Charges Sought in Oregon Killings

OREGON CITY, Ore. —  The former convict who publicly had proclaimed himself a suspect in the disappearance last winter of two young girls finally was named Monday as the target of a grand jury murder investigation.

“We will seek an indictment against Ward Weaver,” Greg Horner, chief deputy district attorney for Clackamas County, said from the steps of the courthouse here--just a few miles from where authorities discovered two sets of human remains at Weaver’s home over the weekend.

On Sunday, dental records confirmed that the remains found underneath a shed were those of Miranda Gaddis, 13, an eighth-grader who vanished in early March. And late Monday, the medical examiner said dental records for the second set of remains, which was found sealed in a metal drum buried under a concrete slab, belonged to Ashley Pond, Miranda’s best friend, who disappeared in early January. Weaver, 39, installed the slab in his backyard in March, saying it was a pad for a future hot tub.

The girls’ disappearances rocked this working-class town, a suburb 20 miles south of Portland with tall pines, unmarked gravel driveways and strip malls.

Many parents feared a serial kidnapper was on the loose, and the management at Newell Creek Village Apartments, where both girls had lived, watched as residents packed up and left out of fear.

Even as word began to leak out this summer about Weaver’s criminal history--including a conviction for beating a baby-sitter with a 12-pound chunk of concrete--the investigation maintained an even pace; many residents thought it plodding, but authorities said they did not want to make any wrong moves.

The girls’ families defended authorities Monday.

“They did what they had to do to keep it legal,” said Miranda’s great-aunt, Donna Doty, who stood outside Weaver’s home Monday. “The FBI and police department were wonderful.”

The FBI has insisted that it needed enough evidence to prove probable cause to scour Weaver’s yard beyond the initial search he allowed them to do in January.

Barry Neiman, who performed that 45-minute search with a cadaver-sniffing dog, said he thinks Weaver may have kept the girls alive for a few weeks, until after the first search.

“There were no fresh dig marks,” Neiman said. “The cement slab wasn’t put in until three days after Miranda disappeared” in March.

Weaver gave the agents free rein of his unkempt yard, but he refused to let them in the house.

“He was really adamant,” said Neiman, the founder of Search ONE K-9 Detection, who works only with law enforcement and oversees certification for search dogs in Oregon. “We had the dog sniff the vents and crawl space [accessible from outside the house], in case he had stuffed her there.”

Mourners who came to read some of the messages hanging from a chain-link security fence around Weaver’s yard Monday said they were chilled by the sight of his house right at the mouth of the road to Newell Creek Village. A sign read: “It breaks my heart that all they had to do was look. I hope you find peace now.”

Over the last few months, authorities examined the computers used by both girls for possible clues; search dogs were dispatched several times to different sites with hopes they would pick up a scent, including the woods behind the apartment complex.

There was a $60,000 reward for information, and the girls’ cases appeared multiple times on Fox’s “America’s Most Wanted” and the national morning television news shows. Authorities also interviewed nearly every sex offender in the state.

“We got onto this property just as soon as we legally could,” Oregon City Police Chief Gordon Huiras said.

But some relatives and friends of the girls’ families complained to local newspapers that the simplest things were overlooked. They said the FBI never contacted them. Others said their reporting of tips or other information about Weaver was ignored.

In an interview this summer with the Oregonian newspaper in Portland, Weaver bragged about his abysmal performance on an eight-question polygraph test and acknowledged that 12-year-old Ashley once had accused him of molesting her.

“Basically, Ashley’s problem was she just wanted someone to care about her,” he told the paper.

Jim Lake, a 43-year-old father of two teenage boys, came out Monday to read some of the notes that cover the fence, along with teddy bears, flowers and photographs of the girls.

He said he’d heard the criticism of authorities but was unconvinced. “I think they wanted to make sure he couldn’t get off on a technicality. They did the right thing.”

But Oscar James, a 26-year-old landscaper, disagreed.

“I understand there are laws and everything, but I do honestly believe that had their parents been in a higher tax bracket, this would have been taken care of a lot sooner,” James said.

On Monday, he stood outside Weaver’s home holding a small sign toward a line of slow-moving cars that said “Lights On.”

“When you’re going to a funeral, you keep your lights on--a little light to help people through the darkness,” he said.

For the time being, authorities do not have to rush their investigation. At a court hearing Monday evening, Weaver was evicted from the house, because he is unable to pay the rent. He is in jail with bail set at $1 million on a charge that he raped the 19-year-old mother of his infant grandson. She told authorities that she was driving Weaver to traffic court Aug. 13 when he asked her to swing by his house for a few things.

He convinced her to come into the bedroom of his 13-year-old daughter, who used to play with Ashley and Miranda. It was there that he allegedly raped and tried to smother the woman. Weaver pleaded not guilty to the rape charge.

When Weaver’s son called 911 to report the alleged attack, he told authorities that Weaver had admitted to killing and burying the girls in his backyard.

From his jail cell on Friday night, Weaver gave authorities written consent to search his home and yard in an effort, his attorney said, to give the girls’ families “closure.”