NCMEC - Have you seen this child? Jamie Grissim
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Jamie's photo is shown age-progressed to 56 years. She was last seen the afternoon of December 7, 1971, walking home from school in Vancouver, Washington. The last time she was seen, Jamie was wearing blue jeans, a red and white striped shirt, and white tennis shoes. Jamie's ears are pierced. She may spell her last name Grisim.
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Jamie left her residence in the vicinity of the 5300 block of northeast 58th Street in Vancouver, Washington on the morning of December 7, 1971, and went to Fort Vancouver High School, about two miles from her home.
It is established that she arrived at school. She had only two classes that day, and she did attend them. She told her foster mother she would walk home from school and would arrive at 1:00 or 1:30 p.m., but she did not appear as scheduled. She has never been heard from again.
Jamie's purse, identification, and other possessions were found in May 1972, five months after her disappearance, in a wooded area alongside a road in the Dole Valley area of Northern Clark County, northeast of Vancouver.
Authorities initially believed Jamie had run away from home, and as a result, she was not officially declared a missing person until January 1972. Her loved ones never thought she left of her own volition. She and her sister had been wards of the state since they were toddlers. Their father was in prison and they had been taken from their mother.
Jamie was a good student, got along well with her foster mother and was close to her sister in 1971; she was also a talented artist and writer, and a member of the 4-H Club. She had a savings account at the time of her disappearance, but the account has not been used since she went missing.
Police eventually decided Jamie had probably not run away; she is now believed to be the first victim of a suspected serial killer, Warren Leslie Forrest, who is thought to have raped and killed at least six young women in the Vancouver area. In 1978, he was convicted of murdering nineteen-year-old Krista Kay Blake and received a life sentence. He is a person of interest in the 1974 disappearance of fourteen-year-old Diane Gilchrist.
He attended the same high school Jamie had, albeit several years before she did, and was popular and a good student. It's possible he and Jamie knew each other slightly. A photo of him is posted with this case summary. Forrest is still incarcerated and was denied parole in 2017.
The bodies of three other women have been recovered in rural Clark County. Two of them were located within a mile of where Jamie's possessions were found: nineteen-year-old Carol Platt Valenzuela and seventeen-year-old Martha Marie Morrison. Martha was not identified until 2015, however. In 2017, authorities discovering Martha's DNA on a dart gun which Forrest admitted he'd used to attack another woman. In 2010, they announced they plan to charge him with murder in her case.
edited by staff to add media link
JAMIE GRISSIM has been missing from Vancouver, #WASHINGTON since 7 Dec 1971. Did she run away from her foster home?
It is established that Jamie arrived at school. She had only two classes that day, and she did attend them. She told her foster mother she would walk home from school and would arrive at 1:00 or 1:30 p.m., but she did not appear as scheduled. She...
www.crimewatchers.net
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