The Deck - Mary Cooper & Susanna Stodden (Ace of Hearts, Washington)

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

For 18 years, no one has been able to figure out who killed Mary Cooper and her daughter Susanna Stodden while they were out for a scenic mother-daughter hike in the beautiful mountains of Washington state. No one understands why either. Their deaths and the evidence left behind continue to perplex detectives in Snohomish County. If you know anything about the murders of Mary Cooper and Susanna Stodden on the Pinnacle Lake hiking trail in Washington state in July 2006, you’re asked to call the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office at 425-388-3845.To pre-order your copy of The Missing Half, please visit  Ashley’s website , or wherever books are sold! View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/mary-cooper-susanna-stodden Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo support Season of Justice and learn more, please visit seasonofjustice.org. The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Hi everyone. Before we get into this week's case, there is a little something I'd like to share with you. As many of you know, a couple of years ago I released my debut novel All Good People Here, which became a number one New York Times bestseller. And now I am excited to announce that my second novel, my new novel, The Missing Half, is now available for pre-order. Just like all good people here, The Missing Half is a fictional case, but it is a twisty, turny mystery. I cannot wait for you to read it

when it comes out on May 6th, 2025. So please go pre-order it now wherever books are sold. Thank you so much. But now, let's dive in. Our card this week is Mary Cooper and Susanna Stodden, the Ace of Hearts from Washington. In the summer of 2006, Mary and Susanna were out for a mother-daughter hike in the scenic forests of Snohomish County, Washington, when they encountered someone on the trail who, for no reason, wanted them dead.

Their killer somehow managed to escape the woods unnoticed that afternoon and has gone undetected for 18 years. And everything about this case has continued to perplex their family members and detectives ever since. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. One Tuesday afternoon in the dead of summer 2006, a man named Robert Mathis decided to take a scenic hike near Pinnacle Lake with his girlfriend. It was a quick trek as far as hikes go, but not for the faint of heart, according to Snohomish

County Sheriff's Detective Dave Bilio. The trail up to Pinnacle Lake is just under two miles. The first portion of the trail is pretty steep with a number of switchbacks. Very challenging trail. I've hiked it a couple of times myself. There's exposed root balls. There's some significant elevation change.

And then you get up to a ridge line where it flattens out quite a bit, and that leads you to the actual lake, an alpine lake in the shadows of Mount Pilchuck." Just shy of the lake, about 1.3 miles in, Robert and his girlfriend Rebecca, who was hiking in front of him, noticed two women. It wasn't totally clear what they were seeing at first. I mean, something registered as off because they wondered if they'd walked up on them

like taking a bathroom break off the trail or something. So before going to close, they called out to the women. But they didn't answer, and they didn't move. The closer they got, the clearer the picture became. Both women were partially undressed. And then there was the blood. Robert and Rebecca were instantly in fear. That kind of primal fear that takes over and tells you to fight, freeze, or flee.

They didn't see anyone that they had to fight off, but they weren't convinced they were alone. What if whoever did this was lurking nearby, watching them? So for that reason, freezing wasn't an option. They turned around and ran down the trail back to their car and high-tailed it to a campground they knew of in Granite Falls to get help. There is no cell service up the Mount Loop Highway where we have some world-class hiking.

So it's often an issue for injuries or whatnot that somebody has to come down off a trail and drive to the nearest payphone. On their way, Robert saw another car coming up, but he stopped to tell the man not to go up there because there had been a horrible accident. When Robert and Rebecca got to the nearest campground, they called 911. Snohomish County Sheriff Sergeant Darrell O'Neal, who was already out on patrol, was dispatched and drove immediately to the trailhead, arriving at 2.55 p.m. It's a bit of a drive from Granite Falls out the Mount Loop Highway itself.

