Warren Forrest: Victims, DNA Match, and Open Cases

Warren Leslie Forrest is a convicted serial killer from Clark County, Washington, who is serving two life sentences for the 1974 murders of Krista Kay Blake and Martha Morrison. Investigators with the Clark County Sheriff’s Office believe Forrest, a former county parks employee, is responsible for as many as seven homicides and two kidnappings of young women and teenage girls in the Portland-Vancouver area in the early 1970s.¹ He is 76 and remains incarcerated at a Washington state corrections facility.

Who Forrest Was in 1974

Forrest lived in Battle Ground, Washington, with his wife and two daughters. He was an Army veteran, and he worked for the Clark County Parks Department. That job gave him keys to restricted gates and routine access to isolated stretches of county parkland, and remains of several victims were later found in those same areas.² He drove a light blue Ford Econoline van, and both surviving victims described being pulled into that van and driven to remote wooded ground.

Forrest later told a Sexual Offenders Treatment Assessment Program during his incarceration that he had “offended against 17 different female victims during 16 different incidents,” with behaviors ranging from voyeurism to murder.³ At a separate hearing he told his therapist he had attacked 13 women, though he named no victims beyond those already known.⁴ He also said his offenses began in 1969 and spanned four jurisdictions.

The Victims Linked to Warren Forrest

The disappearances and killings that investigators tie to Forrest began in late 1971 and continued through the fall of 1974. Most victims were young women or teenage girls who vanished while walking or hitchhiking in Vancouver and rural Clark County.

Jamie Grissim, 16 — A Fort Vancouver High School student who disappeared on December 7, 1971. Her wallet was later recovered in Dole Valley, roughly 1.5 miles from where other victims’ remains were found. She is presumed to be Forrest’s earliest victim; her body has never been recovered.⁵
Barbara Ann Derry, 18 — Disappeared while hitchhiking on February 11, 1972. Her body was found a year later at an old grist mill in rural Clark County. She had been killed by a single stab wound to the heart.⁶
Diane Gilchrist, 14 — A Shumway Junior High School student who disappeared on May 29, 1974, after climbing out of her bedroom window. She has never been found.⁷
Gloria Nadine Knudson, 19 — Disappeared from downtown Vancouver on May 31, 1974. Her remains were found in 1978 near Lacamas Lake.¹
Krista Kay Blake, 20 — Last seen getting into a light blue Ford Econoline van in downtown Vancouver on July 11, 1974. Her body, hands and feet bound, was found in 1976 in a shallow grave on Tukes Mountain. Forrest was convicted of her murder.⁸
Norma Jean Countryman, 15 — Abducted near Ridgefield on July 17, 1974, and taken to Tukes Mountain, where Forrest tied her between two trees. She chewed through her restraints overnight and escaped, reaching a Clark County Parks building at dawn. The spot where she was bound was only about 167 feet from where Blake was later found.⁹
Carol Valenzuela, 18–20 — Disappeared while hitchhiking on August 2, 1974. Her remains were found in October 1974 by a hunter in Dole Valley, about 100 feet from where Martha Morrison’s body lay.¹⁰
Martha Morrison, 17 — Disappeared in September 1974. Her remains were found alongside Valenzuela’s in October 1974 but were not identified until July 2015. Forrest was convicted of her murder in 2023.¹¹
Unnamed woman, 20, of Camas — Abducted, raped, strangled, stabbed, and shot with an air pistol near Lacamas Lake on October 1, 1974. Forrest left her under logs in the woods. She crawled to a road and flagged down a motorist, and her account led directly to his arrest.¹²

The geography is tight. Remains kept surfacing in or near Clark County parks and in the Dole Valley woodlands of eastern Clark County, ground Forrest could reach through his job. Several of the 1974 disappearances happened within a few weeks of one another in downtown Vancouver.

How Forrest Was Caught

Forrest was first arrested in October 1974 after the attack near Lacamas Lake. The survivor described his blue Econoline van and told investigators he had used a key to open a restricted swing gate, a detail consistent with his parks job.¹² Deputies recovered her belongings from Forrest and seized the air pistol he had used in the attack.

