to make sure they had a good next home, and hired someone to clean a fish tank for a patient’s goldfish. Dogs and cats are the most commonly cared for, but the program has also helped snakes and bunnies.

“In some cases that might be the only companionship that a patient has,” Carter said.

Pyperann has become especially attached to the puppies. Her first word was “puppy,” her mother said, and she likes to give them hugs and kisses.

The puppies, who turned 1 not long ago, have also proven to be aptly named. They became highly skilled at escaping their kennels, which called for the kennels to be rearranged to prevent breakouts.

“They live up to their names,” Taylor Jones said. “They’re escape artists.”

If you have an office job, or retired from one within the last 10 or 15 years, you have probably spent a lot of time sorting through your email.

I love to hear from readers, and email is a very important communications tool both internally and externally. But sometimes, I feel like I am drowning. For example, here are the emails I received Wednesday morning before I got to work at 9 a.m.

4:11 a.m. — AT&T sends me an article about 5G security implications. Not reading it.

4:18 a.m. — A marketing firm wants me to know the best and worst places for STEM professionals. Portland/Vancouver makes neither list.

6:03 a.m. — “Hi Craig, I’m reaching out on behalf of world-renowned neuroscientist R. Douglas Fields, Ph.D, author of the upcoming ‘Electric Brain: How the New Science of Brainwaves Reads Minds, Tells Us How We Learn, and Helps Us Change for the Better.’ …”

6:09 a.m. — An actual email from Metro Editor Mark Bowder about a problem we had Tuesday night. He gets up a lot earlier than I do.

6:19 a.m. — AP sends out a breaking news alert about the Amazon.com founder’s phone being hacked after he downloaded a file from the Saudi crown prince. I already knew this because they also send this alert to my cellphone and woke me up 10 minutes before my alarm went off.

6:24 a.m. — A company in the United Arab Emirates wants me to download their software and learn to fly drones. Given the above item, I crack an ironic smile.

6:42 a.m. — Our weather page vendor, AccuWeather, wants me to know it is going to rain in the Pacific Northwest practically nonstop for the rest of the month. I have lived in Vancouver for more than 30 years, so this is not news to me.

6:51 a.m. — The Oregonian/Oregonlive sends its free daily newsletter. I also get them from The Seattle Times and, of course, The Columbian. We’re getting ready to launch a new, improved version of ours, so look for more information on that.

7 a.m. — Conservative think tank invites me to help celebrate National School Choice Week by attending a film screening in Lake Oswego. We almost never cover events in Oregon, and I don’t have any schoolkids.

7:06 a.m. — “Tips for planning your first vacation with baby.” Must confirm with adult daughter, but no babies for the Browns as far as I know!

7:23 a.m. — Another AP news alert. President Trump is being sued! Imagine if they sent out a news alert every time that happened.

7:27 a.m. — A useful email from Assistant Metro Editor Jessica Prokop. Being an editor at The Columbian means you work a lot of hours before and after “work.”

7:40 a.m. — A survey details public participation in the arts, with data apparently from 2017. I momentarily wonder why it took so long to compile, then move on.

7:46 a.m. — Email from an editor about an upcoming story we are working on. I reply.

7:54 a.m. — A conservative group in Olympia is pushing back on our editorial that supports bills to ban single-use plastic bags. Their response is appropriate and fair; maybe they’ll write a letter to the editor.

8 a.m. — A company that makes DIY family craft kits thinks Columbian readers would be delighted by a story about DIY family crafts.

8:08 a.m. — LinkedIn says I have 74 new updates. Sigh.

8:31 a.m. — Gov. Inslee’s press team says he has appointed a judge to the Snohomish County Superior Court. I am jealous; the Everett Herald now has a story for Thursday.

8:50 a.m. — “Invitation to Zogby Strategies Debrief of Forbes-MSNBC Poll powered by Zogby Strategies. …”

At any rate, you get the idea. So much email! And I didn’t even get any pitches to cover events happening in Vancouver, Canada. (I always wonder if the Vancouver Sun gets a lot of pitches for stuff happening on Officers Row or at the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds.)

Email is a useful tool. But I wish I had less of it.

CAMAS — In May 2017, Clark County Community Development prepared a pre-application report for a proposed 120-foot Verizon cell tower. The report offered a warning:

“Woodburn Elementary is right across from the site,” the report reads. “While there is no code requirement for spacing from schools, this may (elicit) a response from the neighbors.”

