A man is found shot to death
On a Wednesday afternoon, the 14th of September in 1988, the life of Nelson P. Byerly, a 50-year-old male who owned a construction company in Belfair, Washington, was brought to an abrupt and violent end. He had arranged to meet a client that day at the Mission Creek Trail, a familiar sort of meeting place for a man whose business often involved excavating land. The rural parking lot near the trailhead, however, would become the scene of his untimely death. Passersby noticed a man collapsed in the gravel and quickly alerted the authorities.
Upon their arrival, first responders discovered Byerly’s body, riddled with multiple gunshot wounds. It was immediately clear to investigators that this was a homicide. There were no signs of a struggle at the scene, suggesting that the encounter may not have been a confrontation, or that Byerly was taken by surprise. Medical examiners were able to recover a bullet from his body, but unfortunately, it could not be matched to a specific firearm, leaving a crucial piece of evidence at a dead end.
The investigation into Nelson Byerly's murder has stretched on for decades, leaving his family with unanswered questions and a sense of unresolved grief. At the time of his death, Byerly was navigating a difficult period in his personal life, having recently divorced his ex-wife, Barbara Draper, with whom he was engaged in a contentious custody battle over their two children. On the very day of his murder, a court hearing regarding their custody arrangements was scheduled to take place. Byerly had also recently remarried a woman named Vicky. While investigators looked into those close to him, his new wife was cleared as a suspect. Despite numerous interviews and years of police work, no arrests have ever been made in connection with the murder of Nelson P. Byerly, and the case remains a painful, unsolved chapter for his loved ones.
