Questions linger over fate of missing women

By Jeremy Pawloski | The Olympian • Published June 29, 2008

Documents
Comments (0)

When "Cowboy" Mike Braae was arrested after jumping off a 40-foot bridge into an Idaho river during a police chase July 20, 2001, it marked the end of what investigators say was a trail of rapes, slayings and domestic violence from Washington to California.

1997
Braae is arrested on suspicion of rape in EL Cajon, Calif., in December. He has the Oregon identification card of Velina Larson 37, whom he had been dating.

1998
Larson’s skeletal remains are found in a field in Oregon in January, near where a witness saw Braae and Larson arguing in late 1997.

Clackamas County Sheriff’s Sgt. Wendi Babst, who is investigating Larson’s death, discovers that Braae’s former girlfriend Deb VanLuven, 45, alson is missing. VanLuven formerly lived in Lacey.

2000
Braae is arrested on rape charges in Napa, Calif. The case is never brought to trial.

2001
In June, Susan Ault, 39, disappears from a friend’s trailer where she was staying. The friend saw Braae and Ault arguing shortly before she went missing, said Ault’s father, Bruce. Her purse, with identification, was found at a rest stop, but she has not been found.

Braae is charged with shooting Marchelle Morgan, 50, of Yelm in the head in Yakima County. Morgan was left for dead on a country road south of Union Gap on July 14, 2001. The trial ends in a hung jury.

Other history

Thurston County court records reveal that Braae was named as a respondent in at least two domestic-violence petitions in the 1990s. He also has reckless-driving citations, numerous driving-while-intoxicated arrests and several assault arrests.

Braae faces a possible 56-year prison sentence in a Thurston County courtroom July 24 for raping and murdering Lori Jones in Lacey in 2001, but investigators think he eluded justice for years and is responsible for an unsolved death in Oregon and the disappearances of two Washington women who are presumed dead.

Braae, 48, denies killing Jones, and he's unlikely to provide any information that would offer closure to the grieving families of the other women, Thurston County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jon Tunheim said.

"If he was a guy that had a conscience, I might have some hope of that," Tunheim said. "But he's a guy that has no conscience or empathy. He does what's in his best interest. It's only going to happen if he sees a benefit for him."

Tunheim said Braae's attorneys have not approached him with any requests for a recommendation of a reduced sentence in exchange for offering information about other crimes.

Investigators think Braae also is responsible for the deaths of:

• Velina Larson, 37, who was dating Braae around the time of her 1997 disappearance in Oregon.

• Deb VanLuven, 45, who dated Braae when she lived in Lacey and was reported missing in 1997.

• Susan Ault, 39, who disappeared from a friend's trailer in Roseburg in southwestern Washington in 2001.

Velina Larson

Larson's skeletal remains were found in an overgrown field Jan. 31, 1998, near a self-storage facility where a witness saw Braae and Larson arguing in late 1997, said Clackamas County Sheriff's Sgt. Wendi Babst, who investigated Larson's death.

When Braae was arrested on suspicion of rape in El Cajon, Calif., in December 1997, he had Larson's identification card, Babst said. He denies killing Larson. Larson's remains were identified from her dental records, but forensic experts were unable to determine a cause of death from her skeleton, Babst said. Two other women Braae dated have disappeared, never to be heard from again, Babst said.

Next page >>