Long-sought witness in teen’s 1971 disappearance is located

Investigators have located a long-sought witness in the 1971 disappearance of Vancouver teenager Jamie Grissim and say new information has strengthened their belief that she was a victim of serial killer Warren Forrest.

The Clark County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Friday that it has canceled an “attempt to locate” bulletin for 72-year-old Matt McClure after cold-case investigators found and interviewed him. The bulletin, issued earlier this year, sought help from the public because McClure was believed to have information tied to a possible sighting of Grissim in the winter of 1971.

McClure was thought to be homeless in the community, and deputies said public tips were critical in tracking him down.

Investigators said they are not releasing details of the interview but that the information McClure provided appears credible and aligns with what already is known about Grissim’s disappearance, including evidence pointing toward the Dole Valley area in eastern Clark County.

Grissim, a 16-year-old Fort Vancouver High School student, vanished Dec. 7, 1971. Her school identification card was found the following spring along a Dole Valley road, about 1½ miles north of where the remains of two other teens — 18-year-old Carol Valenzuela and 17-year-old Martha Morrison — were discovered in October 1974.

Forrest, now 76, was convicted in February 2023 of Morrison’s murder — after a breakthrough in the case thanks to DNA evidence.

Grissim’s sister, Starr Lara, is raising funds for a memorial bench at Fort Vancouver High School.

“It is important to me as her little sister, and the entire community, to have a place to go to remember Jamie — never seen again after being at (Fort) Vancouver High School,” Lara said on the GoFundMe page.

Investigators emphasized that McClure was never considered a suspect in Grissim’s disappearance or any related crime.

With the new information, the cold-case team is working with Washington State Search and Rescue and Clark County Search and Rescue to plan an expanded search in Dole Valley. The upcoming effort will use detection dogs trained to locate human remains that may be deeply buried and decades old.

The Seattle division of the FBI recently joined the investigation and is providing consultation on laboratory and investigative matters, the sheriff’s office said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Cold Case Tip Line at 564-397-2036.

Forrest, of Battle Ground, is suspected in the disappearances and deaths of seven women and girls in Clark County between 1971 and 1974. In addition to Grissim, Valenzuela and Morrison, they include Barbara Ann Derry, 18, in February 1972; Diane Gilchrist, 14, in May 1974; Gloria Nadine Knutson, 19, in May 1974; and Krista Kay Blake, 20, in July 1974. Two others — Norma Jean Countryman, 15, who was abducted in July 1974, and a 20-year-old Camas woman — survived.

An Army veteran and former Clark County parks employee, Forrest is serving two life sentences for Morrison and Blake’s slayings. Blake was last seen July 11, 1974, climbing into Forrest’s light-blue van near downtown Vancouver. Her remains were found exactly two years later in a shallow grave on Clark County parks property at Tukes Mountain.