No Regrets (47 page)

Ray Clever, right, and other investigators who participated in the days-long search of the Neslunds’ home share a rare moment of laughter. They are sitting on “replacement” furniture purchased shortly after Rolf vanished. Although Ruth claimed they poured liquor from her ample bar, they are drinking only grape pop they had purchased earlier. This room held grisly evidence.

Ruth Neslund detested the San Juan County sheriff’s deputies who searched her house for evidence of foul play in her husband Rolf’s disappearance. It was Joe Caputo who looked up at her living room ceiling and spotted the almost invisible flecks of blood there. And with that, the trail to Rolf’s killer became clear.

Greg Canova, an assistant attorney general for the State of Washington, assisted Charlie Silverman in the prosecution of Ruth Neslund. Ruth hated him. Canova is now a Washington State Supreme Court judge.

Ruth Neslund was stoic when she listened to the verdict at the trial for her husband Rolf’s murder.

Ruth Neslund sits with her attorney, Fred Weedon, at her trial. He was very supportive of her, and did his best to see her acquitted, but would eventually speak of his own doubts. (
Seattle Times
)

Had Arden Lee known about this man’s long, long rap sheet for crimes, including sexual assault, she might never have accepted his invitation to have a drink at his house. In reality, he had no house, and his job as the bouncer at the Exotica “Dance Studio” didn’t pay much. His confession was full of lies and cruelty. He was sentenced to forty years in prison.
(Seattle PD photo)

The victim of a savage attack had to crawl naked up these marble steps of a once-grand apartment to cry for help. Shockingly, a number of passersby ignored her pleas.
(Seattle PD crime scene photo)

Handsome and wealthy through the efforts of the desperate women who worked for him, this man gave up the name of Arden Lee’s rapist, but he had secrets of his own. When he forced one of his “dancers” to sleep between him and his teenaged bride to keep her from escaping, she grabbed a knife and stabbed him while he slept.

Sergeant Beryl Thompson had many years of experience in the Sex Crimes Unit of the Seattle Police Department, but she had never seen anyone as badly injured as the naked girl discovered near the Melrose apartments.

Seattle PD’s Sex Crimes Unit detectives John Nordlund, left, and Pat Lamphere haunted the Exotica, a “dancing lesson” storefront business, and eventually tracked the suspect in Arden Lee’s near-fatal sexual assault all the way to Houston before they solved the case. Their unwelcome surprise visits to the Exotica soon forced it out of business.

A good samaritan rushed to help the terribly injured rape victim, and soon the neighborhood of 1920s apartments was alive with police vehicles. Paramedics from the Seattle Fire Department’s top-rated Medic One unit weren’t sure, however, if they could save her life. Seattle police investigators wondered if she would ever be able to name her attacker.
(Seattle PD crime scene photo)

Teresa Sterling, who looked a great deal like actress Jodie Foster, was only sixteen when she ran away from home in Georgia to return to a more exciting life on the West Coast. She believed she was fully capable of taking care of herself, and depended on “the kindness of strangers.” But then she vanished completely.
(Police evidence photo)