Dayton Leroy Rogers: The Molalla Forest Killer
Early Life and Background
Dayton Leroy Rogers was born on September 30, 1953, in Moscow, Idaho, and grew up in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. By the early 1980s he was a married small-engine mechanic, but mounting debt and a lifelong pattern of violence set the stage for murder.
Modus Operandi & Victimology
Rogers cruised Portland’s 82nd Avenue red-light corridor in a blue Nissan pickup, luring vulnerable “street” women—runaways, sex-workers, and addicts—into remote timberland. Once isolated, he bound his victims with coat-hanger ligatures or dog collars, tortured and repeatedly stabbed them (often focusing on their feet because of a fetish), then concealed the bodies beneath brush.
Discovery of the Molalla Forest Dump Site
On August 31, 1987, a hunter stumbled upon a decomposed body off South Molalla Forest Road, about 30 miles south of Portland. Detectives soon uncovered six additional female remains scattered within a one-mile radius—one of Oregon’s largest homicide scenes.
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