Chapter 3
“Richard Clark took his sick and twisted need for control and gratification out on a bright and promising child,” said Roxanne's mother several years later. “He didn't need to take my child. He didn't need to find power in killing her, but he did.”
In retrospect, there was as much precognitive irony as perverted tragedy in the death of Roxanne Doll. The month prior to her kidnapping, a policeman lectured her class at Fairmont Elementary School on the dangers of child abduction. “If someone tries to kidnap you,” said the police officer, “kick and yell.”
“When we were by the slide and the trees,” recalled playmate Melissa Greenman, “Roxanne said that she was afraid that if she were kidnapped, she would be sad. She would like to be home. She worried about being kidnapped in her sleep. I taught her how to kick and punch.”
The two weeks before her death, Roxy's mood and demeanor took a downturn. “She was afraid of a man who was giving her gifts, a man who she was very uncomfortable with,” affirmed commentary entered in her school records. The man who gave her gifts, the man who groomed her for abduction, was Richard M. Clark.
He utilized the same methodology with Feather Rahier. A puppy enchants the child; gifts soften her up. In both episodes, neither technique overcame the child's apprehension or revulsion. For whatever reason, Richard Clark named his new puppy “Misty”âthe name of Feather Rahier's sister, the one who summoned Angela Rono to pull her daughter from the dark garage.
“Roxanne was a very pretty girl and always friendly to everyone,” recalled Gail Doll. “She wasn't afraid of new people or things. She loved to read and play with her sisters. The month just before her death, Roxy mastered riding her bike.”
In truth, Roxy was blossoming in physical grace and personal accomplishment. Her school records reveal a child of resolve, charm, and dedication. Faced with early challenges in certain skills, she not only overcame her initial difficulties, but also surpassed expectations.
“Roxy would go to the school's library instead of playing on the playground most of the time,” said Gail. “She wouldn't just read picture books, she would read books that had lots of words and very few pictures, and she read her older sisters' books too.
“Roxy loved pets and animals in general. She would play with our cats and they would allow her to wrap them in baby-doll clothes, blankets, and put them to sleep in her doll buggy. They never clawed or fussed.
“After her death, her favorite cat left, I guess to go find her. I don't know, but when she was gone, so was he. Roxy had always loved to play with her dolls. When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said she wanted to be a mommy.”
Fascinated with infants, Roxanne delighted in the presence of younger children. “She loved it when her baby cousins came over,” her mother recalled. “She would carry them around and feed them their bottle, play with them. At school, family functions, or Scouts, she would locate the families that had babies just so she could play with them.”
Easygoing, charmingly feminine, and innately musical, Roxanne loved singing. “Roxy knew a lot of songs from Disney movies and church,” recalled Gail. “She would sing them in the car or to her baby dolls. She was a very easygoing child that knew what she wanted in life and would tell youâshe wanted to be a mommy and have twelve children. She would get up every morning and do her hair in braids or ponytails and she wore dresses even in the winter months. It was a fight to get her to wear pants. She had very good manners and crossed her legs âlike the movie stars did.'”
Gail tucked her daughters in bed that Friday night, and naturally anticipated seeing them in the morning. Roxanne went to sleep wearing a brand-new nightgown. When young Nicholas said he couldn't find Roxanne, Gail was understandably concerned. The new nightgown was atop the bedroom dresser.
“Long before I called 911,” remembered Gail, “I searched everywhere for my daughter. I looked in Nick's room. I looked everywhere. I called the neighbors and Roxanne's friends. Then I went next door to Shawn Angilley's and asked her if she had seen Roxanne. I called my sister Trish, called my friend Kim and told her that I couldn't find Roxanne.” Gail also called her mother, Willa Doll, and her eldest daughter, Jennifer, in the nearby town of Arlington. “I even went back again to Shawn's. Finally, at about ten-thirty in the morning, I called 911.”
The responding officer, Daniel Johnson, was no stranger to missing persons investigations. A police officer with the city of Everett, Johnson had close to sixteen years' experience the day he responded to Gail Doll's desperate call.
