Then let’s start at the beginning.

How did you and your brother Gregory first encounter Elena and Ben Hartley.

Nathan took a shaky breath.

Gregory worked at the Tidewater Inn.

He’d been watching them since they checked in.

Said the woman was pretty, and the boy reminded him of someone from his past.

He called me that night, said he had a plan.

What was the plan? To take them.

To keep them for a while.

Gregory had these ideas, see about having a family of his own.

He’d been married once, but his wife left him and took their son.

He [clears throat] never got over it.

When he saw that woman and her boy, something in him snapped.

David listened from behind the glass, his fingernails digging into his palms.

This monster had stolen his family because of some twisted fantasy of replacement.

Tell me about the room at Whispering Pines, Sarah prompted.

I built it, Nathan admitted.

Gregory insisted.

He said we needed a safe place to keep them until they adjusted, until they learned to accept him as family.

I told him it was crazy, but he threatened to tell the police I’d been stealing from OOT.

I was scared, so I did what he asked.

You built a prison to hold a woman and child captive.

And you expect us to believe you were just following orders.

Nathan’s eyes filled with tears.

I know how it sounds.

I know what I did was evil, but Gregory was my brother and I was weak.

God forgive me.

I was weak.

What happened the day Elena and Ben disappeared? Nathan’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

Gregory was waiting at the rest stop.

He’d put up a maintenance sign, made it look official.

When the woman and boy went into the restroom, he was already inside dressed in an ODOT uniform.

He told them there was a gas leak, that they needed to evacuate immediately through the back exit.

But there was no back exit, Sarah said.

No, the back exit led to the room I’d built.

Once they were inside, Gregory locked them in.

They screamed and pounded on the walls, but the room was soundproofed.

No one could hear them.

David felt bile rise in his throat.

Elena and Ben trapped just feet away from people who could have saved them, but unable to make themselves heard.

How long did you keep them there? Sarah’s voice was cold.

Professional months.

Gregory would go there at night when the rest stop was closed, bring them food and water.

He tried to make the boy call him dad.

Tried to make the woman act like his wife.

But they wouldn’t.

They kept fighting.

Kept trying to escape.

So, he killed them.

Nathan nodded, tears streaming down his weathered face.

He said they’d never accept him, that they were too broken to be his family.

One night, he went there with a pipe.

I didn’t know what he was planning until it was too late.

When I got there the next morning, they were both dead.

And you helped him dispose of the bodies? Yes.

The word came out as a broken sob.

God help me.

Yes.

We buried them in the woods after dark.

Gregory said we had to.

That if we were caught, we’d spend the rest of our lives in prison.

Where is Gregory now, Mr.

Voss? Nathan looked up, his eyes redimmed and hollow.

That’s the thing, detective.

Gregory’s been dead for 12 years.

Heart attack.

He died without ever answering for what he did.

But you didn’t, Sarah said quietly.

You lived with this knowledge for 26 years.

Why reach out now? Nathan wiped his face with shaking hands.

I saw the news about the rest stop being demolished, about the room being found.

I knew it was all going to come out.

And I thought about that father, the one who lost his wife and son.

I thought about him wondering all these years, and I couldn’t let him keep wondering.

I had to tell someone.

I had to make it stop.

Sarah leaned back in her chair.

Nathan Voss, you’re under arrest for kidnapping, conspiracy to commit murder, and accessory to murder.

You’ll be formally charged tomorrow morning.

I know, Nathan said quietly.

I’ve known this day was coming for a long time.

In a way, it’s a relief.

Sarah left the interrogation room and found David in the observation area.

His face was wet with tears, his expression a mixture of grief and rage and something that might have been relief.

You heard everything? She asked.

I heard.

David’s voice was rough.

Gregory Voss is dead.

We’ll verify it.

Pull death records.

If Nathan’s telling the truth, we can at least close the case.

Even if one of the perpetrators is beyond justice.

David nodded slowly.

Elena and Ben fought.

They never gave up.

Never accepted what he was trying to make them into.

That’s something.

I suppose it’s more than something.

Sarah said it means they never stopped being your family.

Never stopped believing you’d find them.

And you did, Mr.

Hartley.