It is a two-lane windy road, so it can be slow in places. That drive to get out to the Pinnacle Lake Trailhead, you have to drive out of Granite Falls a number of miles, get to the turnoff for the Forest Service Road, which then leads another six miles up to the trailhead. Those six miles up to the trailhead are slow going. It's a backcountry forest service road, so if you've ever been on one of those, you can picture what I'm talking about. Gravel, uneven, steep, windy, and riddled with potholes.

When Sergeant O'Neill finally did arrive at the trailhead, he saw a few cars, but he didn't wait for backup. He started up the trail on foot as fast as he could muster in his uniform, his sidearm at the ready. He was only a few minutes up the steep trail when he came across two people who were distraught and, to his surprise, wielding an ice axe. They're frightened. Dr. Kam later states she's never been so frightened in her life. They have a singular ice axe between the two of them. So Richard Brown arms himself with the ice axe and they're making their way down the trail when Sergeant O'Neill is coming up the trail.

And from Sergeant O'Neill's report, there's a bit of a standoff. You've got Richard standing there with an ice axe and Sergeant O'Neill saying, no, I'm Sergeant Darrell O'Neill with the sheriff's office. I'm responding to this incident." The couple, Richard Brown and his wife, Dr. Taehee Kim, had also just come across the crime scene and were not expecting to see police responding already because they assumed they were the first ones to discover the bodies.

So you can imagine their surprise at seeing a man with a gun in the woods. Sergeant O'Neill was initially torn on which direction to go. On the one hand, he was first on the scene and needed to hurry up and get to the bodies to see what they were dealing with. But on the other, here were two people who could be potential witnesses. So the latter won out. Once the couple accepted that he was a cop and not a crazed gunman, they agreed to go with him back to the trailhead to give their statements, which turned out to be very insightful.

Richard and Tae Hee said that the bodies belonged to two women they had just spoken to at the start of their hike. They told Sergeant O'Neill that when they got to the trailhead earlier that day, the women, who introduced themselves as Mary and Susanna, were getting there at the same time, so they chatted with them, and while the mother-daughter pair paused to look at the signs posted at the trailhead, Richard and Tehi headed up the trail, presumably with Mary and Susanna right behind them. They said Mary and Susanna were in good spirits when they spoke with them, and it was an absolute

shock to see them in that state just a few hours later. Richard and Tehi said they hadn't heard any gunshots, or at least they hadn't thought so at the time. But they had heard what they thought was thunder. Even though there was nothing but clear blue skies on July 11, 2006, obviously everything hits different with hindsight. We don't get a lot of thunder or lightning around here in the Seattle area.

When it comes through, it's fairly rare. And this is not the south of the southeast, you know, where that's prominent. On a sunny hiking day up a hill truck out here, I wouldn't expect thunder. So perhaps they thought they heard thunder when it was in fact the gunshots. — Of course, by this time, no officials had made it

to the actual crime scene yet, so they didn't even know if the women had been shot or how they died. As he was finishing up taking Richard and Tej's statements, Sergeant O'Neill's backup started to arrive. And so did three more witnesses. Just finishing up taking Richard and Tehi's statements, Sergeant O'Neill's backup started to arrive. And so did three more witnesses. Three men walked out of the woods with fishing rods, just as police were starting to swarm

the parking area. It was a father and his two sons, and they told police that they'd been fishing at Bear Lake that afternoon and said they had, in fact, heard gunshots at around 1 p.m. That time lined up with all the other witness statements and the estimated time that Mary and Susanna would have been making their way up to Pinnacle Lake. Now, the father and sons hadn't seen Mary and Susanna, which wasn't a surprise because the trail to Bear Lake is in a different direction than the one to Pinnacle Lake. Now, some deputies stayed in the parking lot to collect more thorough statements from everyone and get everyone's photos and shoe prints for elimination purposes later, or in case

any of them became suspects. And at the same time, two deputies started hiking up the trail. Because by now, they were losing daylight, and still, nobody officially had laid eyes on the crime scene. Sergeant Danny Wichstrum was the sergeant and Glenn Wichstrum was his deputy, both very competent outdoorsmen, both, you, both longtime SWAT guys. They head up the trail as sort of a quick reaction force, so to speak, knowing that there is a potential armed bad guy in the woods and two victims that of mayor may not be dead." The deputies didn't want to tamper with any evidence, including footprints on the trail.

