A 14 year old is found dead by a man walking his dog
In the summer of 1994, 14-year-old Tanya Marie Frazier was looking forward to starting high school. Having just graduated from Washington Middle School in Seattle, she was attending summer classes at Meany Middle School. Tanya was a responsible and shy girl who volunteered at the Chicken Soup Brigade, an organization that provided meals to those in need. She was also an active member of her church, St. Clement's Episcopal in the Mount Baker neighborhood.
On the afternoon of July 18, 1994, Tanya vanished after leaving her summer school class. She was last seen at a bus stop near the school. When she didn't show up for her job at the Chicken Soup Brigade's thrift shop, her mother reported her missing. Initially, police treated her disappearance as a runaway case, a classification her family vehemently disputed, knowing it was entirely out of character for the dependable teenager.
Five days later, their worst fears were realized. A man walking his dog in the Capitol Hill neighborhood discovered Tanya's partially clothed body in a ravine in the 2200 block of East Highland Drive, just a few blocks from where she was last seen. The King County Medical Examiner's Office later determined that she had died from sharp force injuries to her head and neck. Investigators believed she had been killed elsewhere and her body moved to the location where it was found. Weeks later, some of her clothing was discovered at a golf course in West Seattle.
For over three decades, Tanya's case remained cold, a source of enduring pain for her family and a haunting mystery for the Seattle community. Despite collecting evidence, including DNA, at the scene, investigators were unable to identify a suspect. Generations of detectives worked on her case, refusing to let it be forgotten.
In a significant breakthrough more than 31 years after her death, advancements in forensic technology led to the arrest of a suspect in November 2025. Seattle police announced that 57-year-old Mark Anthony Russ was linked to Tanya's murder through DNA evidence recovered from the original crime scene. Russ, a registered sex offender with a history of violent crimes, including attempted rape, burglary, and robbery, had recently been released from prison on an unrelated matter. He was charged with premeditated first-degree murder with sexual motivation in Tanya's death. The arrest brought a sense of relief and renewed grief to Tanya's family, who had waited more than three decades for answers and the pursuit of justice.
