May 24, 2004
Joel Courtney is scheduled for a court appearance in Lincoln County.
Instead, he is in Corvallis, driving around the Oregon State University campus in a green Dodge Caravan belonging to his employer, Creative Building Maintenance, where he got a job recently with the help of a brother-in-law. He's using cocaine.
Brooke Wilberger, a 19-year-old Brigham Young University student is busy with her summer job, cleaning lamp posts at the Oak Park apartments near Reser Stadium.
Courtney stops and asks Randi Honrud for directions to a fraternity house. He gets out of the van, opens the side panel door and asks her to come closer. Honrud feels uncomfortable and quickly walks away to a class across campus.
Courtney then drives on, stopping on Western Avenue, where he asks Krystle Thornton for directions to an athletic department building. Thornton is on the cellphone with her mother.
As Courtney is trying to engage Thornton, Bob Clifford, an assistant athletic director, leaves his office and gets into his car in the Reser parking lot.
He drives toward Western Avenue and notices Thornton and Courtney. He senses something is wrong and rolls up next to the open door of the van. He tries but fails to get Courtney's attention, drives to the front of the van and puts his transmission in park. He looks over his shoulder and stares at Courtney.
Thornton has remained on the phone with her mother. Both agree they are troubled by the encounter with Courtney and she walks away.
More:
When Clifford sees Thornton walk safety away, he drives off.
Courtney gets into the van and goes several blocks to the Oak Park apartments. He sees Wilberger and positions his van between her and the apartment buildings so she is out of the line of site of tenants, essentially trapped in that portion of the lot.
He comes out of the van carrying a FedEX envelope as a ruse to be able to closely approach her. He abducts her at knifepoint, pulling her into the van. Witnesses report hearing a "blood-curdling scream." He drives the two of them a short distance away and binds her with duct tape.
Courtney then drives deep into the woods of the Coast Range. Initially he takes her for walks in the woods, almost as if he is trying to take her on a date. She pleads for him to release her and promises she won't tell anyone what happened.
At some point that night, Courtney drives her back into town in the van and gets hamburgers at a McDonald's drive-through.
May 25, 2004
The following day, Courtney rapes Wilberger. She fights him hard. Courtney kills her by striking her in the head with a large piece of wood.
He does not bury her but instead puts her body under a log and covers her with wood and ferns and moss.
Her remains will be found at this spot, five-and-a-half years later, off highway 20 west of Philomath in the Oregon Coast Range.
Afterwards, he drives back to the Portland area, stopping at the McDonald's at the Market Street exit in Salem.