So what they did is they actually made their way up without using the trail, basically scrambling up the mountainside through dense trees and brush. But eventually, they came across the brutal scene. In this one particular spot on the trail, there is a little curve. There's a number of old-growth trees and fallen trees. And they find both of the victims on the ground, just off the trail to the left. Exact details about how their bodies were positioned is off the record. But both women were partially undressed,

and it was obvious to the deputies that they'd both been shot in the back of the head with what would later be confirmed as a small caliber gun. They noticed a few other pieces of evidence near the bodies too, like shell casings and some of their clothes in various places. But the thing that they didn't find was a weapon. Clearly that had been taken with the killer.

What was left behind, though, they knew they needed to collect. Except here, that was easier said than done. Detective Bill Yu said that by the time the major crimes detectives actually reached the scene, it was getting later in the day. There's no supplemental lighting up there, so they knew in order to see anything, they'd have to haul up generators. So the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office made the call to wait to start processing the scene until the next morning in the daylight, leaving the two armed deputies to stand watch overnight,

making sure that the killer didn't return to try and hide the bodies or tamper with evidence. -"Danny and Glen actually spent the night in the woods there guarding the crime scene. All night long, just the two of them up there in the pitch black with our victims. Nobody could have come or gone from that crime scene without them knowing.

As night fell, there was a man named David Stodden over in Seattle about an hour away from the trail, getting worried about his wife and daughter. Our reporter Emily interviewed David Stodden over the phone recently. And David told us that his wife Mary and daughter Susanna had left to go hiking the morning of July 11th, and when they weren't home by 5 p.m., he started calling their cell phones. But his calls were going straight to voicemail. They were supposed to be home around 5 o'clock, but I was training for a bike ride to Portland, so I had gone biking with a friend of mine.

And then, since Mary and Susanna were not home, I probably called them on our way home on my bike ride. So he invited me over to his house for dinner." David didn't think much of them not answering their phones at first, since the women would not have had cell service in the forest. And not being home by five wasn't a huge red flag. Maybe the hype took longer

or traffic was bad getting back to Seattle. But after having dinner at his friend's house when he headed home at around 8.30 that night and Mary still wasn't there, that's when he started to worry. By nine o'clock or so I started thinking well maybe they were in an auto accident or you know because it was just way too late for them to have gone you know to a movie or done anything else they would have been home before then. David called Washington State Patrol and a few other agencies, but didn't have any luck.

So that's when he started to pack up his truck with camping and hiking gear. So finally, about 10.30, it was already dark by then, I was getting in my truck and headed out to see if I could figure out where they were. And about that time, the detectives pulled up to my house. Deputies have put together that the Mary and Susanna that the couple had met on the trail

were connected to the lone Dodge caravan left at the trailhead registered to David Stodden. So just as he was loading up to go find his family, deputies intercepted him. David said officials didn't immediately offer in many details about their deaths. And he was confused from the get-go because when Mary left that morning to go pick up Susanna from her apartment to go hiking, they originally had plans to go hike Mount Pilchuck, which is up in that same area but a completely different trail.

So if detectives had not caught up with David just before he left to go searching, David would have been searching the wrong trail altogether. It remains a mystery to this day why Susanna and Mary changed their hiking plans last minute without telling anyone. I know when Mary went out the door it was a pretty heavy snow year and I just said well there might be a lot of snow on Mt. Piltsock and I knew she didn't necessarily like to hike on a steep trail and a lot of snow. And so I don't know if that's why they changed to where they were going or why. It was almost 1130 that night when detectives interviewed David at his house.

