Labor Day in 1989 was a warm, late-summer day in Vancouver, Washington. For brothers William "Billy" Neer, a 10-year-old boy, and Cole Neer, age 11, it was a day for being outdoors, riding their bicycles through the wooded trails of David Douglas Park. As evening approached, they were taking a shortcut through the park, heading home for dinner. Their journey was cut short by a man who had been stalking the park for days, a predator who would soon become known as The Vancouver Child Killer.
That encounter in the park would be the boys' last.
The brothers were reported missing, and a search began. Their bicycles were found first, abandoned near a trail. Later, their bodies were discovered in a secluded, wooded area of the park. The horrific scene revealed they had been tied to a tree with shoelaces and brutally stabbed with a fish fillet knife. Cole was found deceased at the scene, while Billy, despite his grave injuries, was still alive when the police arrived. He fought courageously for his life but succumbed to his wounds on the way to the hospital, unable to tell investigators what had happened.
The community was thrown into a state of fear and grief. An estimated 200 people attended the funeral services for the two brothers at Calvary Lutheran Church, mourning the violent loss of two of their own. The investigation into the savage double homicide fell to a joint task force of local and regional law enforcement. For weeks, they had few solid leads, and the city remained on edge.
The break in the case came over two months later, on November 13, 1989. In the nearby town of Camas, a man attempted to abduct a six-year-old boy from the restroom of the New Liberty Theatre. The child’s screams and the quick actions of his mother's boyfriend, William Graves, thwarted the kidnapping. The would-be abductor, 28-year-old Westley Allan Dodd, was apprehended shortly after his car broke down not far from the theater. During questioning, Dodd not only confessed to the attempted abduction but also to the murders of William and Cole Neer. He then admitted to a third killing: the abduction and murder of four-year-old Lee Iseli of Portland, Oregon, just weeks after he had killed the Neer brothers.
Dodd, a man with a long and escalating history of child molestation that the justice system had repeatedly failed to stop, had kept detailed diaries of his crimes. These journals, along with other evidence found in his apartment, provided a chilling roadmap of his descent into sadistic violence. He had stalked David Douglas Park specifically looking for victims to kill. His confession detailed the horrific final moments of the Neer brothers' lives.
Against the advice of his attorneys, Westley Allan Dodd pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder. During his trial, he showed no remorse and stated that if he were ever released, he would kill again. He waived his appeals and asked to be executed, specifically requesting death by hanging, the same method he had used to kill his last victim, Lee Iseli. On January 5, 1993, Dodd was executed at the Washington State Penitentiary, the first legal hanging in the United States since 1965.
The parents of William and Cole, Clair and Arlene Neer, later filed a wrongful-death lawsuit along with the family of Lee Iseli. They argued that a series of systemic failures and bureaucratic negligence had allowed Dodd, a known sexual predator, to remain free when he should have been incarcerated at the time of the murders. The families received out-of-court settlements from the state and Asotin County, a tacit acknowledgment that the system had failed to protect their children. The case led to changes in Washington state law regarding the handling of sexually violent predators.