After 26 years, you finally found them.

They stood in silence for a moment, watching as Nathan Voss was led from the interrogation room to a holding cell.

“What happens now?” David asked.

“Now we verify his story, document everything, and build a case for prosecution.

” “Nathan Voss will spend whatever time he has left in prison.

It’s not enough.

Not nearly enough for what he did, but it’s something.

” David looked out the window at the darkening sky.

I can bring them home now.

I can finally bring them home.

And for the first time in 26 years, David Hartley knew where his family was, knew what had happened to them, knew that the men responsible would answer for their crimes.

It wasn’t the ending he’d hoped for all those years ago, but it was finally an ending.

The verification of Nathan Voss’s confession began immediately.

While he sat in his holding cell, Sarah’s team worked through the night, pulling records, cross-referencing dates, and building a timeline that would either confirm or contradict his story.

Gregory Voss’s death certificate was located in Maltma County records.

He had died on March 15th, 2006 at age 49 of acute myocardial infuction.

The death had been investigated by the county medical examiner and ruled natural causes.

He’d been cremated 3 days later, his ashes scattered by his brother, Nathan.

Convenient, Officer Webb muttered, reviewing the file.

No body means no way to verify if the death was really natural.

Sarah nodded.

She was thinking the same thing.

Pull the full medical examiner’s report.

I want to know who signed off on the cause of death and whether there was any indication of foul play.

While Webb worked on that, Sarah turned her attention to employment records.

Gregory Voss’s work history after leaving the Tidewater Inn was sporadic and troubling.

6 months at a hotel in Kuos Bay, 3 months at a motel in Grants Pass, brief stints at various establishments along the coast.

Each job ended abruptly, often with no explanation in the records.

He was moving around a lot, Sarah observed.

Classic pattern for someone evading attention or someone who kept doing things that got him fired, webb added.

We should check if there were any complaints filed against him at these locations.

Sarah assigned two officers to that task, then turned to the most crucial question.

[clears throat] Were there other victims? She pulled up missing persons reports from Oregon and neighboring states between 1990 and 2006, filtering for cases involving women and children who disappeared near coastal highways.

The results made her stomach turn.

14 cases matched the basic parameters.

14 families who had vanished or been found dead under suspicious circumstances within 200 miles of locations where Gregory Voss had worked.

Dear God,” she whispered.

David appeared in the doorway of the conference room, carrying two cups of coffee from the station’s breakroom.

Despite Sarah’s insistence that he go home and rest, he’d refused to leave, instead making himself useful in small ways while the investigation proceeded.

“You should see this,” Sarah said, gesturing him over.

David sat down the coffee cups and studied the map Sarah had created with pins marking each missing person’s case and red dots showing Gregory Voss’s employment locations.

The correlation was impossible to ignore.

You think they’re all connected? David’s voice was hollow.

I don’t know, but we need to investigate each one.

If Gregory and Nathan were responsible for more than just Elena and Ben.

She didn’t finish the sentence.

She didn’t need to.

David sank into a chair, staring at the map.

How many? 14 possibles.

Some were solved, some remain open, but the pattern is there.

Sarah pulled up one file.

This one is particularly troubling.

September 1993, Brookings.

A mother and daughter disappeared from a motel.

Their car was found abandoned at a scenic overlook.

They were never found.

Where was Gregory Voss in September 1993? Sarah checked her timeline.

Working at the Brookings Harbor Inn, he quit 2 weeks after the disappearance.

They worked through each case methodically.

Not all of them fit perfectly.

Some of the victims were men, some were elderly, some disappeared in circumstances that seemed unrelated to the Voss brothers methods.

But at least six cases showed striking similarities to Elena and Ben’s disappearance.

We need to search Nathan’s property, Sarah said.

If there are more victims, there might be evidence there.

She arranged for a search warrant, and by dawn, a forensic team was combing through Nathan Voss’s ramshackle house and property.

David watched from a distance as they worked, his coffee growing cold in his hands.

Around noon, one of the technicians called out.

They’d found something in the crawl space beneath the house.

Sarah pulled on protective gear and descended into the cramped, dark space.

Her flashlight beam swept across the dirt floor, landing on a wooden box tucked against the foundation.