The prediction has manifested over the past three months. As Acom Consulting prepares to submit a conditional use permit application to the county on Verizon’s behalf, a growing number of parents are voicing concerns about the potential for harmful health effects from the tower. It would be about 300 feet from the school of roughly 500 students.

“It’s not proven to be safe,” said Tammy Distler, who has two children attending Woodburn. “We just want to protect the kids.”

Neighbors near the site at 2413 S.E. 283rd Ave. in Camas received letters from Acom about the proposed tower around Halloween. Since then, parents have started a letter-writing campaign, Facebook group and an online petition that had garnered 868 signatures as of Friday afternoon. They’ve also held signs in protest near the site, left negative reviews of the property owner’s business and attended contentious public meetings Acom held as required by the pre-application process.

“It’s all very, very new,” said Tanya Ligouri, who also has two children attending Woodburn. “We found each other, came together and are figuring this all out.”

The intensifying reaction to the tower prompted Woodburn Elementary School Principal Brian Graham to send an email to parents Jan. 14.

“You may have heard that there is a proposal to place a new cell tower on property near our elementary school, which has generated interest both for and against the tower’s location,” Graham wrote. “The property in question and its use are in the county’s jurisdiction.”

The tower, disguised as a pine tree, would be on a 35-by-35-foot area of a 26-acre property. Acom is negotiating a lease with the property owners, Ken and Gabrielle Navidi, said Reid Stewart, a site acquisition specialist for the consulting company.

Ken Navidi said he was approached about the tower four years ago. He said he also has heard that the previous owner of the land was approached about a tower.

“What’s to stop (Verizon) from popping across the street or popping to the next neighbor?” Ken Navidi said. “They came to me, so I started talking to them.”

The area surrounding the school features poor or no cell service for customers, Verizon spokeswoman Heidi Flato said. She added that a tower would significantly improve voice and data services within a 1 1/2 -mile radius.

“As more people are doing more things, in more places, with more mobile devices, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in voice and data traffic on our network,” Flato wrote in an email. “We only expect that trend to increase. To support the growing demand, it’s often necessary to build new wireless facilities (cell sites) where customers want and need to use our service.”

Flato said the company “takes very seriously the health and safety of our employees and customers, and of all residents in the communities we serve,” and that the tower plans meet Federal Communications Commission safety standards.

“The research continues to this day, and agencies continue to monitor it,” Flato said. “Based on that research, federal agencies have concluded that equipment that complies with the safety standards poses no known health risks.”

Ongoing debate

A public meeting Wednesday at the Camas Public Library drew about 100 people, some of whom brought children. Tensions were palpable both at the meeting, when attendees accused Stewart of being “flippant,” and after, with Ken Navidi saying that some of the opposition’s actions have amounted to “bullying” his family.

Stewart and physicist Andrew Thatcher, who specializes in environmental and occupational health and speaks at public meetings for various clients such as Acom, attempted to allay the concerns of most people in the room.

Thatcher said the energy of the radio-frequency waves admitted from the antennas — the same as those used by FM radio and television transmissions — would be far too low to break chemical bonds in the body or disrupt DNA.

“There is zero uncertainty about whether this can cause cancer or not,” Thatcher said amid the sound of children playing just outside the meeting room. “We’re taking an objective look at the science, and it’s really an easy call.”

Sam Bearbower, who lives near the school and held a baby for much of the meeting, pushed back against the idea that the scientific conclusions are definite.

“There’s a lot of people in this crowd that have read the reports and do find them concerning,” Bearbower said. “We’re not opposing cell towers. We’re opposing the placement of cell towers.”

Few studies have focused on the connection between cellphone towers and cancer risks, according to the American Cancer Society. In 2011, the World Health Organization classified wireless radiation as “possibly carcinogenic,” although a link to cancer has not been widely established in humans. It remains a topic of active research.

Last year, Sprint shut down a cell tower near an elementary school in Rippon, Calif., where four students and three teachers had been diagnosed with cancer since 2016, according to the Modesto Bee. While a link between the cancers and the tower was not established in that case, cell towers near schools have prompted numerous opposition campaigns throughout the United States.

“We’re like, ‘Why take the chance?'” Distler said.

Instead, parents have called for the tower to be moved at least 1,500 feet away from the school, a distance restriction adopted by numerous governments and based on several studies. The Navidis, however, have not been willing to entertain placing the tower behind a row of trees on the property.

Ken Navidi said Verizon sought the part of the property at a lower elevation because it wanted to have the best possible service at the school, which is located downslope from the property’s highest point.

“That’s not where (Verizon) wanted to put it,” he said. “They were hoping to have reception in the valley.”