And he told police that he couldn't think of one single person who would want to hurt or kill his wife and daughter. After police talked to him, David went to Susanna's apartment to tell her roommates that she would not be returning home. Yeah, I think that night I drove over to where Susanna lived, and this was probably 12 o'clock or 12.30 at this point, and just told them what had happened to Susanna.

And the police interviewed them for half hour or so. And then I went home and gave the detectives my computer and Mary's computer and tried to go to sleep, but I really couldn't. While David tried to sleep, deputies out at the scene stood steadfast at their post. But the one thing that could go wrong did. Murphy's Law, right? It started to rain. The night watch deputies put a tarp over the women's bodies to try and protect the scene

as much as they could till crews arrived back in the morning. It wasn't until around 8 a.m. that detectives from major crimes units started to roll in. With them were search and rescue trackers and members of the Collision Investigation Unit to measure distances and draw up a diagram of the crime scene. Complicating matters was the fact that the heavy rains that started overnight continued to fall throughout the morning, making the crime scene wet and muddy. But detectives did their best to photograph everything and collect evidence despite the

conditions. The medical examiner got there around 11 a.m. and examined both women's bodies before search and rescue helped hike them down the steep narrow trail. Even after the women were off the scene, detectives continued to do a more thorough search around the crime scene itself to see if they could find more evidence combing through dirt and brush and using a metal detector. They collected everything, including the shell casings and the women's backpacks. And this is just a quick side note worth making.

If you're familiar with the case or have read other media coverage of it, you've likely heard about their backpacks being found. And some of the information that's been reported about the backpacks is conflicting, with some saying that the women were found still wearing their backpacks, which I can tell you is not true. Most of the information surrounding the women's backpacks is holdback information in order not to hurt the investigation, which I can respect. But I can tell you that it did not appear that anyone rummaged through them or stole anything out of them.

All of this to say, robbery was not likely the motive here. But neither was sexual assault. When the women's autopsies were first completed, there were no signs of it. But of course, there is always a caveat to that. Remember, both women were found partially undressed, though specifics of how much or what items were removed are off the record. So it still seems possible that there was some kind of sexual motive to the crime. Perhaps their killer couldn't perform, or, more likely in my mind, because of how exposed

they were to passing hikers, maybe the killer was interrupted. Whether he had to leave in a hurry or took his time, police did wonder how the killer managed to leave the woods undetected. It's not often they worked with homicide scenes that were only accessible by foot. Did this person take the regular trail down? If so, how did the other witnesses not see them? Or did the killer leave in a different direction, off the trail? This is what the tracking team was trying to figure out.

Trackers are not only looking for, in the simplest of terms, footprints. They're looking for age-appropriate footprints, and they're looking for age-appropriate vegetation disturbance. If you and I went outside and walked through the nearest hedge line and broke off a couple of branches, our trackers are able to look at those branches and tell us, well, that brake is old, that brake's new, that brake's super old. Despite the heavy rains, the trackers did find some evidence, or what the pros call sign of the killer's possible escape route. They're finding footwear sign that tells them a few things. One of those is in the area of the homicide scene, there is a draw. And

by draw, I mean, if you look at a topographical map, the low area between two hillsides, so to speak, is considered a draw. And that's like where water would run down into the valley up to the two hillsides. They spotted sign of a single person going down a draw and then back up the draw in the area of the crime scene. The trackers were able to trace the footprints through the woods, off trail, and almost all the way down to the road. So if these were in fact the killer's prints, he did not take the trail back down to the parking area. That would mean he exited the woods and came out on the road that's below the parking area.

Now no one they had talked to had seen a man on foot near the roads. But guess what? Through their canvassing, they'd actually talked to someone who said they saw another car speeding down the hill around the time the killer would have been leaving. Remember that guy who was driving up the trailhead when Robert Mathis was frantically driving down? Robert had flagged him down, told him not to proceed because of the horrible accident that just occurred.