“Almost every missing persons call that I have been involved in,” recalled Johnson, “they have all been found in various places. They were either at the neighbors' playing, or I found them sleeping under beds, in closets, in the car, or they went to the grocery store with Momâand Dad didn't know it. Or they were at the park and went walking on the beach and the parents didn't see them go, but they were always found.”
When Johnson arrived, he found an understandably upset Gail Doll. “I immediately started asking questions, like where she might be, where is the dadâI was trying to see if she might have gone with somebody, got up early and went playing.
“The father, Tim Iffrig, had left early in the morning on a camping excursion,” recalled Johnson. “Also scheduled to go along was Roxanne's grandmother Neila D'alexander. It was highly possible that the girl had, at the last minute, been included in the camping party. I advised that we should wait and see if we could find her husband because maybe Roxanne had gone with him.”
Gail Doll and Officer Johnson agreed on a simple plan: “We decided the best thing to do,” said Johnson, “was to contact Tim Iffrig's mother because she was going to go on the camping trip also. Gail called the mother-in-law and she still had not been picked up. We were going to wait until Mr. Iffrig arrived at his mother's to pick her up to determine whether or not Roxanne was with him.”
Officer Johnson returned to the Doll-Iffrig home shortly after one o'clock. “That's when I found out that Mr. Iffrig had never picked up his mother, and that it would be a good idea to send somebody up to where he had gone camping to see whether or not Roxanne was with him.”
When Gail discovered via telephone that her husband and Richard Clark were seen heading to the campsite without Roxanne aboard the van, Johnson immediately called a conference with Sergeant Jerry Zillmer and other superiors who had followed him back to the Doll-Iffrig residence.
“Initially,” Sergeant James Stillman of the Everett Police Department later commented, “I was called on April first when it came to the police department's attention that Roxanne Doll was missing. Our watch commander assumed duty in the early afternoon of April first. He, in turn, called me because he was aware that I was the acting lieutenant of the criminal investigations unit. He asked for my response, and I responded by going to the Doll residence. There were numerous others there by then also,” said Stillman, “including Officer Johnson and other uniformed patrol officers, and Jerry Zillmer, a sergeant with the patrol division.”
Detective Lloyd Herndon responded to the victim's residence at 4:35
P.M.
after being contacted at home by Lieutenant Peter Hegge, the watch commander at the Everett Police Department. “When I arrivedâand Detective Kiser arrived alsoâI made contact with Sergeant Zillmer, who was on the scene directing a search of the nearby woods.”
“Herndon and Kiser had gathered quite a bit of information prior to me getting there,” recalled Stillman, “and attempts were made to talk with everyone who was present at the Doll residence. The detectives had to determine who actually had been at the Doll residence before it was first noticed that Roxanne was missing. Unfortunately, some of those who had been at that residence the day prior to her going to bed that night and throughout the night were not present, such as Richard Clark.”
“We seriously began to locate anyone and everyone,” said Detective Herndon, “who might have had even an opportunity to be at the residence, or might have had some type of knowledge or connection to Roxanne Doll.”
Kiser and Herndon were told to focus their efforts on Richard Clark and the other campers accompanying Tim Iffrig. Sergeant Stillman and Detective Costa went to Arlington, Washington, a small town not far from Everett, to locate Willa Doll, Roxanne's grandmother.
“We wanted to know if she had any information or knowledge as to where the child might be,” Stillman said. “We did locate Willa Doll and spoke to her, and also Gail's eldest daughter, Jennifer, who was there also. We found nothing of any value there, as far as information.”
Meanwhile, back at the Doll-Iffrig residence, Detective Costa took responsibility for organizing the manpower and plans for the extensive search expanding outward from the home. “He gathered the assistance of Explorer personnel,” said Stillman. “Those are teenagers involved in law enforcement, a Scouting-type program. We garnered the assistance of the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office and their resources.”
