In the late summer of 1987, a shadow fell over the city of Gresham in Multnomah County, Oregon, with the disappearance of a young girl. Twelve-year-old Mindi Coleen Thomas, a female, was last seen on August 3, 1987. On that day, she was in the company of Gail Bennett, the girlfriend of a man named Todd Alan Reed. After this sighting, Mindi vanished, leaving her family and community in a state of anxious uncertainty.
The hope for her safe return dwindled with each passing day, turning a warm season into a period of dread.
The search for Mindi ended in heartbreak in October of the same year. Her remains were discovered near a hiking trail in the vicinity of Mt. Hood Community College. An autopsy revealed the grim reality of her fate; she had been strangled to death. The discovery of her body transformed a missing person case into a homicide investigation, leaving the community to grapple with the knowledge that a predator was in their midst.
Investigators soon focused their attention on Todd Alan Reed, a man with a troubled and violent past. By the age of 14, Reed was already a registered sex offender. At the time of Mindi's disappearance, he was dating Gail Bennett, the last person known to have seen the young girl alive. Reed matched the description of a suspect seen talking to another young girl who was murdered that same year. Despite the strong suspicion and the circumstantial evidence connecting him to Mindi's death, no formal charges were ever filed against him for her murder. The limitations of forensic technology in 1987, particularly the absence of DNA testing, presented a significant hurdle for prosecutors.
Years later, Todd Alan Reed would be dubbed "The Forest Park Killer" after he was convicted for the rape and murder of three homeless women in Portland in 1999. He was sentenced to life in prison for those crimes. While he remains the primary and most likely suspect in the murder of Mindi Coleen Thomas, her case officially remains unsolved, a cold file that still holds the painful story of a life cut tragically short. Gail Bennett was never charged in connection with the case.