The box was old, its wood warped with moisture, but it had been carefully positioned and covered with a tarp.

Get the camera down here, Sarah called up.

They photographed the box from every angle before carefully removing it.

Sarah waited until they were back in the daylight to open it, conscious of David watching from behind the police tape.

Inside the box were trophies, dozens of them, driver’s licenses, photographs, jewelry, children’s toys, articles of clothing.

Each item carefully wrapped and labeled with a date.

Sarah’s hands trembled as she examined a small pink hair ribbon dated September 1993 matching the Brookings case.

A man’s watch from 1995.

A woman’s bracelet from 1998.

On and on.

A catalog of stolen lives.

Nathan said Gregory acted alone after Elena and Ben.

Sarah said quietly to Web.

He lied.

They brought Nathan back to the interrogation room.

This time Sarah didn’t ask permission before entering.

She slammed the box of trophies on the table between them with enough force to make Nathan flinch.

“You want to try again?” she demanded.

“You want to tell me the truth about what you and your brother did?” Nathan stared at the box, his face draining of color.

“Where did you find that?” “In your crawl space, where you’ve been keeping it for decades.

These are from other victims, aren’t they?” Nathan’s silence was answer enough.

How many? Sarah pressed.

How many people did you and Gregory kill? I didn’t kill anyone, Nathan said weakly.

Gregory did the killing.

I just helped him hide the evidence afterward.

That makes you an accessory to murder for every single one of these cases.

You’re looking at multiple life sentences, Mr.

Voss.

Your only chance at any mercy is to tell us everything.

Right now, Nathan closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, there was a resignation there that suggested he’d been waiting for this moment for a very long time.

“There were eight,” he said quietly.

“Eight families over 13 years.

” Sarah felt the room tilt slightly.

“Families? Multiple victims each time.

” Gregory liked pairs, mother and child, father and son, once even two sisters traveling together.

He said it was more satisfying that way, that breaking one person required another person to witness it.

Nathan’s voice was flat, emotionless, as if he were recounting something that had happened to someone else.

And you helped him every single time.

He was my brother.

I was afraid of him.

But he was still my brother.

Family is supposed to protect each other.

family,” Sarah repeated, her voice dripping with contempt.

“You talk about family while you helped murder eight families.

Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The lives you’ve destroyed?” “I know.

” Nathan looked down at his hands.

I’ve known for 26 years.

Every day I wake up knowing what I am.

Do you think that’s been easy? Do you think I’ve had a single peaceful night’s sleep since this started? I don’t care about your peace of mind, Sarah said coldly.

I care about the families who deserve to know what happened to their loved ones.

You’re going to give me every detail, every victim, every location, every burial site.

You’re going to help us bring them all home.

For the next 6 hours, Nathan talked.

He provided dates, locations, descriptions of victims.

The team cross-referenced his information with missing person’s databases and one by one the cases began to match.

David sat in the observation room through all of it, forcing himself to listen.

These other families had suffered the same nightmare he had, the same endless wondering, the same desperate hope that gradually calcified into grief.

When Sarah finally emerged from the interrogation room, she looked exhausted.

We have enough to locate at least six more burial sites, she told David.

Teams are already being assembled to begin recovery operations.

The text message, David said suddenly.

The one that said, I know what happened.

That wasn’t Nathan, was it? Sarah shook her head.

He didn’t send it.

He doesn’t even own a cell phone according to his records.

Someone else knows about this.

Who? I don’t know.

But they knew about the discovery at the rest stop and they knew to contact you specifically.

That suggests someone with inside information, someone close to the case.

They were interrupted by Officer Webb, who looked troubled.

Detective, we’ve got a problem.

The medical examiner who signed off on Gregory Voss’s death certificate, Dr.

Martin Reeves.

He was arrested in 2008 for falsifying autopsy reports.

Served 3 years for evidence tampering.

Sarah and David exchanged glances.

“So Gregory’s death might not have been natural after all,” Sarah said.

“There’s more.

” Web continued.

“Dr.

Reeves was released from prison in 2011.

He currently lives in Seaside.