Stewart said he plans to submit the application within 90 days. At that point, it will be reviewed by the county in a public process.

“If I meet the code requirements of the county, there’s not much they can do to stop this,” Stewart said at the meeting, adding that he has a 100 percent success rate on land-use applications for towers.

Still, the tower is ripe for considerable discussion and debate.

“If we make noise, maybe they’ll go to a place that’s a bit quieter,” Distler said.

Are we in for more rain and wind? Anything is possible. Check our local weather coverage.

In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories from the week:

Two pedestrians killed in early morning crash in Vancouver

Two teenage boys were struck and killed early Tuesday morning by a pickup in east Vancouver, according to police.

The crash occurred shortly before 6:30 a.m. near the intersection of Northeast 23rd Circle and 112th Avenue, east of Interstate 205.

• Victims were teenage boys; police say driver did not appear to be impaired
• Related: Stretch of 112th Avenue in east Vancouver has deadly history
• Related: Medical Examiner identifies teen boys killed in east Vancouver crash

Driver who died in ambulance crash identified

A man who was killed Tuesday afternoon in a head-on collision with an ambulance in Northeast Hazel Dell was identified as Michael E. Ryan of Vancouver.

Witnesses reported seeing Ryan’s 2007 Saturn Ion sedan driving erratically before the crash, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.

• Erratic driver killed when his sedan collides with ambulance

Thirsty Sasquatch owners have big plans for neighboring Uptown Village spaces

A lot is about to change on the Uptown Village block where The Thirsty Sasquatch Taproom sits at 2110 Main St., Vancouver.

The taproom’s new owners leased the two neighboring spaces — formerly Wild Fern Boutique and Sabor Mexicano restaurant, which will close Saturday, according to Brandon Rush, co-owner of The Thirsty Sasquatch.

• Taproom’s owners lease Wild Fern Boutique’s former space, plus that of soon-to-close Sabor Mexicano restaurant

Reclassification: 2A GSHL expected to grow to 9 schools

Big changes are expected for Southwest Washington leagues, as the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association is set to finalize reclassification numbers for the next four years this weekend.

What’s confirmed now are expected changes for two local leagues: the 2A Greater St. Helens League expanding to nine schools while the 1A Trico League dips to five schools.

• WIAA Executive Board to finalize 2020-24 enrollment cycle this weekend

Lewis River RV Park residents caught in middle of dispute over utility services

WOODLAND — Residents of the Lewis River RV Park have received a second extension to their power service, courtesy of another last-minute deal between the park’s owner and the Cowlitz County Public Utility District.

The service cutoff date, previously scheduled for today, has been pushed back to Jan. 30, but the week has brought little other clarity about the long-term future of the park, which is home to approximately 60 families.

• Despite owner’s refusal to pay, power cutoff delayed

Marcus Lopez, a crew member on the Lady Washington, landed at Tillamook, Ore., in 1788. He’s thought to be the first black man to ever set foot in the Pacific Northwest — kicking off a long, rich, complex and occasionally fraught history of African Americans in this corner of the country.

To commemorate Black History Month, the Vancouver chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is imparting that legacy through an exhibit at the Vancouver Community Library.

The exhibit, titled “The Lost Ark of African American Art, History & Experience in Vancouver and the Northwest,” kicked off with a four-hour presentation at the library Saturday afternoon.

The exhibit will remain in the building through the end of February, with different pieces spread across each of the library’s floors.

The opening day of the exhibit also featured a five-member panel of people from prominent local African American families that included Major W. Harris Jr., Charles Simmons, Sharon Nettles, Tanisha Harris and Angela Jenkins.

Claudia Carter, the exhibit’s curator, said the panel was part of the program’s emphasis on oral history.

“We want to provide an opportunity for families of all races and cultures in our community to hear these stories and engage in conversation with the speakers,” Carter said. “Attendees are sure to leave with some memorable stories and an enhanced knowledge and understanding of the black experience and how it has evolved over time in our community and region.”

The panelists shared stories of growing up in Vancouver. Many of them first came to the area because their relatives had gotten work building ships during World War II.

“What brought my folks here was the shipyards,” Major W. Harris Jr. told the assembled crowd. “That included the time that we lived in the projects, which were across the street from Park Hill Cemetery to the north. It was quite interesting. It was quite a diverse group of folks living in those projects, and we all helped each other back then.”

His strongest memory of the time was the family sharing a big pot of popcorn on the back porch during hot weekend nights in the summer, he said. That, and the family’s collection of World Book Encyclopedias.

