Every Town - What Really Happened To Katheryne Eggleston? The Mystery That Still Haunts Oregon

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Approximately 630,000 people around the globe go missing every year. While many of these cases are resolved with the person being found alive and well, there are still thousands that remain unsolved. One of these cases is the disappearance of Katheryne Eggleston. 👀 Watch This Episode On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries 👁 Our Movie ‘AN ANGRY BOY’ is Available NOW On Demand: ALL Links and more info https://www.anangryboy.com 🎧 Our Other Podcast Scary Mysteries: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkT 💀 Exclusive Videos, Podcasts & Perks: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries  👁 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg 👁 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald 👁 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial 🗣 Business Inquiries, questions and comments hit us up at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Everytown has a dark side. Approximately 630,000 people around the globe go missing every single year. While many of these cases are resolved with the person being found alive and well, there are still thousands that remain unsolved. One of these cases is the disappearance of Catherine Eggleston. Back in 1993, 22-year-old Catherine left her job in Portland, Oregon, headed out for a routine meeting. It was her first time being allowed by her employer to do this on her own,

a big step and she was super excited about her new independence. However, after that day, Catherine was never seen again. And since then, some dark family secrets, a breakup, and potential new fling have all been looked into. Moreover than nothing has led to a firm closing on this case, and so today it still remains a mystery. Hey guys, it's Andrew, and thanks so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Everytown. But today we're checking out a missing person's case that's riddle with strangers, eyewitness accounts, several potential suspects, and bits and pieces of evidence. It is, however, yet to be solved, which is why, decades later, Eggleston's story remains one of the most notorious

cold cases in Portland's history. By the end of the episode, I'm sure you'll have your own thoughts as to what really happened. So let's head on over to the Great Pacific Northwest and looking at the very strange and heartbreaking case of Catherine Eggleston, known simply as Katie, McEgleston was born in Redmond, Oregon, on May 4th of 1971 to parents Paul and Heather. Both of them were hardworking school teachers. Paul at Seattle High, where he was also the superintendent of the Redmond School District, and Heather, an elementary teacher. And Katie was one of four daughters.

She was super close to her sisters. She was a member of the swim team in high school and big on self-defense classes. And so much so, she was known to carry around a whistle for safety. and thought that if she ever found herself in a bad situation or approached by the wrong person, well, she'd use it to get attention from others in the area to let them know that she was in need of help. And keeping things local after graduating, she went on to attend Oregon State University in Corvallis, which was about two and a half hours from her family's home. At university, she became a member of the Alpha Phi Omega sorority,

and Katie graduated from OSU in the spring of 93 with a bachelor's of arts degree in a bachelor's of arts degree in English, and then it was time for the real world. And right away, she moved to Gresham, which was a suburb of Portland, to live with her older sister, Janet, who was 37 years old and recently divorced at the time. And this was a temporary arrangement while she saved up a bit of cash and caught herself established in the workforce. As soon, Katie landed a job as a salesperson at all-net communication services, a telecommunications company based in Lake Oswego.

But she never got the chance to really show them what she was capable of. Because just a few short months later, the tragic day of her vanishing would come. It's worth noting that just a few days before her disappearance, it was a weekend that Katie had spent in central Oregon with her boyfriend Mike visiting his aunt. She returned to her sister's apartment around midnight on Sunday, August 1st. It was later discovered that it was this weekend that she had brought to her. broken up with Mike, which was a decision he didn't take well. The next day, Monday, August 2nd, was another day at work, but it was a milestone for Katie's career as it marked her first solo

sales visits. After completing 10 days of an intensive training, she was well-prepped and eager to get out there. So her day was packed with business meetings, which started in the morning in Portland at her home base office, with several more scheduled in the afternoon elsewhere. After she had Wrapped up there, Katie got into her gray Volkswagen Golf and made a deposit at the bank for her company. She stopped at a gas station and grabbed a BK. Wopper for lunch, close to where her next appointment was. After a morning sales meeting,

employees of the Burger King near the Lloyd Center remember seeing Katie eating lunch there. Her next stop? A sales appointment at the old Port of Portland building just three blocks away. Located at 700 Northeast Maltauma Street. Witnesses inside the building's lobby observed Katie making phone calls and noted that she seemed preoccupied and a bit worried. Around 2.15 p.m., the man she was scheduled to meet went down to the lobby to see her.

Katie was wearing business attire. Later, a customer noticed Katie getting off the elevator in the lobby. She was with a young man in a blue blazer. He may have been the last person to see Katie. The two of them walked right past him and out the front door. The guy she was there to meet thought it was strange, but figured she had more important places to be in the moment. And Katie was scheduled that day to meet with her supervisor at 5 p.m. back at Allnitz, Lake Oswego office. However, she never showed up.