He was acquitted of the Camas kidnapping and rape by reason of insanity and spent roughly three years at Western State Hospital.⁹ On October 20, 1978, while still committed there, he was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Krista Kay Blake. The Camas survivor testified at trial about the air pistol and the violence. Forrest was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1979.¹¹

The DNA Match That Reopened the Case

For decades, the second set of remains found next to Carol Valenzuela in Dole Valley in October 1974 sat unidentified. In July 2015 they were identified as Martha Morrison’s.¹³ The break came when cold case investigators sent the air pistol seized from Forrest in 1974 back to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory. Technicians found a bloodstain on the weapon, and DNA testing matched it to Morrison.¹⁴

Prosecutors charged Forrest with Morrison’s murder in December 2019. He was extradited to Clark County in early 2020 and pleaded not guilty. Delayed by the pandemic, the trial ran in January and February 2023 in Clark County Superior Court, with more than 30 witnesses over six days.¹³ Both surviving victims testified. Jurors also heard a recording of a February 2014 parole board hearing at which Forrest said his crimes “weren’t about killing, they were about acting out his sexual desires.”¹⁵ The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes on February 1, 2023, and found him guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to a second life term on February 17, 2023.¹⁶

What Forrest Has Said at Parole Hearings

Forrest has come before the Washington Indeterminate Sentence Review Board several times since 1979, and the board has denied release each time. At a 2013 hearing, records showed he had told his therapist about attacking 13 women. At a February 2014 hearing he described the abductions of Blake, Countryman, and the Camas survivor in detail, telling the board he “didn’t see them as having feelings or emotions,” and said he had “numerous unadjudicated victims who might be living or dead” across four states.³

By July 2017 he had reversed course, denying involvement in any unsolved murders and invoking his Fifth Amendment rights when asked about other victims. The board denied parole and added seven and a half years, calling him “too high of a risk to release.”³ Norma Jean Countryman Lewis, who survived the 1974 attack on Tukes Mountain, has testified at both murder trials and has appeared before the parole board to oppose his release, most recently in October 2025.⁹ Forrest has never confessed to any killing beyond the two for which he stands convicted.¹

Cases Still Open

In early 2024, Clark County Sheriff John Horch re-established a cold case team specifically to look at Forrest’s possible involvement in unsolved disappearances and homicides.¹¹ The team, led by Sgt. Fred Neiman, has three main tracks.

Carol Valenzuela’s murder is the case investigators call the “next logical” step. Her remains lay about 100 feet from Morrison’s, both women vanished within the same 11-week window in 1974, and Forrest logged a half-day off from the parks department on August 2, 1974, the day Valenzuela disappeared. Investigator Doug Maas has said he is “fairly convinced” a jury would convict on the existing evidence, which includes hairs, fibers, and nail clippings from Forrest’s van.¹⁰

Nearly 70 strands of hair recovered from Forrest’s van during the original 1974 investigation are being re-examined with current DNA methods and genetic genealogy to see whether any can be tied to a suspected victim. Earlier technology, including what was available in 2014, was not sufficient to analyze the samples.²

Jamie Grissim’s 1971 disappearance is the other active thread. Her high school ID surfaced in Dole Valley in the spring of 1972, about 1.5 miles north of where Morrison and Valenzuela were later found.⁵ In late 2025 detectives interviewed a witness who said he had come across a deceased young woman in the woods near Rock Creek around the time Grissim disappeared.¹⁷ On April 4, 2026, the sheriff’s office ran a coordinated ground search near the Rock Creek Campground in Yacolt using search and rescue teams and human remains detection dogs. The search ended without recovering any evidence, and the cold case team said it was evaluating next steps.¹⁸

The disappearances of Jamie Grissim and Diane Gilchrist remain unsolved.

1
KATU. Cold Case Team Says Warren Forrest May Be Tied to Seven Deaths
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KGW. Clark County Cold Case Serial Killer Warren Forrest
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The Columbian. Suspected Serial Killer Denied Parole
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KOMO News. Parole Hearing Reveals Killer May Be Responsible for More Attacks
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KPTV. Clark Co. Investigators Hope to Find Suspected Victim of 1970s Serial Killer
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KSL Podcasts. Stolen Voices of Dole Valley
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KOIN. Could Diane Gilchrist Be Warren Forrest’s 9th Victim
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The Columbian. Painful Memories on Display as Warren Forrest Murder Trial Gets Underway
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The Columbian. Survivor Recalls Night of Terror
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The Reflector. Third Warren Forrest Conviction Would Bring Clarity and Peace to Victim’s Family
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Forensic Magazine. Cold Case Team Analyzing Evidence That May Link More Women to Serial Killer Warren Forrest
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The Columbian. Warren Forrest Trial: Camas Woman Describes Surviving Harrowing Attack
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KPTV. Suspected Southwest Washington Serial Killer Warren Forrest Faces Sentencing
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KATU. New Evidence Could Link Convicted Killer to Cold Case Murder
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The Columbian. Jury in Warren Forrest Murder Trial Hears Recording of Accused Speaking of Motivation for Attacks
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KOIN. Warren Forrest Sentenced Nearly 50 Years After Murdering Portland Teen
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KOIN. New Search Underway for Missing Teen Jamie Grissim
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The Columbian. Coordinated Search in Dole Valley Area for Grissim’s Remains Concludes Without Recovering Evidence