On a spring morning in Kalama, Washington, eight-year-old Chila Silvernails, a Caucasian female, walked down her driveway on Martins Bluff Road to catch the school bus on April 20, 1982. It was a routine she followed every school day, but on this particular day, she never boarded the bus. When she didn't return home that afternoon, her mother grew worried and discovered Chila had been absent from school.
A missing person report was filed later that evening, sparking a frantic search for the young girl.
The search came to a tragic end the following morning. Chila's nearly nude body was discovered in a creek near Shirley Gordon Road, roughly three miles from her home. An autopsy revealed she had been stabbed and asphyxiated. The discovery plunged the small community into fear and launched a decades-long investigation into her murder. Hundreds of interviews were conducted, and several individuals were considered persons of interest, yet no arrests were ever made, and the case grew cold.
Over the years, investigators continued to revisit the case, exploring new leads and reexamining evidence with emerging technologies. One persistent name in the investigation was Joseph Kondro, a man who had dated Chila's mother. Kondro was later convicted for the rapes and murders of two other young girls in the Longview area: eight-year-old Rima Traxler in 1985 and twelve-year-old Kara Rudd in 1996. The similarities in the crimes led authorities to strongly suspect Kondro in Chila's death as well.
Despite the strong suspicion and the striking parallels in the cases, no direct evidence ever definitively linked Kondro to Chila's murder, and he never confessed to the crime before his death in prison in 2012. The Cowlitz County Sheriff's Office has kept the case open, holding out hope that someone with information will come forward. They believe there are people who still hold key information that could bring justice for Chila Silvernails, whose life was cut short on that April day. The murder of the happy-go-lucky little girl remains an unsolved scar on the community, a haunting mystery that has endured for decades.
