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Bones and Brown Hair
16 Plays13 days ago
In 1996, a father and son made a chilling discovery in the woods of rural Polk County, human bones bound, hidden, and forgotten beneath a tarp. For over two decades, the woman known only as the “Mill Creek Bones” remained a haunting mystery, her identity lost to time. Then, in 2019, a breakthrough led by Yolanda McClary and cutting edge genetic genealogy finally gave her a name: Kathy Thomas. But as her story unfolded, a darker truth emerged, one that pointed back to the man closest to her. In a case spanning 25 years, investigators would uncover a past filled with violence, secrets, and a long-overdue confession that finally brought justice to the silence.
⚠️ Content Warning: This episode includes references to abuse, trauma, and death. Listener discretion is advised.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Beneath the Evergreens, where murder, mysteries, and mayhem lurk in the shadows of the Pacific Northwest. I'm Jess. And I'm Anna. From haunted forests and unsolved disappearances, to true crime cases buried deep in the moss and the mist, we're digging into the dark secrets hiding under the evergreens.
00:00:21
Speaker
Each episode will explore real cases, eerie encounters, and the legends that keep the Pacific Northwest up at night. So grab your flashlight, lock your doors, and join us Beneath the Evergreens.
00:00:35
Speaker
Music.
00:00:54
Speaker
Hi, Anna. Jess. How are you? i am wonderful. How are you? and It's Friday. Thank goodness. There's a little bit of sun in the Puget Sound area.
00:01:07
Speaker
It feels like spring. feels like spring. I have flowers that are that are flowering. I love it. I told my brother today, hey, it feels like spring. And he goes, well, it is spring.
00:01:18
Speaker
um
00:01:21
Speaker
that is something I feel like that's something that I would legitimately say, but it is spring. ah Little brothers, they really humble you. I was listening to when I was editing the last ah episode, i you you made the perfect joke of like, but did the did the when a tree fell, was there a sound? And it so went over my head.
00:01:43
Speaker
Until after I said like six sentences and I was like, and you could hear when it dawned on me that you actually made a joke. i was like, poor Anna. she No one ever thinks I'm funny, but I feel like sometimes it's just because I'm a little bit too serious and I see i don't say it with enough like inflection.
00:02:04
Speaker
And people just don't pick up on it until you listen to it back on a recording and you're like, oh, wait, that was kind of funny. yeah It was a great placement, great delivery. just just Straight over my head.
00:02:20
Speaker
The curse of my life. I do love the sun's out, though. It makes me like a little giddy. It makes me want to go outside and hike and do all the cool things. Yes. It makes me want to just like not hibernate on my couch, which is huge.
00:02:33
Speaker
That is a huge one. Oh, I also have shout outs. Can I do shout outs now? Oh, absolutely. Let's hear em All right. So I have a shout out for Todd and Leanne. They sent us over a little message. They went to our website and they sent us a, Hey, give us a shout out. We heard your last episode requesting those. So thank you guys so much for listening. I really appreciate you. Yeah.
00:02:55
Speaker
Thank you guys for listening. Yeah. Thanks for signing up for the newsletter as well. but And then I have one more. ah have one more shout out. This one is really important. There needs to be a drum roll.
00:03:07
Speaker
da and and but I have to give Jerry shout out. One of our most loyal listeners. Jerry. Who just retired. Congratulations. And I had the honor to meet up with them in Seattle.
00:03:23
Speaker
And tour where they worked. Oh, that's awesome. And do you know where they work? Where? The Smith Tower. o In fact, the 19th floor of the Smith Tower.
00:03:37
Speaker
Oh my goodness. And I got to go like behind the scenes and look around and we took a tour of the Smith, the Smith building and one of the coolest places I've ever been. Yeah.
00:03:48
Speaker
And so my, one of these upcoming episodes i'm going to do in honor of that little jaunt to the Smith Tower. Cause it's pretty incredible. The architecture is beautiful, wonderful experience. Our tour guide was fantastic. I cannot remember their name, but I will look it up for the next episode and give them a huge shout out because he was fantastic.