“All of the older kids, all of the neighbor kids, would come over and borrow the encyclopedias to do their reports for school,” he said, “because we just did not have the internet.”

Nettles recounted her experience as a member of a family largely isolated from the community.

“All the black people I saw were family members,” Nettles said. “My earliest memory related to being black in Vancouver, Wash., is that we were coming home from church, and we were crossing the I-5 Bridge, and another family of black people drove by in their car. And I begged my dad to follow those people and see where they were going. He wouldn’t, and I couldn’t imagine, because it was like, they’re getting away!”

She laughed.

“I thought there were no other black people in Vancouver except my family, but obviously there were.”

Lining the walls was a collection of prints from Coors Brewing Co. depicting various historic African American figures in the area.

Andrew Cainion, a Vancouver local, purchased and donated the prints to the exhibit. They’d been commissioned by the beer giant in the 1970s as part of an anti-discrimination settlement agreement with the company.

The exhibit also included a tribute to Valree Joshua, a teacher at the Washington School for the Deaf as well as a leader at the NAACP and other various local organizations, who died in 2012. Along the back wall were pages from the Aug. 31, 1944, issue of The People’s Observer, a historic black newspaper printed in Portland.

Connecting the census to history

This marked the third year that the local chapter of the NAACP put together an exhibit at the library for Black History Month. This year, there’s an extra urgent element, said Bridgette Fahnbulleh, the chapter’s president.

The upcoming 2020 United States census will be crucial in getting an accurate count of Clark County’s population, and therefore an equitable slice of the resources from federal programs.

“Nationwide, we’ve been undercounted,” Fahnbulleh said. “We have to kind of prove that we are here.”

Saturday’s exhibit drew a direct line from the first census in 1790 — when most of the black people in the country were enslaved — to now. Even just the language used to describe African American people in the census has changed so much, Fahnbulleh said.

It’s a crucial historic record, she added.

“It tells the truth. About how many slaves there were, who owned them, the part of the country it was. Although it was sad, due to the census, we have that historical proof,” Fahnbulleh said.

For more information about the upcoming census, visit 2020census.gov.

The NAACP exhibit will remain on display at the Vancouver Community Library, located at 901 C St., through the end of February.

Teens got an opportunity to learn Bollywood dance moves from artist and dancer Monika Deshpande on Saturday at a free cultural event at the Camas Public Library. A few parents joined in at the event.

Deshpande also designed temporary henna tattoos for participants.

The library has held the event before, featuring Deshpande’s expertise and instruction, and posted video on its Facebook page.

Monday

Vancouver City Council, City Hall, 415 W. Sixth St.

• 4 p.m., workshop: Finalization of programs and services in A Stronger Vancouver.

• 6:30 p.m., regular meeting: Second extension of sublease between city and Edward Jones Co.; approval for policy with Symetra Life Insurance; recommendation for appointment to Task Force on Council Representation.

Washougal City Council, City Hall, 1701 C St.

• 5 p.m., workshop: Indigent defense contract renewal, professional services agreement with Wallis Engineering for engineering services, cell tower lease with CCATT LLC., update to special event permit code.

• 7 p.m., regular meeting: Resolution declaring animal shelter building as surplus; animal shelter updates; cell tower lease; professional services agreement with Wallis Engineering.

Woodland School District, Woodland High School, 1500 Dike Access Road.

• 5:30 p.m., regular meeting: Agenda includes discussion of school-based threat assessment programs.

Camas School District, Zellerbach Administration Center, 841 N.E. 22nd Ave., Camas.

• 5:30 p.m., regular meeting: Agenda includes acceptance for the Heights Learning Center seismic upgrade.

Battle Ground Public Schools, Lewisville Campus, 406 N.E. Fifth Ave.

• 6 p.m., regular meeting: Agenda includes a work session on adding a cafeteria at the Pleasant Valley campus.

Hockinson School District, district office, 17912 N.E. 159th St., Brush Prairie.

• 6 p.m., regular meeting: Agenda includes discussion of a bill that incorporates the costs of employee health benefits into school district contracts for pupil transportation.

Tuesday

Columbia River Gorge Commission, commission office, 57 N.E. Wauna Ave., White Salmon.

• 9 a.m., executive committee meeting: planning agenda for Feb. 11 commission meeting, public comment.

Clark Regional Wastewater District Board of Commissioners, Board meeting room, 8000 N.E. 52nd Court.

• 3 p.m., regular meeting: Facilities capital plan for district campus 100 percent design update work session; resolution amending district code regarding procedures for customer-generated infrastructure projects; Cloverhill PUD phase 1; Northeast 102nd Avenue subdivision approval final costs.

