Ridecamp: [RC] Guns, illegal crossing, murder

Otay, hubby fed for me, and things are slow on the lists so here goes my
story, and I may or may not stick to it, depending on which of the Feds show
up at my door.

The trip up to Canada was uneventful until I got to the border crossing at
Kingsgate, BC, just over the Idaho Border North of Bonners Ferry.(Beautiful
little town that is)

I was to meet the sellers at Kingsgate on the Canadian side to pick up my
new horse. I never ride or travel alone without a weapon. I was worried
about carrying a handgun and an 8 inch hunting knife through the Border
Crossing, but more worried about being unarmed and alone, sleeping in rest
stops or along the side of the road.

I spoke with a couple of Canadian Truckers while still in Oregon and they
sounded pretty worried about the gun. Said that Canada had no sense of humor
concerning that. But, they felt that since I was not traveling through the
country just to hide it and I should be fine.

I get to the Crossing and the gal in the window first wants to see my ID. So
I give her my Driver's License. No, she wants my birth certificate and
passport. Well, first off, I don't have a Birth Certificate, so obviously
can't get a passport. I was smart enough to not tell her that, and make her
wonder WHY I don't have one. So I just played dumb and said I didn't know I
had to have that just to come to the border and wait for the horse. She let
that slide with a stern warning and I am starting to think "Oh S*%&"

Next comes the biggie; Are you carrying any weapons? hand guns, stun guns,
mace, rifles, anything? No. Aren't Stun Guns illegal? So she says, You are a
woman traveling alone and you carry no weapons? I said well, first off, I
didn't think I needed to, and secondly I wouldn't know how to use a gun if I
did have one, as I have never fired a pistol in my life. good thing I am
such a good BS-er. So, she let that one go by too.

Next, and this one caught me by surprise, Do  you have any alcohol with you?
Absolutely not. (Just a 12 pack of Corona and a jug of Merlot)  Okay, that
gets by, I am sure I am breaking out in beads of sweat now. Then the dreaded
FRUIT third degree.

Do you have any fruits or veggies with you? No Ma'am, nothing. I am eating
in restaurants.(except for the watermelon, cantaloupe, peaches, nectarines,
kiwi, plums, apples, carrots for the horse, and two bananas and fruit
yogurt) Gads! those Canadians are nosey, eh?

So I get permission to park right behind the building and wait for the
horse. Get the horse and all is well coming back.

My plan was to try to make it to Oregon City to stay with my friend, DeAnn
Schnepple, AERC member, lots of miles and a good friend that I made at
Pacific Crest a couple of years ago. I made it as far as The Dalles along
the Central part of Oregon on the Columbia River and decided I couldn't
drive any further. I pulled behind this restaurant to park for the night and
was attempting to screw a hose onto the new water tank that was sitting on
the bed of my truck.

I couldn't get the hose to go on as it needed room to turn. All of the
sudden this Troll, pops out of the pavement and he is driving a 48 ft.
trailer with a Hot Shot pulling Harleys for a couple of guys from New
Jersey.

He is eyeballing me, so I ask if he has any water as I need to get some to
my horse. He comes to my rig, and of course I don't have a weapon out there
with me, so I grab the two foot long flashlight ready to kill him with one
false move. To cut to the chase, he tells me all about his story and helps
me get the water hose attached and then tells me he feels much better
knowing that I am sleeping out there with "Tons" of weapons (I let him know
that I am heavily armed and a dead nuts shot, unlike the story I gave the
Canadian Guard) Then he tells me that breakfast is on him and how much he
will look forward to our little tete`a tete` in the am. THEN, he says, "if
you want to have a nice hot shower, feel free to come up to my room, number
110" Oh, boy! that sounds great, thanks!

As soon as he was in his motel, I packed up everything and hauled ass down
the highway. Called DeAnn and said I just can't make it, I was weaving all
over the road, no, I hadn't had anything to drink, that was only once I got
in bed would I have a sip of wine, and one beer for lunch, sorry to
disappoint Howard, but that is my limit. I was just plumb tired.

So I parked behind a Best Western and woke up the next morning to a guy
standing behind me doing Tai Chai. Well, that looked safe.