00:04:08
Speaker
yeah that is so cool i've been meaning to go there i've i've had friends that have like gotten like drinks or food up on the top yeah and it just looks so fun and i love the history of it yeah the history is cool i did sit in the chair where you're supposed to if you sit in the chair um you'll get engaged within a year so oh we'll see how that goes i'll be waiting on the uh wedding invitation we'll see how that goes we'll throw you the spookiest bachelorette party It'll be. Yeah, it has to be on Halloween. If I'm going to get married again, it's going to have to be on on Halloween for sure.
00:04:43
Speaker
That would be amazing. It would be. Can I come dressed as um Sasquatch or Bigfoot? Requirement.
00:04:52
Speaker
That is required. I mean, after they all they are migrating. Did i finish that story for you? you You did not, but i tell me more about this. Okay. I'm intrigued. Apparently, there's been... and is it think it was Iowa and Indiana.
00:05:10
Speaker
There's the most Bigfoot sightings and Bigfoot prints that I've ever been found, and they're all going north. to canada interesting north i don't know who knows maybe it's climate change maybe they're just tired of of the political environment i don't know but choose your own adventure man they're they're picking up and they're moving out of out of the states into the canadia
00:05:38
Speaker
and like How recent are have have these sightings been? It's like right now. Like every day people are finding them? I wouldn't say every day, but sightings have increased in the past year.
00:05:49
Speaker
how How big are the footprints? As big as a house. Obviously. No, I don't know. i don't have a tape measure.
00:06:00
Speaker
They're not recording the size of the prince. I'm sure they are. I don't have the website up, so I can't give you the ins and outs. But they're ah they're apparently big feet. hence the Could it just be a large person?
00:06:14
Speaker
Like in the last episode, it could be just a large person. But I mean, what who who knows? You can't differentiate between a large person and and a Bigfoot. Maybe there's like an extra toe. I don't know. Maybe it's like more like kidney bean shaped. I don't know.
00:06:30
Speaker
I feel like there's a difference between the two of us. Look, are these credible sources? Probably not. Okay. That's fair. i I just have so many questions. And even if it is silly, i want I want all my questions answered. No, that's what I appreciate about you. Because I...
00:06:48
Speaker
Live for like, I will get just enough facts to be dangerous because I want to believe in this. I don't want to be disproven. but So I will there was a footprint on the ground that was large. Check. Bigfoot was here.
00:07:06
Speaker
And I'm happy. ah Ladies and gentlemen, this is why we are doing this podcast together. Really trying to balance each other out a little bit. We compliment each other well, for sure.
00:07:21
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Yes. So Bigfoot migration. And what is your story about today, Anna? I'm really looking forward to this. I need a story. I need to, um' I'm stoked. So this is a super cool story that actually takes place in Oregon. So we've been focusing a lot on Washington. Obviously, that's our our ah our home um state. our Yes, our roots. You know those like Washington like bumper stickers that say roots on them?
00:07:49
Speaker
Yes. that yeah Yes. It just came to mind. But anyways, so this story actually takes place in Oregon. We're expanding our Pacific Northwest definition a little bit. Okay.
00:07:59
Speaker
So... This is actually about some bones. the bones yeah Some bones? Some bones and some roots? nice Yes. have you Have you seen the show Bones?
00:08:11
Speaker
um Is that with the dude who has brown hair? Wow. I mean, yes.
00:08:25
Speaker
Yes, I think I know the show. Yes.
00:08:31
Speaker
There's a visual in my head that I can't describe fully to you. But yes, I think i have seen that show, but not a lot of it.
00:08:40
Speaker
just All right. It's Friday. Oh, my God. So, and yes, there is a brown haired man in the show, but it's about a ah woman. She is a um anthropologist and she takes old bones and she kind of discovers the crimes that happened that ah that killed them.
