Beatrice Gorse, 74, county resident, and her niece, Sarah Stevens, 33, of Seattle, Washington, were last seen prior to Christmas. The younger woman was visiting her aunt for a few days; both women disappeared from the aunt’s farmhouse. When police investigated, they found copious amounts of blood in the kitchen, on the back porch, and on the steps at the remote farmhouse, several miles out of town. Police also recovered a diary, which is a main component of the evidence of homicide. A transcript from a police body-cam interview is attached. I’m leaking this information because there’s an APB out on the suspect, so law enforcement agencies in three states are aware. EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE AWARE.
DIARY of SARAH STEVENS:
December 23, 2023. First Night:
It’s late, but I can’t sleep. My mom sent me here to check on my Aunt Bett. I didn’t want to come, I’m ashamed to say. I get two weeks at Christmas, and I had plans at the Space Needle for New Year’s. But Mom insisted. She was worried about Bett. Mom said Bett had been saying some weird things during their phone conversations. Things like, “I’m afraid of him. He’s taking advantage.” I looked at my checkbook, the pile of unpaid bills on the table, the stack of books I was hoping to read during the holidays. And bought an Amtrak ticket.
Aunt Bett is my favorite. My mother’s oldest sister. And I am Aunt Bett’s only, and therefore favorite, niece. She was married to Bill Gorse, a sheep rancher, a rough and cheerful guy who tracked mud all through the house. He died at the age of 74, repairing a fence. Aunt Bett has been living alone for four years in the Gorse homestead they never did much to improve.
I took the Empire Builder to Fargo. Got off the train and took a bus to Spearfish and arrived this morning after sitting up all night. I’m so tired, I’ve lost track of the days. Rented a car from the auto body shop; “a loaner.” The mechanic, some guy named Dave, told me there were chains in the trunk. I thanked him for being open on a Sunday.
He said, “It’s Saturday. Don’t usually work Saturdays, but I came in for you. Good thing you called yesterday. Are you in the area for long?”
I told him, just a few days, maybe a week.
“A big storm’s coming.”
“I know,” I said. “When’s it supposed to hit?”
“Tomorrow night. But could be sooner. Park this thing inside, ok? Garage or barn.”
Dave’s uniform was clean, name stitched in red embroidery on his shirt. Seemed like a nice guy, late forties, concerned about sending me out to face bad weather. I hope Aunt Bett and I will be back at the train station in a day or two, just long enough for her to pack and for the two of us to close up the house. Then we’ll head back to Seattle. Mom’s instructions were, “Bring her home with you.”
The car had good snow tires on it, and snow from previous storms had been packed down. There was dirty snow piled up against the barbed wire fences on either side of the county road. It’s just cold, cold, cold. My aunt lives a good ten miles out of town. The house, when I caught a glimpse of it across the frozen field, looked lonely and remote. I wondered if her driveway would be cleared, and it was. Someone had used a blade on it all the way up to the porch. Probably a neighbor. How nice, I thought.
I got out of the car and looked up at the sky. Clouds, iron gray, from horizon to horizon. I was careful on the icy steps. My breath poured out like steam from a factory. When Aunt Bett answered the door, there was a blast of heat from her wood-burning stove. Another kind of warmth: as soon as I was over the threshold, she wrapped me in a hug.
She held onto me, squeezed me hard. She clung to me. I gently pulled away, just to get a look at her. She was pale, her face more lined than I remembered. Her gray hair was cut short, maybe a little ragged. Bett always dressed for work: a man’s shirt under a baggy sweater, dungarees and sturdy shoes. She told me to go back to the car and get my luggage. I did. She showed me to her guest room. I’ve slept in here many times before. A single bed in an iron frame, a little dresser, and a closet. I love the bedside table with the little reading lamp. I brought Our Mutual Friend and a John Grisham with me.
Tonight, we warmed up stew out of a can. Well, two cans. I was hungry. And we talked. I told her, “Mom is worried about you.” Bett looked stricken. She bared her teeth and shook her head.
“I don’t want to involve all of you in this.”
“We want to be involved. We care about you, Bett.” She put her head in her hands, elbows on the table.
“You should stay out of it.” I didn’t know why Bett would say that, but I felt a little bit offended. I moved on to other subjects: the weather, gas prices, holiday travel. One of the things we talked about was her husband, Bill. She missed him. She had lost weight, I commented. She told me, “It’s just grief.”
“It must be so hard to be alone after all the years you had together.” She narrowed her eyes and fastened them on me in a strange way. I thought I’d said something wrong. She looked down at her hands in her lap. And looked away.
Then Aunt Bett leaned forward and hissed, “He may be listening.”
Poor Bett. I reached out and took her hands in mine. “Wherever he is, Aunt Bett, he still cares about you.” And she cried. She wiped tears away with the back of her hand.
