'Cold blooded': Unsolved murders still haunt Oregon town 55 years later
JUNCTION CITY, Ore. (KOIN) -- Time moves at its own pace in a close-knit community like Junction City.
There’s a train that still regularly chugs through downtown, which is a healthy mix of old storefronts, banks, and local restaurants.
Drive about four miles outside of the town to a little hillside cemetery, and there are the grave markers of Julie and Terry Dade.
The couple was brutally murdered 55 years ago.
"We like to keep our eyes open and our blinders off and be open to any possibility because it could be something completely different than what we're thinking," says David Silano, a retired Lane County detective.
Silano and a handful of other investigators track Lane County’s cold cases, and perhaps no case remains more mysterious than Terry and Julie’s killing one chilly January morning in 1970.
"It feels targeted, in that it's pretty violent regarding two people and two locations," said Silano.
Old photos from the 1970 investigation help the set the scene.
Around 4:15 a.m. on January 21, neighbors a few blocks away from the Dade’s apartment woke up to Julie screaming and knocking on their door.
Witnesses reported a mystery man chased her down, eventually threw her into the back of a station wagon, and told the half-asleep neighbor she was “drunk.”
About a half hour later, and another half-mile down Prairie Road, a different neighbor woke up to the sound of an explosion and car fire.
Under the burning car, first responders found 20-year-old Julie’s body.
It took them a few hours to piece together a possible identity, an address and what might’ve happened.
That’s when Silano says officers finally rushed to the Dade’s apartment, only to find 19-year-old Terry dead from blunt force trauma.
Henry Thompson, Julie’s brother, remembers all too well hearing the horrific details.
“The guy just whaled away on him [Terry] with a pick hammer," said Henry. “God, this guy was as cold-blooded as they get."
The couple’s one-year-old son was left unhurt in his crib, but Henry says the heartache that gripped the family in the days and months to come was almost inescapable.
"We had their wedding at the Christian Church in Junction City, and 15 months later after they said their vows and walked on out, they were right back in there in caskets," he said.
Authorities worked the case aggressively from the start by interviewing dozens of neighbors and friends, while chasing down leads.
KOIN 6 even covered the case, an unheard-of crime for a farming and mill town like Junction City.
But in 1970 no one was thinking about DNA, or even much about crime scene preservation, and Silano says although there were different theories and persons of interest in the months and years that followed, there were no arrests.
“Mental illness existed back then. She could've had someone that was obsessed with her, stalking her," Silano said. “We’re seeing what was missed. What was overlooked […] Sometimes, it just takes fresh eyes."
It’s even possible more than the one mystery man was involved.
Henry has his own thoughts about who might be responsible but doesn’t want to jeopardize any potential breaks in the case.
For now, he’s simply hopeful that detectives learn enough to make some kind of determination.
It’s what Terry and Julie deserve after five and half decades.
"The fear that was in her gets to me, you know what I mean. She was running for her life. It just gets to me. I want her to know I'll never forget her."
Anyone with information on the case can contact the Lane County Cold Case Unit here.