Educational Service District 112 Board of Directors, Educational Service District 112 , 2500 N.E. 65th Ave.

• 3 p.m., business meeting: Agenda includes discussion of a policy regarding parental administration of marijuana for medical purposes.

• 5 p.m., work session: Open Public Meetings Act training.

Vancouver Public Schools, Bates Center for Educational Leadership, 2921 Falk Road.

• 4:30 p.m., special meeting: Agenda includes a discussion of school design.

Washougal School District, Cape Horn-Skye Elementary School, 9731 Washougal River Road.

• 4:30 p.m.: Discussion of school improvement plans. n 5:30 p.m., workshop: Graduation requirements.

• 6:30 p.m., regular meeting: Agenda includes a presentation by school start time committee, and a policy regarding school-based threat assessments.

Ridgefield School District, Ridgefield Administrative & Civic Center, 510 Pioneer St.

• 5 p.m., regular meeting.

Clark Communities Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Public Service Center, room 679, 1300 Franklin St., Vancouver.

• 6 p.m., regular meeting: Vancouver Westside Mobility project update.

Green Mountain School District, Green Mountain School, 13105 N.E. Grinnell Road, Woodland.

• 6:30 p.m., regular meeting.

La Center School District, La Center High School, 725 N.E. Highland Ave.

• 7 p.m., regular meeting: Agenda includes a resolution approving a plan to add classrooms to the middle school campus.

Wednesday

Camas Shoreline Management Review Committee, City Hall, 616 N.E. Fourth Ave.

• 4 p.m., regular meeting: Northeast Everett Road and Northeast Lake Drive roundabout.

Thursday

Vancouver Community Task Force on Council Representation, City Hall, 415 W. Sixth St.

• 6:30 p.m., regular meeting.

Rain will be falling each day for the next five days in the form of steady rainfall or showers. I can’t even see a sunny day on the horizon anytime soon. We are finally getting the weather we should have had in November and December. Late start to the rainy season, I’d say.

I hope you enjoyed the partial clearing Saturday and those balmy temperatures. At the time of this writing Saturday afternoon, it was 58 degrees here in Vancouver. And this is the dead of winter? Still don’t see any cold weather heading our way the rest of the month. Perhaps after Groundhog Day we may see temperatures lower a bit into the chilly category at least overnight.

Folks, are we on a roll or what? As of Saturday afternoon, Vancouver had 5.03 inches of rain in the bucket for January. That is nearly a half-inch above average. When was the last time we were talking about above-average rainfall? It’s been awhile.

With the rain today and Monday, don’t be surprised if it gets a little on the breezy side of things. Hang on to your hat. Just typical stormy January weather. Winds along the coast may reach 50 mph, but the strongest winds should remain offshore as the low passes by to the north. Locally 25-35 mph.

With the heavy rain last week, about 8 to 10 inches fell in the Willapa Hills and Mount St. Helens near Cougar. The excessive rains have closed Highway 4 going from Longview to Long Beach due to a huge landslide near KM Mountain. The highway was also closed when the Grays River flooded the highway. It may be closed for some time, and with more heavy rain this coming week, more trouble is likely.

We haven’t had to talk about landslides and river flooding for a long while. Usually these are common in most of our rainy winter weather episodes. We will chat again on Tuesday and see if we have any dry weather and sunshine heading our way after the upcoming parade of storms.

Every January, the Point in Time count looks to provide a snapshot of homelessness in Clark County and other communities across the country. This year, the single-day census of the homeless population will happen Thursday.

The Council for the Homeless heads the annual effort to survey every homeless person in the county. This year, the local nonprofit is aided by new volunteers from the community and from Clark College, Sea Mar Community Health Centers and the Lewis River Mobile Food Bank and other organizations.

That extra help could result in a more thorough count, says Dale Whitley, who oversees the homeless management information system. Or, it can just mean that more corners of the county will be checked during the count.

While the Point in Time is believed to undercount the homeless population, it still points to trends and demographic shifts. The 2019 Point in Time showed a 21 percent increase in homelessness from 2018, which included a 30 percent increase in unsheltered people.

During the January 2019 count, volunteers expressed frustration after they arrived to count people at established camps only to find city of Vancouver staff clearing those campsites, making it more difficult to find and survey homeless people who had been there.

This year, Council for the Homeless talked with Vancouver police Officer Tyler Chavers, who’s part of the city’s new homeless assistance response team, about police holding off on sweeping camps during the count.