“We had called in the south end and central police units,” confirmed Officer Johnson. “We notified dispatch to contact the K-9 units, and we had two K-9 units respond. There was a wooded area; there were several abandoned houses to the west of the residence. We searched every one of those abandoned houses; we searched every car in the used-car lot to the north. Even the trunks of every car were checked. We checked Pilchuck Sports, all of the boats, all of the buildings outside of there.”
Johnson personally searched the entire Doll-Iffrig residence, room by room. “Inside the home, with a flashlight, I checked under beds, in closets, moved stuff around, and made sure that she wasn't somewhere in the house. We checked the car outside. There was a trailer and a garage-type thing, and everything was checked, including the neighbors'. We handed out flyers that we made, and we gave flyers to all the neighbors.”
Gail Doll, her best friend, Kim Hammond, and brother-in-law William D'alexander drove up to the campsite to find Tim, Richard Clark, and the other camping companions. “At two o'clock,” recalled Gail Doll, “we got in Kim's car and went to find Tim.”
“We drove up to Granite Falls,” recalled Kim. “They were camping up toward Red Bridge and we went up there to try to locate them. We spotted a sheriff's car in the area at one of the campsites up there and we talked to the deputy and told him who we were and asked him to help us. We gave him a description of the van, and gave him a description of Tim. He said he would help us.
“The deputy went one way, and we went the other,” Kim said. “We turned around and were heading back up the hill when the deputy flashed his lights and we pulled over. He said that he found them and that they were just up the road.”
Kim, Bill D'alexander, and Gail Doll arrived at the campsite to notify Tim of Roxanne's disappearance. “When we first pulled up,” recalled Kim, “I really didn't see much of anything because I stayed in the car. I didn't even get out, just Gail and Tim's brother got out of the car. And then Tim and a couple other people came walking up from the river.”
“I didn't believe Gail at first when she told me about Roxy,” said Tim Iffrig. “I thought it was an April Fools' joke, but then I glanced down and I seen this flyer in her hand and I started to believe. I was scared, and pissed off, and hurtâI don't know, so emotional thatâI just really don't know what my emotion exactly was. I just heard my daughter is missing, you know. I was just all stressed out.”
Gail Doll, although preoccupied with her daughter's disappearance, noticed that Richard Clark looked different. “He had shaved off his mustache,” said Gail, “and he was wearing black-rimmed glasses that I'd never seen on him before.” Tim, despite being with Richard Clark on and off since the previous afternoon, noticed nothing.
“I'm not a very observant person,” commented Tim Iffrig later, “he could have been bouncing off the walls and I wouldn't have noticed.”
The group, shocked by news of Roxy's disappearance, immediately broke camp.
“Everyone was pretty freaked out about what Gail said,” recalled Vicki Smith. “We started packing everything up. As for the sleeping bags, I didn't bother rolling 'em up like normal. I just picked 'em up and folded them in a real hurry and threw them in Richard's van because everyone was concerned with what was going on.”
Tim rode home with Gail, and Richard Clark was told to bring Tim's camping gear home in his van. “We stopped at Granite Falls on the way home,” said Gail. “We called home and asked if there was any news on Roxy, and to say that Tim was with us and that we were on the way home. We got back about four or five in the afternoon.”
“We pulled into the driveway,” recalled Iffrig, “and we were lucky to be able to get in there because there were so many police cars, media, and one or two of Gail's friends there. I just got out and I talked to one of the police officers, and if I remember correctly, had somebody else write out my statement with my acknowledgment and my signature because I've got pretty bad handwriting.”
Awaiting Iffrig at the house were Detectives Kiser and Herndon of the Everett Police Department. “This wasn't the first time I'd met Tim Iffrig,” Herndon recalled. “Shortly after their son, Nicholas, was born, I got called up to the hospital. It seems that Tim had a pet ferret at home. The ferret somehow managed to get out of its cage one night, and it crawled up into Nick's crib.” Detectives aren't trained in ferret motivation, Herndon acknowledged, but for whatever reason, the adorable animal found Nicholas's ear an item of interest.