In the summer of 1974, a 20-year-old White female named Krista Kay Blake vanished from Vancouver, Washington. On July 11, she was last seen by her boyfriend at approximately 5:30 p.m. getting into a light blue 1973 Ford van at a convenience store located at 29th and K streets. Blake, who had been hitchhiking from Orchards, had arranged a ride to Portland with the driver of the van.
Two witnesses later reported seeing Blake and a man in the van near Lewisville Park before she disappeared.
For two years, Krista Kay Blake's fate remained a mystery. Then, in 1976, her remains were discovered. A forensic examination of a jawbone confirmed her identity. The investigation into her disappearance and murder led authorities to suspect a man named Warren Leslie Forrest, who owned a van matching the description of the one Blake was last seen entering.
Warren Leslie Forrest, a former Battle Ground, Washington resident and Clark County Parks Department employee, became the primary suspect in Blake's murder, as well as the disappearances and deaths of several other young women in Clark County between 1971 and 1974. Forrest was apprehended in 1974 after a 19-year-old woman survived a kidnapping and assault, leading investigators to him. In October 1978, while a patient at Western State Hospital, Forrest was charged with the first-degree murder of Krista Kay Blake. He initially pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity, but later withdrew the insanity plea.
During his trial in 1979, a survivor of one of Forrest's earlier attacks provided harrowing testimony about the violence he inflicted. This, along with other evidence, led to his conviction for the murder of Krista Kay Blake. He was sentenced to life in prison and has been incarcerated since 1974. Decades later, in 2023, Forrest was also convicted of the 1974 murder of 17-year-old Martha Morrison after DNA evidence linked him to her death. He is suspected in at least five other similar murders and disappearances of young women who were often last seen hitchhiking and getting into a van.