The Vancouver Police Department agreed to not schedule cleanups a few days before the Point in Time and on the day of the count.

“We are well aware of the count and doing what we can to not disrupt it,” said police spokeswoman Kim Kapp.

It’s similar to the approach by the Portland Police Bureau, which generally does not disrupt camps within a week of the Point in Time count, according to Lt. Tina Jones, bureau spokeswoman.

On Thursday, volunteers and staff from social service agencies will survey people living outside in tents, cars or trailers with no running water. Those staying in homeless shelters or transitional housing will also be counted.

People will also be surveyed at Project Homeless Connect, a resource fair held at St. Joseph Catholic Church. At the fair, people without homes can have lunch, sign up for social services and get access to housing information, dental care, vision exams, haircuts, employment resources, clothing and other resources.

New this year is a pet care clinic at the Vancouver Navigation Center put on by the Humane Society for Southwest Washington and Orchard Hills Animal Hospital. The pets of people who are homeless can get wellness checkups, microchips and vaccinations.

The bill is coming due for serial killers of decades past — most recently in the form of a new murder charge against Clark County’s own suspected serial killer, Warren Forrest.

Forrest, 70, has been convicted of only one murder, but he is now accused in the 1974 slaying of 17-year-old Martha Morrison of Portland. Investigators say DNA evidence linked the former Battle Ground man to her death.

He is believed to be responsible for the abduction and slaying of six women and girls in Clark County in the 1970s, and he is a person of interest in another missing persons case.

Better understanding of serial murder, as well as advances in DNA testing and handling of forensic evidence, are helping to bring long unidentified or suspected serial killers to justice and closure to the victims’ loved ones.

The public’s fascination with serial killers continues to grow, even as the number of high-profile cases has declined since the 1970s and 1980s.

What is a serial killer?

Serial murder — the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender in separate events — makes up less than 1 percent of all murders in any given year, according to the FBI.

Radford University’s Serial Killer Database, maintained in collaboration with Florida Gulf State University, has identified 3,596 serial killers in the United States since 1900.

Serial killers often have families, homes and jobs. They span all racial groups and can have multiple or evolving motivations for killing: sex, anger, thrill, financial gain and attention seeking. Most operate in defined comfort zones. They choose to kill, and some stop depending on their personal circumstances. Many have personality disorders. But above all else, serial killers think they can’t be caught. It’s a sense of empowerment that often leads to slip-ups and their eventual capture, according to a 2008 report from the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.

Forrest, a Vancouver native and Vietnam Army veteran, had married his high school sweetheart; they had two daughters. He supported his household, working for the Clark County Parks Department. But he also abducted, raped and tortured a woman, and left her for dead in 1974. Except this woman survived, and her testimony helped convict him of the 1974 murder of Krista Kay Blake, 20.

“There are monsters in this world, but they don’t walk around with a red ‘Monster’ on their forehead,” said Norma Countryman, one of the two known victims who survived Forrest. “In his soul, he’s a monster.”

‘Cocktail of things’

Certain traits are common to serial killers, such as sensation seeking, a lack of remorse or guilt, impulsivity, the need for control and predatory behavior, according to the FBI’s 2008 report. Serial killers choose their victims based on availability, vulnerability and desirability.

“I think the impulses serial killers act upon are deeply ingrained — animal impulses for survival, flee or fight, the sexual impulse and feeding impulse. Now that we’re civilized, these are anti-society impulses,” says Peter Vronsky, Canadian historian and author. “I think we’re all born with those impulses, but we’re socialized out of them.”

Statistically, the average age serial murderers begin killing is about 28, according to Michael Aamodt, the professor emeritus who created Radford University’s Serial Killer Database. Vronsky said many report their first rape or homicidal fantasies between the ages of 5 and 14.

Forrest admitted that he started to have vague thoughts about the crimes he would eventually commit when he was 15 and wanted to feel more masculine, according to a 2013 progress report from his sex offender treatment program. Later, he found he became aroused by violence.

Among the shared experiences of many serial killers is neurological injury and childhood trauma or abuse — an unstable family, absent father, dominant mother.

“It really requires a perfect storm of factors for someone to act on those impulses,” says Michael Arntfield, director of the Murder Accountability Project, a nonprofit organization that tracks unsolved homicides. “We know that some offenders have diminished frontal lobe activity in their brain, where empathy and impulse control are regulated.”

However, serial killer Ted Bundy, who confessed to killing 30 young women in the 1970s, reported having an uneventful childhood. There are conflicting reports as to whether his brain was ever scanned for abnormalities.