00:09:00
Speaker
ah She also has brown hair. She does also have brown hair. yeah A lot of brown haired people. I know exactly what show you're talking about right now.
00:09:08
Speaker
But anyways, this story, it seems like a bones episode. Okay. So I was really stoked because i love that show. Okay. So we will jump right into it. Alrighty. So these bones were found off a trail in the woods in rural Polk County, Oregon.
00:09:23
Speaker
So Polk County, which I feel like I'm saying really weird right now, is kind of in central Oregon. It's right outside of Salem, kind of between, like just west of I-5, but not quite on the coast. Gotcha. Yeah.
00:09:35
Speaker
So a father and a son were bird hunting in September of 1996 when they stumbled across a human skeleton that appeared to be bound by rope and covered in a tarp.
00:09:47
Speaker
So authorities were immediately called, right? The father and son were like, whoa, we got we got to report this. This is crazy. Trauma. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone's minds pretty quickly went to homicide, right? Like whoever this was did not but bind themselves and put themselves under a tarp. Like they were clearly placed there and it was malicious. Yeah.
00:10:08
Speaker
So once examined the bones, it was clear that she had died. When it was clear that it was a her and that she had died months prior to when her remains were found. But it was pretty difficult to determine when. Like she was out in the wilderness. Yes, she was under a tarp, but there was like a lot of wildlife. There was still a lot of weather. Like, you know, September in the Puget Sound or or excuse me, in the Pacific Northwest. there's it It could be raining. It could be windy. It could be sunny. you're It's really ah a really a hodgepodge of different things. Mm-hmm. There were initially no real clues as to who who this person was, the identity of this victim. Just some distinguishing features that authorities were hoping would lead to someone identifying her.
00:10:48
Speaker
They could ascertain that she'd had surgery near her forehead somewhere, um and there could have been a scar. So they were able to basically take her skull... And create like a um a drawing of what they thought she might look like. And with the end, kind of the – there's like some nicks or something on her on her skull. And that's why they were ascertaining that maybe she had some surgery or a scar there.
00:11:09
Speaker
So they included that in the in the the photo. I have mad respect for coroners to be able to like have that much detail to like find that stuff. Right? That's pretty cool.
00:11:20
Speaker
Like you really have to be like examining these bones to find that. And also if it's outside, right, you don't really know what was surgery, like what was there prior to death or what was like animals or something else happening. yeah So they were able to determine that this woman was roughly 45 years old at the at the time of her death.
00:11:40
Speaker
But that was kind of it. Like there was really nothing else that they could determine. They couldn't find any missing person cases, nothing to tie this victim to anyone. um So the years went by and these remains that were found in Polk County, now they were now coined the Mill Creek bones because they were found kind of the Mill Creek area of the the county. Okay. um They were no closer to being identified.
00:12:04
Speaker
Authorities kept searching, but it wasn't until 2019, 23 years after these remains were found, that the the big break that the investigators were waiting for finally came through.
00:12:16
Speaker
23 years and just a pile of bones yes one thing I really want to highlight is like they they kept they preserved these remains for 23 years in the county in the county like they didn't do anything with them they didn't you know you always hear about like cool cases that are like very very cold like 20 years and things start to go missing things are mishandled especially in more rural areas but nope these were these were preserved quite well Especially in 1996 because, I mean, there was DNA and there there was advances, but it's not like it is today where you can have like this tiny, tiny amount of DNA. So that's really cool.
00:12:56
Speaker
Exactly. So now we're going to fast forward a bit to 2019. So retired Las Vegas Metro police crime scene investigator Yolanda McCleary began looking into the identity of the Mill Creek bones as a part of the docuseries The Jane Doe Murders on Oxygen.
00:13:15
Speaker
Okay. So, yeah. So it was a whole series about women that were unidentified, like skeletal remains of females that were unidentified. So she picked the Mill Creek bones. These were pretty, like a relatively high profile case at the time. So it's like actually the show Bones merging with real life Bones.