I cleaned up our supper dishes and walked Bett to her room. She stumbled at the door. I held her up, briefly. How thin she is! I could feel her ribs through her sweater. She is too old to be living alone.
I brushed my teeth in the bathroom with its ancient plumbing, a wavy mirror above the tiny pedestal sink. The floor has linoleum curling up in cracked places. I walked down the hall to my room, floorboards creaking all the way. When I closed the door, I hesitated for a moment, and then thought locking it was silly. I read a few pages but couldn’t shake this uneasy feeling. I decided to write all this down. I want to give Mom all the details.
December 24. First Morning:
I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I must have. Now it’s 5:00 in the morning, still dark outside.
What woke me were those creaking floorboards in the hallway. I lay in the dark and listened, thinking my aunt must be up, going to the bathroom. But the footsteps outside my door were heavier than hers, and they traversed the hallway several times. Left to right. Right to left, in front of my door. Heavy and slow. Then the footsteps paused. The door to my bedroom clicked open. I sat up in the pitch dark. Someone was there. I could hear raspy breathing. My mouth went dry as my heart thudded. I held my own breath to listen to the intruder. I nearly cried out but was terrified to make any noise. I hoped, wildly, that it was Aunt Bett, but I thought it was someone—or something—else.
The footsteps shuffled—away from me, I hoped—and I heard the door squeak, and another click of the latch. I was straining to hear movement. After an excruciating minute, I did. The thudding footsteps down the hallway were accompanied by the loudly creaking floorboards, until I heard nothing. My arm shot out and turned on my bedside lamp.
The lamp cast reassuring yellow light across the bed and illuminated all but the farthest corners of the little room. I threw back the covers, took three steps to the door, and securely locked it. I think then I began to breathe again, but I was shaking from the encounter. I knew I had to write this so I could share it with Mom. I think Mom is right. Bett is “off” because something in this house is very wrong.
At ten a.m. there was a knock on my door, someone rattled the knob, and I, disoriented,
got out of bed, cowering in my nightgown. I asked, “Who’s there?” and my aunt answered, “Who do you think?”
We met in the kitchen, already warmed by the stove, the coffee percolating and the oatmeal ready. I studied Aunt Bett while she ladled hot oatmeal into bowls and stirred honey and raisins into the mixture. She seemed her old self, no-nonsense, capable. When she sat down across from me, though, I thought she looked haggard, more tired than the night before. I told her what happened to me during the night, and she just nodded.
“Was it you?” I wanted to know.
“I’ve been known to sleepwalk,” she said, and averted her eyes.
“I never knew that. You really scared me,” I went on, and then followed my aunt’s gaze. She had refused to look at me since I started telling my story. She was staring at the door to the cellar, on the other side of the kitchen.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She now focused on her oatmeal and didn’t look up again until I had chattered for a few minutes about taking her home with me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said flatly.
“Oh, Aunt Bett, at least come for a few weeks. I hate to think of you in this house alone in the winter. Come home with me, stay with Mom and Dad—and stay through January.”
“Can’t do it. Can’t.” She was oddly petulant. My insistence, the warmth of my invitation seemed to irritate her considerably. She rose and bolted from the room.
The storm hit early that afternoon. I hadn’t parked the car in the barn or the shed or anywhere indoors as I had been instructed to do. It was a blizzard from the first few flakes. The wind rose, the snow blew sideways. Hard. The loaner car was covered in inches of snow within an hour and had a foot-thick shield over it within two. Snow accumulated on the porch steps and then blew across the porch and piled up outside the front door. By nightfall, I thought there would be snow up to the porch railings. We’d just have to wait it out.
I stoked the fire in the stove and added a couple of pieces of wood. Someone had split this wood, carried it in, and stacked it neatly. Something about this nagged at me, but I thought about her kind neighbors, looking in on her after she was widowed. I cleared the breakfast things and went back into the living room. Aunt Bett had a huge doll collection, which, as a child, I had loved. I moved down the shelves, inspecting some of my favorites, and hers. It seemed to me that some were missing. Maybe it was all those dolls’ eyes, staring at me, but I had the distinct feeling I was being watched. I picked up an old-fashioned baby doll and it cried out “Ma!” I jumped and put it back on the shelf. At the end of the row was another doll I remembered playing with. I pulled her down from the shelf, but in spite of her curly red hair and bright red lips, my eye was drawn to a torn place in the wallpaper behind her vacant spot. There was a hole. And pressed to the hole, an eyeball. A bloodshot, human eye. The eye blinked.