In a 2013 progress report, Forrest described his relationship with his father as being normal and positive. Forrest said he came from a middle-class family and that his parents were law-abiding role models. He graduated from Fort Vancouver High School in 1967 with honors and lettered in cross country and track.

And, yet, Forrest admitted to sexually assaulting 11 women and girls, peeping on another woman and watching a group of girls swim nude. He’s only admitted to killing one victim.

Attendees of the FBI’s Serial Murder Symposium concluded that “the most significant factor is the serial killer’s personal decision in choosing to pursue their crimes.”

“Somewhere in those cocktail of things that’s where you get serial killers. … We don’t know what the ‘X factor’ is. I haven’t ruled out old fashioned biblical evil,” Vronsky said. “Some things we don’t understand and may never understand.”

Serial murder peak

Eighty-three percent of 20th-century serial killers made their appearance between 1970 and 1999, according to Vronsky. Radford’s data shows a peak in 1987, when there were 189 active serial killers. The Murder Accountability Project’s algorithm agrees there were far more suspicious clusters of murder in the late-1970s and ’80s.

“First of all, the phenomenon didn’t really have a name or was recognized as a national problem,” said Thomas Hargrove, founder and chairman of the Murder Accountability Project. “Evil inclination tends to flourish in darkness. Without knowing it’s a problem, it can exist happily, and it did.”

FBI agent Robert Ressler is believed to have coined the term “serial killer” while profiling violent offenders in the 1970s, though it didn’t appear in media until a 1981 New York Times report, Vronsky said.

When asked about potential causes for the peak in serial murder, Hargrove said the sexual revolution of the 1960s spawned a time of experimentation.

“A period of sexual freedom and exploration would not prevent a serial killer from exploring his feelings and playing in those dark realms,” he said.

Vronsky said the answers may lie in the killers’ childhoods — the baby boom era following World War II. As he read serial killers’ biographies, he noted similarities in familial breakdowns.

“You have a generation of (Great) Depression survivors, and you have some million men who had seen combat returning with all of this trauma, and it’s not being acknowledged,” he explained. “The dominant mother also begins to develop. You have a generation of mothers who lost husbands in the Great Depression or WWII, raising families as both father and mother.”

Vronsky also points to virulent rape literature being sold mainstream on magazine stands. True crime and men’s adventure magazines persisted in the 1980s and featured photos of abducted women bound, tortured and sexualized. These magazines scripted how serial killers do their killing, he said.

“A lot of serial killers have reported being obsessed with these magazines,” Vronsky said. “It gave them a scenario for which they expressed these primitive impulses sparking in their brain.”

Arntfield said he believes serial murder has remained relatively stable over the years. The so-called serial murder peak produced the most infamous killers — true crime hits such as Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer.

“The first offenders, and some of the most grisly, crystallized what the public understands serial killers to be. It doesn’t mean there was an abundance of them then. There’s more of them than we think, and we’re linking the crime later in the series,” he said.

Arntfield said there are at least 30 serial killers that should be actively sought right now.

Road to justice

Identifying serial murderers is getting easier, even decades after the crime, thanks to significant improvement in laboratory testing of forensic evidence.

Modern DNA testing allows for smaller samples to be analyzed, and it produces more precise results. National databases link biological evidence for known offenders and unsolved crimes. DNA profiles can be obtained from offenders, crime scenes, unidentified human remains and even voluntary samples from the families of missing people.

“A lot of serial killers from the ’70s are being apprehended now because of DNA,” Vronsky said.

In 2014, investigators began reviewing evidence from Forrest’s past court cases to determine if any of it might be used in unsolved crimes. Forensic scientists with the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory identified a partial DNA profile found on an air pistol Forrest had used to torture a woman and discovered that the DNA belonged to “an unknown female source.” On Nov. 23, 2015, the DNA was matched to Morrison, whose remains were found Oct. 12, 1974, in Dole Valley.

The sharing of familial DNA is relatively new.

“Everybody is loading up their own DNA to find their long-lost second cousin. It has become a huge investigative tool in identifying victims, as well as suspects and securing evidence,” Vronsky said. “You no longer need the suspect’s DNA; you just need the suspect’s relative’s DNA. That kind of broadens the investigative scope of serial murders.”

It was genetic genealogy that helped authorities apprehend Joseph James DeAngelo, a 73-year-old former police officer who is suspected of being the Golden State Killer. DeAngelo, who was arrested in 2018, is believed to be behind a series of killings, rapes and assaults in the 1970s and 1980s in California.