This was the first red flag that was raised because since it was to recap her first day out there alone, there was no way she would have just voluntarily blown off the meeting. A couple hours later when she failed to return back to the apartment that, she shared with her sister, while Janet had a couple of phone calls. She spoke with friends and family, asking them if they'd seen her. Then she found out through her supervisor that she never made it to that scheduled meetup. Janet told her father about this, so the next morning, along with a family friend, he made the two-and-a-half-hour drive from his home in Redmond up to Gresham.

Before he left, though, he reached out to the authorities, let them know that he believed his little girl might be missing. He provided them with all the information he had. The police then set out alerts to be on the lookout for Katie and or any sign of her great Volkswagen. Going back to the Port of Portland building, where she was last seen, the authorities spoke with a worker there named John Davis

who had not only seen Katie arrive in her car the previous day, but when he left, a little after 5 p.m., remembered seeing it still parked where she had left it. Though, on the morning of August 3rd, when police searched, the car was nowhere in that parking lot. At midnight, a security guard found Katie's car in the parking lot of this industrial building on Northeast Airport Way. The car was unlocked, the keys were in the ignition, Katie's purse, her wallet, all the contents in the front seat. Her passport and black work binder, however, were missing. Her parents had noted that Katie had taken her passport from their home about 10 days. prior, saying it was for identification for her job.

And it was never recovered at her workplace or her apartment, so authorities thought she might have taken it. Interestingly, the industrial park was located at Northeast 122nd Avenue and Airport way, which was very close to the Portland International Airport, no more than a six-minute drive. There were no indications of a struggle inside or vehicle, or any evidence that anyone else had even been in there. It just looked like she had left in a hurry, or perhaps someone else had. The days that followed, volunteers scoured the nearby fields around her car, as well as the area where she was last seen. Additionally, Allnet funded both air and ground searches, utilizing sniffer dogs to aid in the effort over Katie, her black book, and her passport were

never found. Unsure of what direction to take, the police conducted extensive interviews, speaking with virtually everyone Katie had ever known or interacted with. Throughout the investigation, police explored many different potential avenues. They looked into her personal life, her work environment, even possible connections to pass criminal cases in the area. However, despite all those efforts, they were unable to find any leads or evidence that could shed light on Katie's mysterious disappearance.

Her parents, Hall and Heather initially suspected Katie's boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend Mike. that he might have been responsible for this. He had actually joined Paul and the family in the search, however, Paul noticed he was exhibiting some very strange behaviors while they were searching. Paul never specified what these strange behaviors were exactly, but according to him, Mike's whole demeanor was just off. In top of this, they also knew that Mike was mad about the breakup,

and so the police dug into him first and foremost. The suspicions around Mike being involved were short, lived, though. His law enforcement quickly cleared him, as he had been in Central Oregon at the time of the crime took place. With Mike cleared, even though there was no evidence to suggest it, the Eggleston

still believed foul play was involved. Everything just seemed too suspicious. And the authorities initially agreed with this theory, figuring that with her new job and solid family ties, well, there was no reason for Katie to just run away. Or was there?

As it turns out, Janet, and her ex-husband, Jeff Taylor, had been accused of failing to report $195,000 in business profits between the years 1986 and 87, and were headed to trial for tax evasion. This made police wonder if Katie had possibly left to avoid testifying against her sister in a potential court hearing. Upon discovering this, detectives called Paul to ask why he hadn't mentioned this earlier.

And he told them he honestly didn't see the connection. They then asked him, flat out if he knew where Katie was, implying that he might be hiding her. He told him he had no idea, and was pissed they even suggested that. He offered to take a polygraph test. Now, the theory police considered along these lines was the possibility that Janet's ex-husband had kidnapped her to prevent her from testifying. Paul thought this was ridiculous, as Katie didn't know much about her sister's finances.

She also had two other sisters, one older and one younger, who, were also supposed to testify. Why would Katie be more of a threat? The tensions began to grow between investigators and the Eggleston family. The family felt that the cop's theories were too far-fetched, that they weren't taking Katie's disappearance slash murder seriously enough. And as it turns out, Janet and Jeff pled guilty to their crimes and opted not to even go to trial.

This meant that Katie would not have been required to testify anyway. So the tax evasion case was over, but still no sign of Katie. The frustrated her family hired their own private investigator, which led to several new leads, including one involving a security guard with access to the Port of Portland Building's parking garage. Details of this lead have not been disclosed, but the security guard became a person of interest for some time. To support in all the search efforts, AllNet funded a dedicated hotline specifically for information regarding Katie's case. The flyers offering a $5,000 reward were distributed along Interstate 5,

stretching all the way from Eugene to Everett Washington. Over at this point, police still were sticking more to the theory that Katie had just run away in her own accord. And if that was true, the All-Net effort seemed more of a PR move than really trying to find the truth. In 13 days after she had gone missing, a man with a southern accent called up that tip line from a payphone with a jackpot gas. station on Sandy Boulevard near where Katie's car was found. The man believed to be in his mid to late 20s or early 30s left a chilling message that said, I don't worry about finding her alive. You ain't going to.