I screamed and ran down the hall to Aunt Bett’s room. Her door was locked. I rattled the knob, pleaded, screamed again, but she wouldn’t answer the door. My heart was flopping around loose in my chest like a fish in the bottom of a boat. I gave up on Aunt Bett and ran for my room, my mind shrieking, “Lock, lock, lock, lock.” I slammed the door, turned the metal lock, and sank to my knees. I started to cry. My legs were still shaking when I pulled myself to my feet. I held onto the bottom of the bedframe and steadied myself in an upright position. I could see the unmade bed I had vacated, and there, leaning against the pillows was one of the most treasured dolls from Aunt Bett’s collection. It was a doll dressed as a Western rider, complete with leather leggings and vest and a felt cowboy hat. The doll’s head had been nearly torn off, and both arms were missing. A message to me. For me.
It took me an hour to calm down, listening hard for footsteps in the hall. I’m writing this down just to keep my mind straight.
I was crazy wrong about everything. My parents were so worried about Aunt Bett being alone. There are worse things. She isn’t alone at all. The driveway, cleared. All the wood, split and stacked. There are so many things a nearly-80-year-old woman can’t do for herself. Bett’s eyes, fastened on the cellar door. How long had he—I was sure it was a he—been living in this house?
My cell phone doesn’t work. We’re six or seven miles from the nearest neighbor, at least ten miles from town.
Last night, I thought Bett was acting a bit strange. I can’t remember all of our conversation, but I now understand, “He may be listening.” I thought she was talking about her husband Bill.
I’ve been thinking of a way out. Writing and planning. I listen for creaking floorboards.
December 24. Late Afternoon:
I’m in the cellar. I stuffed this diary up my sweater. I really have to keep writing now. I don’t think I’m going to live, and I want to leave a record of what has happened to Bett and me.
Late this afternoon, in my room, I heard a scratching sound, and then a crack.
To the left of the door to my room there’s a closet, covered by a heavy drape, not a door. I heard a swishing sound from that part of the room, the drape moved, and there, in filthy overalls, stood a man in his fifties. His stringy hair hung down nearly to his shoulders. He paused there, arms at his sides like an ape, breathing heavily. The rasp I had heard the night before was the rasp I heard now. His face was red, pockmarked. He lunged straight at me.
His weight on me, his breath—pure alcohol—his filthy smell. Mildew, body odor, urine. Overpowering. I fought. Left hand to loosen the hand around my throat. Right hand to punch him in the face. My fist smashed into his nose. He reared back, grinned. I was treated to the sight of a row of rotting teeth. He took his hands off me for a moment, one hand to support himself on the bed, one hand checking his nose for blood. There was plenty. He got off me, stood up, held the pillow to his face to staunch the flow.
Some instinct told me that if I went to the door, in the time it took to turn the lock, he’d have time to grab me from behind. If he got into the room through the back of the closet, that’s the way I would get out.
He had removed a wood panel. I felt my way through it, squeezed into the space between the drywall and the framing. My mind’s eye went to work to find the kitchen. Didn’t Bett have a landline? Of course. That’s how she talked to my mother. In the darkness of the narrow tunnel, I edged to my left. Now I made the swishing sound—my jeans and sweater catching on the old wood construction of the house. I listened for sounds of the monster following me in the maze. Instead, I heard the loud click of the lock as he left my room. A few squeals from the floorboards, and I heard water running in the bathroom. I edged down the wall that bordered the hallway.
Across from Bett’s room, there was a blockage. A network of wood and insulation made it impossible to move any farther left along the living room wall. Instead, in the darkness, I nearly fell into a hole. My foot explored the gap underneath the tower of two-by-fours at the wall joint. I crouched down to explore the hole with my hands. I found a step. And below it, another. I was surprised—there’s a secret stairway to the cellar. If I went down to the cellar I should be able to get to the kitchen—back up the stairs I’ve always known. Aunt Bett does her laundry down here. She keeps her canned goods down here. Milk pails, rubber boots, old rakes and shovels are down here. When I was little, I was scared to come down to the cellar unless someone was with me. I crept down another step, and my heart gave a little jump. A light at the bottom of the stairs. Of course. He lives in the cellar.
I held my breath as I descended. A trap? I heard nothing. I needed to go down to get up to the kitchen. The landline. I heard water running through the old pipes. I thought he must still be in the bathroom, dealing with his bloody nose.
The nest he’s made for himself is a smelly tangle of sleeping bag and blankets. A backpack is tipped on its side against the old washing machine. A bare bulb in the low ceiling with a long chain hanging down. There’s a toilet in the corner, a laundry sink with rust stains. Dirty jeans, socks, a filthy parka are strewn on the cement floor. The stench is overpowering. Shelves, floor-to-ceiling, line two sides of the room. And to my horror, there are dolls perched on every shelf. Dolls with their eyes gouged out, dolls with their body parts re-arranged, dolls twisted into every contortion imaginable. I saw a lantern—good, it’s battery powered. Then I hear voices.