Serial murders decline

Several experts interviewed for this story said serial murders are on the decline, due to advances in laboratory testing, the prevalence of video surveillance and cellphone use, as well as the improvement of interjurisdictional communication. Law enforcement also has a better understanding of the crime.

Moreover, Hargrove said, we live in an era of serial murder media overkill, and even that may have contributed to the decline.

“We’re starting to get a little smarter about identifying people who might become serial killers,” he said.

Radford University’s Serial Killer Database shows the number of identified serial killers had fallen to somewhere in the 40s in 2013 and 2014 — an about 80 percent decrease since 1987.

Aamodt thinks serial murder is on the decline because the overall murder rate is on the decline due to better policing and catching people after one kill.

“I think parole is a huge reason for the decrease,” he added. “When someone is convicted of murder, it’s now unlikely they will be paroled in a short time.”

Eighteen percent of serial killers who went to prison for a murder had been paroled and killed again, he said.

Forrest has been denied parole three times in the last decade. Countryman and Starr Lara, whose sister, Jamie Grissim, is Forrest’s suspected first victim, have staunchly protested his release. Countryman said she doesn’t believe Forrest is capable of hurting anyone now, but she says he doesn’t deserve to be released.

“And I will fight (his release) until my last breath,” she said. “The agony he’s put people through, the ongoing pain, I’m really angry about that.”

Experts say there’s also been a cultural shift in people’s behavior.

“We think it’s more difficult for serial killers to find a victim because people don’t engage in high-risk events like they did before, (such as) hitchhiking or walking to school,” Aamodt said. “When I think about what I did as a child, they would never let you do that today.”

Most of Forrest’s suspected victims were hitchhiking or walking when he encountered them.

He developed distortions that “hitchhikers are promiscuous, bad girls, it won’t hurt them as much,” a 2013 progress report states.

It could also be that today’s would-be serial killers have outlets of release they didn’t have before, Hargrove said.

“It’s possible the ‘anything goes’ attitude of the internet is fulfilling these dark desires for people who otherwise may have gone out and done these things themselves,” he said.

For his part, Vronsky is predicting a surge in serial killing in the next 20 to 25 years due to the 2008 financial crisis and War on Terror.

“We had a huge financial crisis that destroyed a lot of families, like the Great Depression of the 1930s,” he said. “And now we’re waging a war on terror, which, by its nature, is being waged clandestinely. And it’s not just men but women who come back from combat unable to speak about what they endured. We’re facing a generation of mothers and fathers raising children in the same context as the baby boom generation.”

Morbid fascination

In recent years, serial killers have arguably become cultural superstars, especially in the U.S., with the proliferation of true crime shows, documentaries and podcasts.

“There is a rising of serial killers to anti-hero status. They are seen as these ultimate rebels, rebelling against all values of society,” Vronsky said.

Other experts say we’re intrigued by what we can’t fathom.

“It’s their elusive nature and the fact that they seem to defy nature but cannot be like most things in nature — quantified, which makes them frightening, and people are fascinated by what frightens them,” Arntfield said. “They are modern day monsters we don’t fully understand; that is the simple answer.”

Hargrove said we probably talk about serial murder too much — it makes up a small percentage of homicides, and the overall percentage of unsolved murders is rising. U.S. law enforcement used to solve about 90 percent of homicides; today, it’s about 60 percent. That means about 40 percent of the time, the killers get away with it.

“We need to get better at identifying patterns like this. We need to have a better method for taking up cold cases,” Hargrove said. “Family members of unsolved murders have a hole in their souls. They are survivors of unsolved murders.”

Lara knows this all too well. It’s been nearly 50 years, and she’s still waiting for answers.

“He withholds the truth from these families; that’s not fair,” she said of Forrest. “When he gets convicted, we will never have to hear from him again, and Martha can have justice. I’ve been connected with those girls since 1974. This is the closest I can come to justice for Jamie. Justice for them is justice for her.”

A large shop and several vehicles were consumed by fire Saturday evening.

The fire was reported at 7:56 p.m. in the 16300 block of Northeast Leaper Road, which is northeast of the Washington State University Vancouver campus.

Neighbors captured photos of a large column of smoke coming from the fire. Witnesses heard several explosions as the fire burned.

Firefighters from Clark County Fire and Rescue, Fire Districts 3 and 6, and the Vancouver Fire Department were called to the scene. Because the area is rural and lacks hydrants, several water tender trucks were used to transport water to the scene.

Firefighters were at the scene for almost five hours.

The county fire marshal was called to investigate the cause of the fire.