Four-year-old Lee Joseph Iseli was a playful, trusting child with blond hair and blue eyes. His father, Robert, described him as the kind of kid who didn't wander off but could be easily sidetracked. On Sunday, October 29, 1989, that trusting nature was cruelly exploited. Lee and his nine-year-old brother, Justin, went to play at the nearby Richmond Elementary School playground in Portland, Oregon, a place they had been a couple of times before.
Their father told them to stay together and be careful. While Justin was momentarily distracted, a man approached Lee, who was playing alone on a slide, and deceptively lured him away with the promise of fun and money.
The man was Westley Allan Dodd, a 28-year-old serial predator who had been stalking children in the Vancouver, Washington, and Portland areas. Just weeks earlier, he had murdered two brothers, 11-year-old Cole and 10-year-old William Neer. After convincing Lee to leave the playground, Dodd drove him across the state line to his apartment in Vancouver. There, over the next day, he subjected the little boy to horrific abuse, which he documented with photographs and chillingly detailed entries in a personal diary. On the morning of October 30, 1989, Dodd strangled Lee to death. He then hung the boy's body in a closet before leaving for his job as a shipping clerk.
As a frantic search for Lee began, his father held out hope, publicly stating that he wished his son had been taken by a lonely person who just wanted a child's company. The heartbreaking truth was discovered on November 1, 1989, when a pheasant hunter found Lee's nude body discarded in the bushes near Vancouver Lake. Dodd had burned the boy's clothing, but kept his "Ghostbusters" underwear as a trophy, hiding it in a briefcase under his bed. A multi-agency task force was formed to hunt for the killer responsible for the deaths of Lee and the Neer brothers.
The break in the case came less than two weeks later, on November 13, 1989. Dodd attempted to abduct a six-year-old boy from the restroom of a movie theater in Camas, Washington. The boy screamed and fought back, and his mother's boyfriend captured Dodd as he tried to flee. During interrogation, detectives connected him to the recent child murders. Dodd eventually confessed in pitiless detail to killing Lee Iseli and the Neer brothers. A search of his apartment uncovered the horrifying evidence he had collected, including the photos of Lee, the boy's underwear, and his diary, which chronicled his crimes and dark fantasies.
Westley Allan Dodd was charged with three counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Against his attorney's advice, he pleaded guilty to all charges. During his trial, Dodd remained remorseless, telling the court that if he were ever released, he would kill again. He waived his right to appeal and, in a final disturbing act, requested to be executed by hanging, the same method he had used to kill Lee. The court granted his request.
On January 5, 1993, Westley Allan Dodd was executed at the Washington State Penitentiary. Lee's family, who later filed a wrongful-death lawsuit claiming authorities had missed earlier opportunities to stop Dodd, witnessed the execution. Years after his son's death, Robert Iseli said he could still sense Lee playing on the back porch of their old home. His mother, Jewell Cornell, shared a sentiment of enduring love, stating, "He may have taken Lee away, but Lee will always be my son. He can't take that away." The case led to legislative changes in Washington state aimed at keeping violent sexual predators confined even after their prison sentences are complete.