Night of December 24:
I got out of the cellar but I’m back down here—he punched me in the stomach and dragged me from the kitchen down the stairs.
An hour ago, a horrible screeching shattered the silence of this house. I was frozen by the cries—Aunt Bett? It sounded like a woman, but howling, otherworldly. A man’s voice raised. A deep-throated command, but I only heard the last word: “mouth.” Then more bellowing; a wooden chair scraped against the floor above me. My only thought was to save Bett. I stumbled up the stairs to the kitchen door.
The door was locked. The fight in the kitchen continued. Aunt Bett pleading, sobbing. I turned, ran down the stairs from the kitchen and crossed the cellar in long strides. Back up the secret stairs to the inner wall of the hallway in seconds. I edged along until I found my way to the gaping hole at the back of my closet. My breath came in ragged clumps. I still heard a ruckus from the kitchen, banging, then a crash as if a chair had hit the floor. I was amazed to find a lantern in my hand.
The storm raged. The electricity flickered, dimmed, abruptly cut off. The lantern, now, a prize. The door to my room hung open. I could almost follow his smell, down the hall, through the living room. The kitchen was dark, the room eerily quiet.
Saw Aunt Bett before I crept into the room. Sitting at the table, facing me. Her chin on her chest. I raised the lantern, looked left, right, into every corner, under the table. Whispered, “Bett?” I walked toward her. I could see the blood on the table, dark stains on her sweater.
I touched her shoulder, she fell forward. My hand came away wet. Raised the lantern: blood soaked her chest, ran down her arms, dripped on the floor. Blood pooled on the table. Her throat was slashed. I screamed and screamed, hysterical, backing away from her body. I backed up against the kitchen sink. To my right, saw a thin line of light underneath the cellar door.
It was deathly still for what seemed like a long time. My hands were slick with sweat and sticky with blood.
He burst through the cellar door wielding a flashlight. I froze in its beam, trapped like an animal.
He was on me in a second, the flashlight in my face, his hand around my throat. His voice chilled my blood: “See, I only need one of you.”
My heart stopped beating for several moments. I held my breath until I heard his voice again. He rasped right in my ear: “We’ll put her out in the snow so she doesn’t stink.”
* * *
TRANSCRIPT of body cam footage and recorded conversation between Officer Travis Bogart and individual who identified himself as David Washburn.
Witness was in the driver’s seat of a Ford F-250 marked “Dave’s Garage,” pulled up on the shoulder of Highway 108 on December 28, 2023, 2:15 p.m. Officer Bogart approached the truck to see if the driver needed assistance. The driver produced a valid SD driver’s license, vehicle registration, and proof of insurance, listing David Washburn as owner and insured. The driver appeared to be asleep, and when wakened, seemed disoriented and fearful.
Sir? Sir? Can you roll your window down? I just want to make sure you’re all right.
Yeah. Anything wrong?
License and registration, please.
[Rustling, static)
All right, Mr. Washburn. You live over in Spearfish, is that right?
Yeah, yeah.
What brings you to Crook County?
You know, plowin’ driveways. Odd jobs, stuff like that.
I thought you were a mechanic.
Yeah, I am. But I do snowplowin’ too.
You come all the way out from Spearfish to plow a driveway?
Nah, I came out here to check on a car I lent a while back.
You find the car?
I’m headed out there now.
Where’s that?
You know that big snowstorm we had over Christmas?
I do.
I figure the car is buried in the snow. You know that blizzard went on for three days.
I remember.
It’s out here somewhere.
You have any idea where it might be?
I thought I had an idea, but all this snow—everything looks really different.
If you want, I can help you look for that car.
Nah, that’s okay. I got a map right here.
Have you had anything to drink today, sir? Any alcohol?
Nah, nah. I don’t drink.
Would you step out of the car, sir?
Yeah, sure. Yeah, all right. No problem.
[Sound of truck door slamming. Unintelligible dialogue. Sounds of breathalyzer test being administered.]
Okay, you’re good to go. Be safe out there.
[Sound of engine starting. Officer’s response unintelligible.]
* * *
APB [Crook County Sherriff’s Department to all Law Enforcement Agencies, South and North Dakota, Wyoming]: BOLO for white male, fifties, gray hair, medium build, last seen driving a 2021 black F-250 pickup, South Dakota Plate DVS AUTO, door decal: Dave’s Garage. Suspect is wanted in connection to two persons reported missing on December 30, 2023, Beatrice Gorse, 74, and her niece, Sarah Stevens, 33. Suspect is further described as having noticeable body odor and rotten teeth. Considered dangerous, possibly armed.