Well, that guy's name was James, and he's the one who saw this speeding car. James says he didn't see the driver, but he thought the car was a red Toyota pickup or maybe a small SUV. He remembered it because of how fast it was going on this crappy gravel road. He said it was going way faster than it should have been. Police were obviously very interested in this red vehicle. I mean, this was their biggest and best lead. So they naturally started looking at people in the women's lives to see if anyone had access to something like it.

David didn't. Norm, Susanna's boyfriend, didn't either. And both men had solid alibis. They were both at work when the women were killed. And in talking to them and all the other people who knew the women, not only were they not finding their little red truck, they weren't finding a motive. To borrow law enforcement terminology,

Mary and Susanna were extremely low-risk victims. There weren't any red flags in their lives. They had happy relationships and normal jobs and a lot of people who loved them. David said that losing them was a real shock to their entire family. Mary was a real intellectual genius, so I loved discussing just about anything,

especially politics with her. We would often go to coffee shops and reading the New York Times and discuss articles. And she was a great friend and a big part of me. They both had just lots of friends and really did live their life to serve other people. And Susanna was sort of just getting started out. She was an environmental head teacher and loved to hike.

She had just done a hike around Monterey near, which I've done part of it from time to time since then. And she had a boyfriend who was going to ask her to get married. So she was kind of just getting started out and like. We take Mary and Susanna, who appear to be by all accounts, just salt of the earth, people from Seattle who like their neighbors or neighbors like them, people that don't have any conflict or drama in their life.

And they are suddenly murdered on a pristine alpine trail up the Mount Loop Highway. There's nothing normal about that. And of course, these two women are from Seattle, so we have the Seattle media conglomerates all over the story. This really became the forefront of talk for days, a lot of media coverage. David Stodden said that news reporters started showing up at his house too.

And instead of hiding away with his grief, he welcomed it. He agreed to interviews and participated in news conferences. So for me, it was kind of real, very surreal. I was in totally new, uncharted territory for me because I had never really done interviews on TV. You know, I've never had any interaction with law enforcement. So for me it was like I just tried to expand and survive and I did. If anybody called me up and wanted to talk about it, just like you, I would talk. Because I think it kind of

helped that other people cared. And they did care. After the case started making headlines, police were flooded with calls. Hundreds of tips were being looked into. 372 formal tips to be exact. But Detective Bilyeu said a lot of them were extremely vague. Somebody reported a suspicious male walked out of the woods and was walking down the highway.

So those are the type of tips that are coming in. A detective was assigned to take any tip that came in, organize them, and follow up. To their dismay, nothing big ever popped in that first month. Not even any tips about a red pickup or SUV. The mystery starts to deepen. You know, in conjunction with the Forest Service, cameras were set up near the trailhead

documenting vehicles coming and going. Video was obtained from a gas station in Granite Falls to confirm Mathis was alibi. I bought some snacks at the Shell gas station in Granite Falls. Purchase receipts were being gathered to confirm his information. So all those little things that investigators do after the scene has been processed, that's underway." While the search for answers kept expanding out wider and wider beyond Mary and Susanna's circle,

some detectives took an even closer look at that inner circle just to make sure nothing was missed. closer look at that inner circle, just to make sure nothing was missed. Don't forget, David Stodden had a pretty solid alibi. He was at work at a home-build job site in Seattle the afternoon his wife and daughter were killed, and then he went on a bike ride to his friend's house for dinner. But I guess detectives wanted to rule him out in more ways than one. There isn't any initial information that David Stodden's involved, but as investigators, we need to consider that possibility and then gather information that either includes him or excludes him from the investigation.