And guess who visited him last week, according to the sign-in log at his apartment building?” “Who?” Sarah demanded.

“Someone who gave the name Goss and claimed to be family.

” The implications settled over them like a cold fog.

Gregory Voss was supposed to be dead, cremated, his ashes scattered.

But if the death certificate was falsified, if the medical examiner was corrupt, we need to find Dr.

Reeves.

Sarah said, “Right now.

” They assembled a team and drove to Seaside, arriving at Dr.

Reeves apartment complex just before sunset.

The building manager let them in after seeing their badges, directing them to apartment 3B on the third floor.

Sarah knocked on the door.

No answer.

She knocked again louder.

Dr.

Reeves, this is the Oregon State Police.

We need to speak with you.

Still nothing.

Sarah nodded to Officer Webb, who used the manager’s master key to unlock the door.

The apartment was dark, stuffy, smelling of stale cigarette smoke and old takeout food.

They moved through it carefully, clearing each room.

They found Dr.

Reeves in his bedroom.

He was sitting in a chair by the window, his head slumped forward.

A bullet hole in his right temple.

A handgun lay on the floor beside him.

On the desk in front of him was a laptop, still open, its screen glowing in the dimness.

Sarah approached carefully, pulling on gloves before examining it.

An email draft was open, unscent, addressed to David Hartley.

The timestamp showed it had been composed 3 days ago.

Sarah read it aloud.

Mr.

Hartley, I am writing to confess my part in concealing the truth about Gregory Voss.

In 2006, I falsified his death certificate in exchange for $50,000.

Gregory Voss did not die of natural causes.

He is still alive.

I don’t know where he is, but I know he’s still out there.

I thought you deserve to know.

I’m sorry for what I’ve done.

I’m sorry for all of it.

David stared at the screen, [clears throat] his face pale.

Gregory Voss is alive.

Sarah’s mind was racing.

If Gregory was alive, if he’d been alive all this time, then everything Nathan had told them was either a lie or only part of the truth.

and if Gregory was still out there.

Her phone rang.

The caller ID showed it was the forensic team still processing Nathan Voss’s property.

Kovatch, she answered.

Detective, you need to get back here right now.

We found something else in the crawl space.

There’s a trap door leading to a subb we didn’t know existed.

And detective.

The technician’s voice was shaking.

There’s someone down there.

Someone alive.

The drive back to Nathan Voss’s property took 45 minutes, but it felt like hours.

Sarah’s mind raced with possibilities, each more horrifying than the last.

Someone alive in a subb beneath Nathan’s house.

Someone who had been there the whole time while they searched, questioned, investigated.

David sat rigid in the passenger seat, his knuckles white where he gripped the door handle.

Neither of them spoke during the drive.

When they arrived, the property was ablaze with portable lights.

The forensic team working in organized chaos.

The lead technician, a woman named Dr.

Lisa Park, met them at the crawl space entrance.

“We found the trap door hidden under old boards and dirt,” she explained, her voice tight.

“It leads down about 8 ft to what looks like a converted root cellar.

There’s a woman down there, late60s, possibly early ‘7s.

She’s conscious but nonresponsive.

Paramedics are preparing to extract her now.

How long has she been down there? Sarah asked.

We don’t know yet, but detective, the space is set up like a long-term holding cell.

There’s a cot supplies, a chemical toilet.

Someone’s been keeping her alive.

Sarah descended into the crawl space, then down through the trap door into the subb.

The space was larger than she’d expected, roughly 12 feet by 10 ft with concrete walls and a single batterypowered lantern providing dim light.

The woman sat on the cot staring at nothing.

She was emaciated, her gray hair matted and unckempt, her skin pale from lack of sunlight.

She wore a stained night gown and was wrapped in a dirty blanket.

Ma’am, Sarah said gently, approaching slowly.

My name is Detective Kovatch.

You’re safe now.

We’re going to get you out of here.

The woman didn’t respond, didn’t even acknowledge Sarah’s presence.

Her eyes were vacant, fixed on some point in the middle distance.

A paramedic climbed down into the space and began a preliminary examination.

severe malnutrition, dehydration, possible psychological trauma, she reported.

We need to get her to a hospital immediately.

Continue reading….
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