I know because I'm the one that killed her. That's enough. Have fun finding her. You ain't going to. And this caller has never been identified, but was that a sick and twisted joke or really the person who killed her. And come October, police have received hundreds of tips regarding the case, but none have been proven fruitful.

Our cold case investigators have the case. They periodically get tips or people call in information, like a lot of our cases, and they track it down. At this point, though, there's, you know, nothing really helping them reach that resolution that the family and friends would like to see. On October 12th, law enforcement informed the media that they still believe Katie had disappeared willingly.

They cited the lack of physical evidence and her missing passport as indications that she fled to avoid testifying. And following her sentencing for tax evasion, Janet told the media that her case was unrelated to Katie's disappearance, stating, to imply any connection tarnishes her in a way is unbelievably painful to me.

On May 4, 2001, what would have been Katie's 30th birthday, her family set up a hotline to gather more tips about her disappearance. One of the callers was a former attendant at a gas station that was approximately four miles south from where Katie's vehicle was found. The attendant claimed to have seen Katie

around the time she went missing. According to him, he had given her directions to the airport, and she left in a car who was making a model he couldn't recall, driving northbound. Later, that same woman returned to the gas station driving a different vehicle, a blue-green Honda hatchback. and this one he remembered, and she was accompanied by two black men.

With one of them in the backseat and the other in the passenger seat, the attendant described her as disheveled, partially undressed, and crying. He said he heard her repeatedly pleading with the men. What exactly she said he couldn't remember. She seemed to be trying to attract attention, though, even driving erratically. When she first arrived alone, the attendant had noticed a thick black book on the passenger seat, similar to the sales binder used by AllNet. This caller said that after seeing Katie's picture on the news,

he was very confident that who he saw was Katie. Family and authorities are unsure what to make of this tip exactly, though. They found it strange that he saw her in such a distressed state and didn't think to report it at the time. Also, eight years had passed, so why now? And also, how such a detailed memory? Was this person, perhaps just trying to lead a third? authorities further in the wrong direction. Despite this, still law enforcement maintained that

Katie had willingly disappeared and were not interested in considering other possibilities. That is, until 2004 when another woman, Brooke Wilberger, went missing and turned up dead in Corvallis, Oregon. In the morning of May 24, 2004, Brooke was last seen cleaning lampposts in the parking lot of the Oak Park Apartments near Oregon State University, which her sister and brother-in-law managed. Massive search was conducted. Ultimately, Brooke was never found. Then five months later, in 1,400 miles south,

a student from the University of New Mexico was kidnapped. Though they managed to escape, and she named her abductor from Alina, his name was Joel Patrick Courtney. Courtney had a long criminal history, was likely suffering from some sort of mental illness. In 2005, he pled guilty to this attack. And from that was also connected to Brooks' death,

since he had been found to Benin Corvallis, that same day she went missing. The witnesses saw the car he had been driving, and one witness even picked him out of a photo lineup. Brooks' DNA was also found in his van. So he pled guilty to the kidnapping, assault, murder of Brooke, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on November 21st of 2009,

following his arrest, according he led authorities to Brooke's body. Investigators would go on to learn that Joel was actually in Portland around the time that Katie was last seen. Both her and Brooke had blonde hair and blue eyes were nearly the same age and both had gone to OSU. Now, several years ago, there was one promising lead in Katie's case. Joel Courtney was convicted in the kidnapping and death of Brooke Wilberger and Corvales, and there were similarities between what happened to Brooke and what happened to Katie. But Portland police say, based on the investigation, Investigation so far, detectives do not have a reason to suspect Joel Courtney has any connection to Katie's disappearance.

While a lot of these theories are mere speculation, you've got to keep going back to that dark-haired man in the suit, the last man she was seen with. Why was she acting so strangely that day, according to witnesses? And did this man somehow convince her to run away with him, perhaps either pretending to be or actually was her new boyfriend? And a series of events that took place seemed to suggest this, because as it turns out, she did not actually need her passport for work, as she had claimed. She also broke things off with Mike seemingly out of the blue, which is why he was so put off by the whole thing. Was she breaking it off because she knew she was about to take off somewhere with her tall, dark, and handsome man? And Katie was young and impressionable, so if this were the case, then chances are she would not have told her parents or family. because she knew they wouldn't allow it.

Our nerves that day was because she was getting ready to do something wild and crazy, leave her whole life behind and start somewhere new. So maybe the police were right all along. I really truly believe that it was somebody she knew. Had it been a stranger, there would have been a big fight. There's no way that somebody would have just grabbed Katie and hauled her off and killed her without a major fight. Every once in a while I'll have a dream that she's in, and we're like trying to ask her questions about, you know, where are you, where have you been, what happened? But she never says anything, you know. There's never any closure.

In the end, though, nobody knows for sure. As of 2024, Catherine Eggleston's whereabouts remain unknown. In her case, still unsolved. So that's it for this week's episode of Everytown. enjoyed it. Please remember to come back next week for another one, filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories, because you never know. Maybe your town will be next.