00:13:32
Speaker
That's really cool. Okay. Which is also so, so dope. love it. So for over 10 months, she worked with a genetic genealogist to determine a DNA profile ah for the victim. Wow.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah. So they were able to use the DNA that they were able to to collect to connect them to a potential match whose age age roughly matched that of the victim and who was known to be living in the area at the time.
00:14:00
Speaker
They tracked down that potential match's sister and compared the DNA. And it was similar. Wow. That was when they were able to confirm that they had found their victim. And her name was Kathy Thomas. That is so cool. I would be so proud of myself.
00:14:15
Speaker
Right. Bringing closure to a family and like your hard work has paid off. Exactly. Exactly. That's got to be one, just so fulfilling. And also just like how much good are doing for these people in this family? One thousand. One thing I do want to note here is that Kathy's last name has been reported differently across different platforms. So most of the articles that I could find used her has her had her last name as Thomas of Kathy Thomas. But other reports have used the last name Buxton or Clifton. OK.
00:14:46
Speaker
It's all the same person. But for the sake of this podcast, we're going to stick with Kathy Thomas. just that's Again, that's what most the reporting has been using. So a little bit about Kathy.
00:14:57
Speaker
So kathy and her husband had lived in the Salem area since 1984. And records show that ah both that they were never divorced and that Kathy was never reported missing.
00:15:10
Speaker
ah Right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I know we're all, we'll have ah some, uh, some ideas. If Dateline has taught me anything, it's, it's always the same. Yeah. 1000%. It's always, yeah.
00:15:23
Speaker
Honestly, I had to, I was listening to the the Dateline podcast for a little bit and it was getting almost like too predictable. I was like, you're setting it up and I know it's going to be this person. I know it, but I digress. so A little bit more about Kathy. So the last known record of her was in March of 1996 when she contacted Salem police about a hit and run.
00:15:47
Speaker
Her remains were then found six months later. so we're building a timeline at this point. We know that, you know, she was seen in March, but six in that sometime in that six months, she was killed.
00:15:59
Speaker
And again, everyone's mind is going to her husband at this point, right? Like it seems a little suspicious that, you know, they were still married and she was never reported missing. And they lived together, right? It wasn't like they were married but estranged.
00:16:12
Speaker
From what investigators can tell at the time, no, there's no no documents saying that that they were estranged, like no separation filings or anything like that. Yeah, that's super odd. Like you just don't lose a a spouse.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah. like She's not just going to leave and you're not going to be like, oh, she's missing. I haven't seen her. Oh, I haven't seen her in six months, 24 years. Well, I guess it is what it is. It's wild.
00:16:36
Speaker
So a little bit more about Kathy and her life before um she got married and moved to Salem. So she did not have the easiest life. She was born in Oklahoma in 1953, which I'm just going to just as a note that made her 43 at the time of her when her remains were found.
00:16:54
Speaker
so kind of very the initial date or an age given by the coroner was actually quite correct which again i find really cool that we're able to almost date bones in a certain way as yeah like i wouldn't even know where to start what it would it never mind i was gonna ask if it was carbon dating but let's move on with the story I think at least, okay, most of my knowledge comes from bones. I know you can, like, if you look at, like, so what types of surgery or, like, types of, like, dental work that were done, you can kind of start determining, oh, well, they might be within this age because this technique was popular at this time. That's really cool.
00:17:28
Speaker
Right? Like, that's so fascinating. And to have that just, like, stored somewhere. Mm-hmm. People are smart. Yeah. Yeah, that's, it's awesome. Okay. We're lots of sidetracks. I'm sorry. I feel like that says a lot about how both of our weeks are going. It's on me. It's my fault.
00:17:47
Speaker
So Kathy, like I said, she was born in Oklahoma, um but she moved to Oregon when she was five when her father actually gave her up for adoption to a woman named Eileen Buxton. That's kind of sad.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, so she grew up away from the rest of her family and didn't really know her siblings or her biological parents very well. Kathy eventually got married and had between two marriages, she had three children.