So I think early on, he was a person of interest like any loved one or husband would be, but never really reached the level of a bona fide suspect. The Sheriff's Office asked David Stodden to take a polygraph, and according to authorities, David said no at first, but eventually agreed to take one if it was administered by the FBI. And when he did, it was inconclusive. But inconclusive doesn't mean fail. Plus, detectives had interviewed David at length,

and there were zero red flags in his marriage. But aside from David's polygraph and the occasional tip still coming in from the public, the case still stalled. So in September 2006, two months after the murder, detectives met with the FBI to get a criminal profile from its behavioral analysis unit. The homicides were cold, detached, and goal-oriented. The offender brought a handgun with him,

and the execution style of homicide suggests that he was eliminating witnesses. The offender did not inflict excessive injury, and it does not appear that he interacted with either victim post-mortem. If that's true, it means the women were forced by their killer to take off some of their clothes before they were killed. The profile also stated that the killer was likely already in place, just off the trail,

waiting for an opportunity. The offender is familiar with this area and likely had been there in the past for similar purpose, but available victims did not cross this path." I find this interesting because if it's true, that means this was the rarest kind of crime, done by a random stranger. Because not one person knew Mary and Susanna would be on the trail that day, not even their loved ones. This also makes me wonder if the killer was lying in wait when Richard and Taye he walked by, right before Mary and Susanna. Maybe he didn't target them because of Richard. The FBI didn't offer up any analysis around motive, but they called Mary and Susanna's murders, quote, risky, premeditated, and predatory, unquote.

The investigation stalled significantly after that, and years went by without any serious developments. Eventually, Detective Jim Scharf, who was working the case back then, talked David Stodden into taking a second polygraph, again administered by the FBI, and again came out inconclusive. Detective Scharf kept telling David that if he could just pass a polygraph, he could mark him off their suspect list. But David Stodden felt like his name was the only one on Detective Sharf's list. I think that I'm still probably the prime suspect.

That's kind of what the last guy told me. Or not that I'm the prime suspect. Since they don't have anybody else, I'm still the suspect. For some reason, they haven't been able to, even though there's no evidence, and even though there's about 50 people that saw me working on this house all that day, somehow they can't get it out of their head that I wasn't involved. In 2010, investigators turned to the physical evidence in the case, thinking that they might be able to rule David out with DNA.

But the results just supported the theory that Mary and Susanna never even got a chance to defend themselves. You see, the state crime lab tested fingernail clippings that had been preserved from both women's remains, but the samples only matched the women. In 2012, which was a solid six years after the women's deaths, a new serial killer came on everyone's radar. At least, everyone in the Pacific Northwest.

And that's when Israel Keyes was arrested in Alaska for the abduction and murder of a teenager from a coffee stand in Anchorage. I did an episode about Keyes on crime junkies, so some of you might be familiar with his crimes. But what stuck out to investigators in Snohomish County was the fact that he'd been living in Washington in the summer of 2006. And, Keyes told the FBI in one of their interviews

that he had killed a couple in Washington. He didn't reveal what he meant by couple, but detectives immediately thought about Mary and Susanna. However, the FBI released cell phone data for Keyes. And based on that, Detective Sharf decided it would have been impossible for Keys to have been on the Pinnacle Lake Trail on July 11th, 2006. Fast forward to 2018, Detective Sharf convinced

David Stodden to do a third polygraph. And this time, he passed. The Sheriff's Office actually announced to the local media that David had officially been ruled out as a suspect in his wife and daughter's murders. Well, they did waste a lot of time and a lot of money doing that. And I don't know if that's just part of the protocol. After David finally got crossed off, his first response was,

okay, now can you focus on finding who did kill Mary and Susanna? Nothing happened immediately. Ruling him out didn't change the evidence they had or lack thereof. But over the years, testing methods did change, making what they had more viable. In 2020, a forensic scientist at the State Crime Lab revisited those fingernail scrapings. They hadn't found any unknown DNA on them back in 2010,

but now a whole decade later, they had. A partial unknown male profile had been detected under Susanna's fingernails. It wasn't enough for a full profile, but the sample was enough to eliminate David Stodden and Susanna's boyfriend Norm as contributors. And it was a big deal because as far as we know, when Susanna died, she was only known to have an intimate relationship with Norm.

