David Stodden hasn’t given up hope that the killer of his wife and daughter will be found someday. “It’s been 10 years,” he says. “They deserve justice.”
VERLOT, Snohomish County — David Stodden sits in silence in a quiet spot along the Pinnacle Lake Trail in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. It’s a hike the 67-year-old Seattle man has taken more than a dozen times over the years.
He points out two things that weren’t here a decade ago: a cluster of blueberry bushes and a modest wooden plaque on a nearby tree that reads:
In memory of
Mary Cooper &
Susanna Stodden
Rest in Peace
7-11-06.
The plaque marks the site where Stodden’s wife and daughter were fatally shot nearly 10 years ago while they were on a hike. Their killer has not been caught.
“Susanna was laying right here,” Stodden says, motioning toward the ground. “And Mary was up against the log.”
Each time he approaches this spot, he imagines what was going through their heads in their final moments. With no major breaks in the case, Stodden is left speculating about the exact details of that summer day: Had they met the shooter earlier along the trail? Did he intend to shoot them when he met them? Which route did he take to escape?
“There’s a lot of things that kind of go through my mind,” Stodden said. “It’s something I think about quite a bit.”
But Stodden doesn’t stay in the spot for too long; he gets overwhelmed if he does. He continues up the trail, pressing on as he has done for the past 10 years.
And time isn’t the only thing moving on. The lead detective on the case, Brad Pince, retired last week. The investigation will be turned over to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office’s cold-case team, which consists of two detectives who have about 80 cold cases, some going back as far as the 1950s.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Shari Ireton said detectives have solved cases decades later. It all depends on people coming forward with information.
“Somebody out there knows something,” she said. “This was a crime that was committed by a human being … even if there were no witnesses to the crime, the person who committed it may have shared that with someone else, or they may have suspected this person.”
Even as the investigation stalled, Stodden has actively sought tips from anyone who was near the trail that day. He’s placed ads in The (Everett) Herald that show a photo of his wife and daughter, smiling side by side, as well as his phone number. The ads ask anyone who was near the area that day to call him with information.
Stodden figures any details people can recall — seeing a car on Mountain Loop Highway that day or passing a stranger on the trail — could help investigators.
He and a friend have assessed the area around the trail, searching for possible escape routes and weighing various circ*mstances. He’s even sought the help of a psychic.
Stodden has two other daughters, ages 34 and 31, as well as a mortgage. He hosts international students. He’s helping one daughter fix up a house in South Seattle and is training for the Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic. He knows he isn’t the typical image of a grieving husband and father.
“I felt like if we became victims, then this person would take even more away from us,” he said. “Why would I want to do that?”
Mary Cooper, 56, was a longtime librarian for Seattle’s Alternative Elementary School No. 2, and Susanna Stodden, 27, was planning to start as a teaching intern at the University Child Development School. The family hiked regularly and was familiar with the trails along the Mountain Loop Highway.
Stodden said he was in shock for the first couple of years after the killings. He went back and forth with his anger at detectives when they initially focused on him. But now he said he has no one to be angry at.
Early in the investigation, detectives received hundreds of tips, and Stodden himself took two inconclusive polygraph tests. He grew frustrated that detectives were investigating him instead of searching for other tips. Still, he says he understands he won’t be completely ruled out as a suspect until the shooter is found.
He said detectives seemed to have the case under control earlier on, as they stopped seeking tips.
“I thought when (detectives) didn’t want any other ideas that they really had this figured out for the first year, and they were just trying to put stuff together,” Stodden said. “And then after about a year and a half, it’s like they had nothing.”
Mary and Susanna are featured on a deck of Snohomish County’s cold-case playing cards, which are distributed to prison inmates in the hope they might let information slip as they use the cards. They are on the ace of hearts.
Stodden says his ads have generated two or three phone calls over the years about someone named “Aaron” who reportedly has information about the homicides. He’s hoping that person eventually comes forward with concrete information he can provide investigators.
Serial killer Israel Keyes was briefly considered a possible suspect after he began confessing to homicides while awaiting trial for the kidnap, rape and murder of an 18-year-old Anchorage woman in March 2012. The FBI said Keyes always killed strangers and would sometimes wait in isolated areas, like campgrounds and trailheads, for someone to show up.
The FBI concluded Keyes was likely not involved in the deaths of Mary and Susanna. He killed himself in jail while awaiting trial in Alaska.
Every time there is a mass shooting, Stodden said he feels pain because he knows what the victims’ families are going through. He has used his newspaper ads to connect his wife and daughter’s killings to the issue of gun control.
Stodden says staying close to the case has been a form of therapy.
“I’ve brought a lot of different people here, and really, in an odd way, that kind of helps,” he said, standing on the Pinnacle Lake Trail. “It’s kind of like sharing it, maybe, or it helps that other people are somewhat interested.
“It’s been 10 years — they deserve justice.”