00:18:11
Speaker
However, she lost custody of all of her all of her kids on a trip back to Oklahoma, and they were eventually adopted to other families in Oklahoma as well. Okay. So in 1984, Kathy actually moved back to Oregon, and that is where she married a man named Brian Clifton.
00:18:29
Speaker
In her, from what what I understand, when she was married to Brian and in this time, she wasn't particularly close with her children, and she didn't have a close relationship with them. Okay. um But Brian...
00:18:42
Speaker
He was not a good dude. He did not have the cleanest of histories, I should say. He was convicted in 1973 of strangling a hotel clerk in Portland and was sentenced to life in prison. Nice. But he was released on parole in 1981, only eight years after he was convicted.
00:19:03
Speaker
And three years before he married Kathy. Outstanding. Right? Cool. Like, hindsight 2020. This guy should never have been released. Like, that's... It seems crazy to me that you kill someone and you're only serving eight years Well, not only kill someone, but kill someone... Strangulation takes a very long time.
00:19:26
Speaker
Yes. And that's that speaks to a lot of anger. Absolutely. and Yeah. Absolutely. People can change, and we should give them the opportunity to do so. However, that seems like a crime...
00:19:39
Speaker
That's little too personal, little too angry and only eight years yeah first strangulation is wild. I agree. I feel like there's a lot of rehabilitation that needs to be done in a case like that. And I'm not confident that eight years is enough time unless there's like very objective evidence that someone's mental state has altered. Especially not in American prison systems. so Let's be very clear. No one's getting mental health care. no one. No.
00:20:07
Speaker
Come on, man. Yikes.
00:20:11
Speaker
Yeah. So three years after he got out, he married Kathy. Yeah. um So we're going to flash but flash forward again to 2019 once they identify that ca that that the Mill Creek bones are Kathy.
00:20:26
Speaker
Detectives quickly begin looking into Brian as a potential saw suspect for obvious reasons, especially once they found find out that he had gotten married about one month after Kathy's remains are found. Cool.
00:20:40
Speaker
Cool. Right? So we don't know exactly when Kathy was killed. However, he got married between one and seven months ah from when shewinched for when she died.
00:20:53
Speaker
Motive is becoming more and more clear. At least in my mind. um So once he he remarried, he then promptly moved out of Oregon. Again, adding to this this long laundry list now of reasons he looks so suspicious.
00:21:09
Speaker
So he actually moved ah to Oklahoma as well. There were some... so when they found Kathy's remains, you know how i initially said there wasn't any identifying information with her? There wasn't, but there were some clothes kind of scattered around that detectives weren't really sure what to do with.
00:21:25
Speaker
However, they the police collected them and kept them with the remains for the 20 plus years that it took to actually identify her. And during this time...
00:21:36
Speaker
They were able to find semen on some of the underwear. And you guessed it. it matches Brian. Ew. Yeah. So, again, evidence is just stacking up for this guy.
00:21:50
Speaker
So they track him down. And he is questioned by police for the first time in 2020. Police seem to get a lot out of questioning him. He doesn't initially admit anything, but they take all of the evidence they have to a grand jury.
00:22:04
Speaker
And Brian is indicted for the murder of Kathy in August of 2021, almost 25 years after her remains were found. Wow. I just want to highlight that for 25 years. That is this.
00:22:18
Speaker
i mean, Brian basically thought he got away with murder for 25 years. Like that is a that is a full life. Which is is just crazy to me.
00:22:30
Speaker
So in October of 2022, Brian actually pled guilty to Kathy's murder and was sentenced to prison with the pay of excuse me with the possibility of parole after years. he was sixty nine years old when he was convicted and should be eligible for parole when he's ninety nine years old
00:22:53
Speaker
So here's to hoping that that doesn't happen anytime soon. Yeah.