And I'm sure you're wondering, I know I was, they did compare that partial profile to Israel Keyes. No match. As of now, there are no other suspects to warrant a direct comparison. But Detective Bill Yu doesn't just wanna sit on that unknown profile. As of now, there are no other suspects to warrant a direct comparison. But Detective Bill Ew doesn't just want to sit on that unknown profile. He's ready to try genetic genealogy if the partial profile is enough for IgG. So we know the science is there.

The county has the money to pay for some of this testing that isn't in the normal budget cycle. So if we're able to expand the unit and really hit these cases hard, I think we'll solve some of them, including something like this, the Pinnacle Lake case, where it's going to take some genetic genealogy probably. Detective Bilyeu also wants to see if the women's clothes or shoes can be examined or re-examined for any DNA evidence as well. Something else we discovered during our reporting

on this case is another piece of evidence that could possibly lead to answers. Back in September of 2006, the state crime lab alerted the sheriff's office that they had gotten a high P30 test result from one of Mary's sexual assault kit swaps. Now P30 is produced in prostate glands and secreted in seminal fluid.

But before you get too excited, the forensic scientists who discovered this later concluded that although P30 was detected on Mary's swabs, no male DNA was found, which basically means they couldn't say for sure if it came from semen. Now, as far as what detectives did with this information is a big question mark.

We couldn't find any follow-up reports about it, so I think it's safe to say that they thought the P-30 result was a false positive. But, I'm all about the follow-up questions and getting answers when we can. I couldn't leave it at that. Emily called up a forensic scientist source to school us. She said that false positives on P-30 tests are common in women over 60. Mary was just under 60, so that might be a possibility. The other helpful tidbit our source told us was that if Snohomish County preserved those swab

samples, they could do further YSTR testing today to better understand if there was, in fact, male DNA present. Just because it wasn't detected back then doesn't necessarily mean it's not there. I mean look at the fingernail scrapings. So we relayed our science lesson to Detective Bilyeu who said that he would absolutely be following up to see if further examination is possible on Mary's swabs. David Stodden doesn't hold out too much hope these days about getting answers, but he would like to see detectives stay open-minded and try everything possible with the DNA they have. He spent a lot of time in the early years of the investigation doing media interviews

and putting up flyers in different communities. He still takes out advertisements in the Everett Herald to keep attention on the case. Every time I save up enough money, I would do that. Just because it felt like I was doing something. Because sitting around and being a victim, that's not very productive. If you can do something, why not?

Today, he's focused on still trying to heal, along with his two daughters. We're all doing, you could say, sort of pretty good. But, you know, we certainly haven't dealt with all this. I mean, how do you ever deal with all of it? Not knowing who killed them or why has been hard for their family. David has considered the possibilities over the years. I think it was, you know, definitely was a crime against women. And I think someone happened to have a gun and thought he would take advantage of a couple women, even though they weren't really sexually assaulted.

That might have been the eventual plan. But probably Mary and Susanna protested and this person thought, you know, all right, I gotta kill these people. That's really what I, the only thing that makes any sense. — Fixating on why can be painful for him, so he hopes that that's something police can eventually figure out. Detective Bill Yu works this case in his free time, and the last time he hiked the Pinnacle Lake Trail, he stopped at the exact spot Mary and Susanna were killed.

— It's very quiet. It's serene. It's a great spot to commit this type of crime, because you can see both directions on the trail for a little bit of distance. You would likely see and or hear somebody coming. So it's a great spot to, for lack of a better term, conduct an ambush and kill two people. A full grown man could easily stand behind one of those trees and not be seen until the last moment.

It's as if the suspect confronted them and then made them get partially undressed and then kill them without any sign of any sexual assault or sexual motivation of any kind. It's baffling. If you know anything about the murders of Mary Cooper and Susanna Stodden on the Pinnacle Lake Hiking Trail in Washington State in July of 2006, you're asked to call the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office at 425-388-3845. 83845. The Deck is an AudioChuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis.

To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo