Alice Looney

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2:20Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice.

2:31Today I'm discussing the case of Alice Looney. At around midnight on August 16th, 2004, 38-year-old Alice Looney was dropped off at a store in Wapato, Washington, on the Yakima Indian Reservation. This was the last confirmed sighting of her. Over a year later, in November 2005, Alice's remains were discovered on an island in Status Creek, located on public land off Highway 22. Her cause of death remains unknown, but investigators believe it's possible she was strangled, and some theorize she may have been a victim of serial killer Israel Keys. This is the case of Alice Looney. On August 16, 2004, Alice Looney was at the Legends Casino in Toppenesh, Washington.

3:20This is located within the Yakima Indian Reservation. While there, Alice ran into her sister Mary and Mary's husband. She asked them for a ride to Wapato, which is about 10 minutes away. Around midnight, Mary and her husband dropped Alice off at a Roadrunner store in Wapato. Basically, Alice told them that she had$20 on her, that she'd be careful, and the last thing she said was, love you. But as the days began to pass, Alice's nieces and nephews realized that they hadn't heard from their Aunt Alice. And she spoke to them all the time, so this was immediately concerning to everyone involved. Once it became clear that Alice hadn't been in touch with anyone for several days, she was reported missing to the Yakima Tribal Police.

4:05They led the investigation into Alice's disappearance, while the FBI and Yakima County Sheriff's Office assisted. Now, Alice was born in Washington in 1965. Her parents were Eva and Wilkins Looney Sr., but unfortunately, in 1969, while Alice was just a small child, her father passed away. So, Alice pretty much grew up in the status and Georgeville areas of Washington. She lived in a house with her 10 older siblings. And of course, Alice's home was always super busy with her siblings, relatives, and just friends. Alice's mother, Eva, liked inviting people over, and she almost always had a full van of people wherever she went.

4:46We don't know a lot about Alice because unfortunately, there just hasn't been a lot of media coverage. But Alice's cousin, Doris, who was really more like a sister to her, told the Yakima Herald Republic, quote, Alice was very soft-spoken. She didn't have a hostile bone in her body. She was very sensitive. We also know that Alice loved fishing in the Columbia River, and she learned the traditional Yakima method of drying fish from her mother. Unfortunately, in 2001, Alice then lost her mother, Eva, and this really affected her. At this point, she really felt like she didn't have a place to call home anymore.

5:24Now, I do think it's important to note that the years following 2001, Alice would be gone for extended periods of time, sometimes even weeks at a time. It's believed that Alice would occasionally stay with a man whom she had an on-and-off-again relationship with, but she would also sometimes find a place to stay with various family members. But Alice's sister Caroline told the Yakima Herald Republic that Alice would often come stay with her because she enjoyed spending time with her niece. In fact, Caroline said, quote, she would always see the nieces more than us. So although Alice would be gone for weeks at a time, it was completely out of character for her to not reach out to anyone, especially her nieces.

6:07So when Alice went radio silent after August 16th, 2004, her family knew something wasn't right. And like I said, unfortunately, there's been very little media coverage of Alice and her disappearance, so it's not exactly clear what authorities did to investigate. But for this episode, I spoke with Josh Hallmark from the podcast True Crime Bullshit. He's researched and reported on serial killer Israel Keyes for about a decade. In the files he acquired about Keyes, he found information about Alice. But the pages following the discussion of Alice have been redacted. So again, it's just not clear what law enforcement has or hasn't done for Alice at this point.

6:48Luckily, we do know about her family's extensive efforts to find her. Again, referencing the Yakima Herald Republic, who has some excellent coverage of this case, they reported that Alice's family jumped into action as soon as they realized she was missing. Alice's sister Caroline and a friend created flyers and hung them wherever they could. Her loved ones also watched the news and read newspapers, hoping to find reports of Alice or anyone who resembled her. Her family also spoke to people around the reservation in hopes of finding someone who'd seen Alice. and while doing this, they found something.

7:23The family received a tip that she'd been walking along Track Road. The family went out to this area and walked along the fences, but they didn't find Alice or anything connected to her. They continued looking for Alice everywhere they went. Caroline told the Herald Republic, quote, Even if we were driving, we'd be looking by the side of the road. Alice's cousin Doris said that they were really just grasping at straws, trying to come up with any way to find Alice. They checked hospitals, they contacted other tribes, but again, no one had heard from her. Now, eventually, something did come through.

8:00At one point, the family learned that friends had seen Alice. They say that she was with a man in Wapato shortly after her sister dropped her off at Roadrunners, and Alice was also seen with the same man at the hideaway bar in Wapato. But it's unclear if police even investigated this lead. Alice's family just kept searching for her, kept searching for leads, any new information they could. This episode of Voices for Justice is brought to you by Quince. I love giving gifts, and Quince really does make that so easy. They have something for everyone, from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters for$50 that look and feel like designer pieces, silk tops and skirts for dressing up, perfectly cut denim for everyday wear, and outerwear that actually keeps you warm.

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11:03Brooks, Emma Mackey plays Ella McKay, an idealistic young woman who juggles family and work. in a story about the people you love and how to survive them. Featuring an all-star cast, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Loudon, Kumail Nanjiani, Iowa Debris, Julie Kaffner, with Albert Brooks and Woody Harrelson. Ella McKay, in theaters December 12th. Get tickets now. Eventually, Alice was found, but of course not in the way that any family hopes for. On November 30th, 2005, a hunter found Alice's skeletal remains under a log on an island in Status Creek. She was identified using dental records and steel braces on her upper leg bones from a 1984 car crash.

11:47Alice had actually been so seriously injured in the crash she had to relearn how to walk and wear a halo brace, so this did make it easier to identify her. The Yakima Herald Republic reported that an autopsy concluded Alice's remains had been under the log for more than a year. And unfortunately, due to the amount of decomposition, the forensic pathologist couldn't be certain how Alice died. However, he did find a fracture in Alice's hyoid bone, which possibly resulted from strangulation. Because of all this and all the other suspicious circumstances surrounding Alice's disappearance and death, the pathologist thought her death was a probable homicide.

12:28But her official cause and manner of death are unknown. Now, after finding Alice's remains, her family wasn't told about the exact location where they'd been discovered. And this was really upsetting to them. They wanted to pray and place a cross. But despite these upsetting circumstances, Alice's family is grateful to have her remains. Caroline told the Yakima Herald Republic, Just having her back was enough for me. The killer will pay even though I don't know who it is. Alice's probable homicide sparked discussions about the deaths and disappearances of 15 other women near the Yakima Indian Reservation.

13:10This is a huge area of 1.3 million acres. These incidents, of course, caused concern among Yakima Nation, law enforcement, and the community, and some people suspected a serial killer might be responsible. Now, in March 2006, the FBI met with the United States Attorney General on the Yakima Reservation. Following this, the FBI started looking into all these deaths and disappearances, including Alice's. Three years later, the FBI issued a report on their conclusions. And unfortunately, there were a lot of mistakes in this report. The FBI got some of the victims' names wrong, mixed up dates, and even listed the wrong cause of death in one instance.

13:54But they did come to a conclusion. In 2009, they announced that they did not think that this was the work of a serial killer. But after the FBI's investigation report was made public, many family members of the victims were skeptical that the FBI fully investigated the cases. Alice's sister Caroline told the Associated Press that she hadn't been interviewed by the FBI at all. After that report, there was little to no information released about Alice's case. But then, just a few years ago, Josh Hallmark was researching serial killer Israel Keys for his podcast True Crime Bullshit when he came across Alice's name.

14:33And like I mentioned, Josh was kind enough to join me for this episode. So here is Josh to tell us more about Israel Keys and the possible connection between him and Alice. My name is Josh Hallmark. I host and produce a show called True Crime Bullshit, which is an investigation into the serial killer Israel Keyes. I've been investigating him for 10 years. Essentially, Israel Keyes was a modern-day serial killer. He was active between 1998 and his arrest in 2012. He traveled extensively across the country. He was quite methodical. He would bury kill kits years in advance of his crimes. He claims to have only ever picked victims at random.

15:20We know that that's not entirely accurate, but we do believe that was a big part of his MO for the majority of his crimes. He grew up on an Indian reservation. He spent most of his life on or near reservations and always lived within about 10 miles of the American border. He worked on a reservation, so he was quite adept at understanding how jurisdictions work. And so he was able to use that to kind of muddy investigations into his victims. He would abduct someone from one jurisdiction and either kill them or bury them in another. He often put significant mileage in between his abductions and his burials.

16:07So he had a vast understanding of how criminal investigations worked and how he could manipulate or control them. You know, Alice's name came up a few times throughout my research. I think the first thing that we were really looking at was based on the FBI files, which I FOIA'd, it was very clear that Keyes had made statements about abducting people from reservations. They had sent out a press release and then followed up with every single tribe or Indian reservation in the country and in Canada. So they were very honed in on missing persons from indigenous tribes. So that piqued my interest, especially knowing about his history of living on and around tribes and his work with the Makah tribe in Washington state.

17:01Second to that, he had talked about at least one victim whose body had been recovered and that that victim was in or around Washington state in the earlier part of his, for lack of a better word, criminal career. And when that victim was found sometime after they were killed, police either said that it was accidental death or undetermined. Keys then spent a lot of time following up on that particular victim, trying to see if the police were ever going to determine that it was in fact a homicide. And he had said that this victim didn't get a lot of press coverage. So those two things kind of put Alice on my radar.

17:47And then I did a lot of research into her disappearance and Keys' timeline around the time of her disappearance and started to see some other circumstantial links. So, you know, I think if we're just looking at the evidence that Keyes could be involved, and it's not my job to say whether I think someone is a Keyes victim, it's my job just to lay out whatever evidence or circumstantial evidence we have. And Alice's case, you know, she does line up with the statements I made previously about, you know, someone who had gone missing from tribal lands, and someone whose body was later found and cause of death was undetermined.

18:26Beyond that, where Alice disappeared and where she was found in Wapato and Granger, those areas are directly between Keyes' two homes. He grew up in Colville, Washington, and eventually moved to Maupin, Oregon. And the highway that connects those two towns goes directly through Wapato and Granger. Additionally, at the time that Alice disappeared, Keyes made some strange life changes. His girlfriend at the time reported that he suddenly got a new car and she never saw him use it. She just saw it in his driveway. And when she asked him about it, he said it was for work, but he worked for tribal lands and used his truck for this.

19:10This was like a white Pontiac. So it wouldn't have been a good car for doing maintenance and repairs on the tribes. No one ever saw him driving this car. So we've kind of surmised that he was using this car in the commission of his crimes. In addition to that, shortly after Alice disappeared, Keyes cut off all of his hair and grew a mustache. So it was like he was putting in effort to change his appearance. On top of that, around the time she disappeared, Keyes took several days off of work and drove out to Eastern Washington to visit friends in a now pretty infamous soundbite from him. He laughs when asked about this and says, I don't have friends in Eastern Washington.

19:56Additionally, when investigators asked what jurisdictions Keyes had murdered people in, he asked where Ellensburg was jurisdictionally, if it was Eastern Washington or Western Washington. He wanted to know exactly where that area was so he could properly answer the question. And Wapato was actually 50 miles due south of Ellensburg. So it would make sense that if he was asking about Ellensburg but didn't want to give up a specific place where he did commit a crime, Wapato would be in line with that. So that's kind of the high level. You know, I went out to the site where she was found. There was an outhouse there.

20:38Keys used an outhouse to rape a teenage girl in either 1997 or 1998. He talked about using outhouses for other rapes. So there's just a lot of circumstantial evidence out there. It's also very near to where his stepson's father lived. He spent a lot of time out there. He bought a boat from his father at some point. He used to take his stepson out for weekends to visit his dad. And so it's an area he spent a lot of time in, particularly at that point and knew very well.

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22:54Unfortunately, that is where the information in Alice's case stops. In December 2020, two of Alice's sisters spoke with the Yakima Herald. At this point, it had been more than 16 years since Alice went missing. The sisters said that they have closure, but not justice. They just want to know what happened. They also still wonder about the man Alice was last seen with, and anyone else who may have been involved in her disappearance. Which brings me right to our call to action. Please share Alice's case. And of course, since Josh was kind enough to join us for this episode, I asked him how he thought we could help Alice end her case.

23:34Yeah, you know, I think it's really important that we, as true crime consumers and true crime producers, highlight, engage, spend time with marginalized people's cases. You know, I know any astute true crime listener knows about missing white woman syndrome. And I think the counter to that is we should spend more time learning about missing and murdered indigenous men and women, missing and murdered black and brown men and women, missing and murdered gay and trans men and women. And, you know, it's very easy to just follow the shows that we like and listen to those episodes. But I think it would do us all a lot of good and it would do the world and the system a lot of good if we actually put in the energy and effort into being thoughtful about what we consume.

24:32So if you have not heard of these cases, I think it's your job to go track them down, to learn more about them, to hold your local media accountable to covering these cases. As we talked about, Alice's case got very, very little media coverage. The only media coverage I have ever found on her case is from people covering missing and murdered Indigenous women, and most of those people are Indigenous themselves.

25:00As a reminder, 38-year-old Alice Ida Looney was last seen at around midnight on August 16, 2004. She was possibly seen walking along Track Road, at a man's house in Wapato, and or at the Hideaway Bar in Wapato. Her remains were found in November 2005 on an island in Status Creek. Anyone with information about the death of Alice Looney is asked to call the Yakima Nation Police Department at 509-865-2933 or the Yakima FBI office at 509 -453-4859. But, as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

25:51Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. This episode contains writing and research assistance by Haley Gray, with additional research assistance by Anna Luria. A special thank you to Josh Hallmark for participating in this episode. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show in your podcast player. It helps us and helps more people find these cases in need of justice.

27:07Welcome to the Secret After Show. So first and foremost, of course, I have to say thank you to Josh Hallmark from True Crime Bullshit for coming on the show. I know that serial killers aren't my forte. I mean, really, I'm just not educated enough on them to speak about them intelligently when it comes to connecting them to cases. Of course, you know, I was able to find a few things, but Josh is the authority in this case. He has done so much work surrounding Israel Keyes and this connection with Alice that it felt like a disservice to Alice to not include him. And of course, he was kind enough to come on, so again, thank you, Josh.