00:23:00
Speaker
That's insane. Also to keep a semen sample fresh and like usable for 20 plus years. That's also incredible, especially for yeah like you pointed out a rural rural area.
00:23:15
Speaker
Yeah. A rural area in the nineties to keep all of these things with the idea that like, Hey, maybe one day we'll be able to test. That is some forward thinking. So, kudos to the to Polk County, Oregon. You guys are really doing a fantastic job over there. Yeah. So Brian and during the the trial he admitted to stabbing Kathy to death and then disposing of her body. Do you say like why or just that he did it?
00:23:38
Speaker
From what I can't see um him admitting to a specific reason. I couldn't find anything on that. But the general consensus is he wanted to remarry and for some reason thought that the easiest way to do that was by killing his wife.
00:23:52
Speaker
I don't understand. It's a general PSA for everyone who may be listening. Divorce is an option. It is a perfectly fine option. One could say the best option. Yes. Yes.
00:24:04
Speaker
Killing another person to get out of marriage. Not required. Yeah. you can Very frowned upon. Get an annulment. yeah Yeah. You could even just like, you don't even need to formally get a divorce, I suppose.
00:24:15
Speaker
You could just part ways. Separate. Separate. i and why would you want somebody else's blood on your hands for the rest of your life that's definitely not the easiest no avenue i feel like it speaks to the the mind of this guy like he can just i mean he killed two beat two women in his life and just for some reason doesn't feel much remorse about it and just can just continue on for 25 years i'm scared that he's killed two women in 25 like there's what else is he doing
00:24:47
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Right. It reminds me almost of like the the telltale heart. I'm I just wonder how one can live with that. Was there something that kept nagging at him all these years?
00:25:00
Speaker
I don't know. I stress about conversations that weren't even that bad for like years and like stay up at the middle in the middle of the night. Just overanalyzing this. I couldn't imagine killing someone and then just moving on.
00:25:17
Speaker
Right? That's wild. Exactly. So Kathy's family was actually able to speak at one of Brian's hearings and they really focused on the life that Kathy kind of lost and missed out on due to Brian's horrible crime. So like I said, she was only 43 when she was killed. She didn't really get a chance to truly form a relationship with her children or her grandchildren or truly live her life.
00:25:43
Speaker
She, yeah, it was just, it was cut so short. And what her family really focused on is kind of the what ifs. What if, like we talked about, they had just divorced amicably? What if she had been around? They could have rebuilt that relationship and she would have gotten like a kind of a fresh start with her grandchildren to build and ah a great relationship.
00:26:03
Speaker
Yes, it's horribly sad. And kind of looking at it back, it seems like the only really redeeming factor in this case is that, you know, Kathy did eventually get justice. her She was not just have some kind of nameless remains thanks to the great work that was done in this. She or her she was given her name back and she was she did get justice for this horrible crime.
00:26:27
Speaker
de Despicable. Well, I hated that, but I loved it. Right. It's I just think it's really cool how far technology has gone come yeah where we can do this. Right. We can give people back their names and, you know, find the find closure in these stories that were once deemed unsolvable.
00:26:47
Speaker
I also really appreciate like external companies or people that, you know, take up the torch when maybe the police forces don't have enough resources or have enough time to spend on cases and will still and advocate advocate for families. So whether it's like the innocent project or the the bones, or i think that's really cool that people actually invest their time and resources into trying to just solve things that seem impossible.
00:27:16
Speaker
Right. Like for no other reason than like just giving these families back like a little bit of closure, a little bit of help. It's incredibly admirable. It is.
00:27:28
Speaker
like it. Well, that's it for today's dive into the dark corners of the Pacific Northwest. If you love the stories or shivered a little, be sure to subscribe and follow so you don't miss what's lurking beneath the evergreens next time. Thanks for joining us on Beneath the Evergreens.
00:27:44
Speaker
We appreciate you diving into the mysteries with us. Until next time, keep your eyes open and your doors locked.