Get to DeAnn's and unpacked the horse to stretch out. He had a very long
journey coming from Rosiland, AB. So she and her nephew, Jonathan 15, and
her sweet hubby, Terry and I are having a nice visit. Later that afternoon,
I pack up to leave and head home about another 5 hours on the road and get
10 miles from her house when the temp gauge comes on and it is over 230
degrees!

I limp into a shopping mall. Call DeAnn and Terry to come rescue me. The
outside temperature was 103. I am opening the doors on the trailer to keep
Strider cool and when they arrived, coolant was all over the ground. DeAnn
went home, got her trailer and we took the horse back to her house while
Terry limped the truck and trailer back to their place, took close to three
hours to go ten miles.

Okay, unhook the GN, have the truck towed to the Dodge dealer and it turns
out something hit the fan and bent the hell out of one of the blades and put
a fist sized hole in the radiator. Plus the brakes were acting up and had
them checked and there were no brakes. The pads were almost metal to metal.
Great.

Well, looks like DeAnn is stuck with me for a few days, like from Tuesday to
Friday. So what's a couple of endurance riders to do? Ride of course!! So
Wednesday, she and Jonathan and I went and rode in a beautiful wooded area
in Beavercreek. That is when I fell in love with Strider, that is when he
went so fast at a RW that my helmet felt like it would fly off. We had a
blast.

The next morning Terry has the Oregonian Newspaper in Hand and says that the
number one Suspect in the disappearance of two young Oregon City girls was
arrested for raping his son's 19 year old girlfriend. The son called the
police and said that his father confesssed to him that he killed the two
girls. His girlfriend escaped with her life and ran naked to a nearby shoe
store. These 12 and 13 year old girls lived in an apartment complex near
DeAnn and the police suspected this character of the kidnapping and possible
murder since they were reported missing in January and February.

We have to go to the shopping center to get grub for dinner and DeAnn says,
do you want to see where this guy lives? Well, I am always up for an
adventure and said heck yes. Then DeAnn tells me that her friends know this
guy and he had talked about putting a hot tub in and laying a cement pad.

Well WHOA! my vivid imagination now tells me that this is where these girls
are buried, so we high tail it up there and across the street from the guys
house, is every news team you can imagine, CNN, all the local news media,
they all had satellites up waiting for something to happen. But the weird
thing was, there was no cops, no yellow tape, nothing at the house.

We park next to the news people and I ask one of the reporters what's up? He
didn't know a thing. Well, why aren't you over there? He said he couldn't go
over. Then we told him of the hot tub and the cement and that is probably
where the girls are buried. We said we were going over and would report to
him any findings.

We get to the house, and in a shed in the back was a stench that DeAnn and I
both immediately recognized as dead flesh. It was hair raising, but the most
was yet to come. In the shed was black trash bags all knotted up. In one of
them was a bag full of puppets, dolls, teddy bears. In another was little
girls clothing. Where in the hell are the cops? We couldn't believe this.

Then we went to the house, I saw the pad where the hot tub was going and the
hot tub itself was against the house. There was a big tarp over the ground
where he apparently was going to place the hot tub. So I am looking under
the tarp for the concrete pad and all of the sudden DeAnn shouts, amber!
quick come look at this.

I went over to the side of the house, and DeAnn points out that along the
original sidewalk and the foundation of the house, new concrete was poured,
and it wasn't done by any professional. Also, the crawl space under the
house was covered up with a board and cemented shut. We both just gasped and
said this is where the little girls are buried. Again, we are in disbelief
that there are no cops around at all.

We go back to the shed and are looking around and smelling that smell again,
when we turn around and there are these two men coming towards us. One looks
like an FBI guy the other is holding a camera. DeAnn says, Oh S--- we are
busted. Just remain calm, my son is a Deputy Medical Examiner in Washington
and Multnomah Countys and also works for the State Coroners office, he will
get us out of this........hopefully.

 we are all looking at each other with trepidation and the G-Man says
something first and then before he can read me my Miranda Rights, I ask him
who he is. He is a reporter with channel 12 News in Portland. As we got
closer, I looked at him and said "David Wilson, is that you?" and he goes
yes, who are you? I pulled off my sunglasses and said I am amber applegate,
from Medford area. You interviewed me three years ago about the Cougar kill
on my property. He couldn't believe it!!

 he is following us all around and we are showing him what we found and
where we think the girls are buried. He also smells the stench in the shed.
Then he tells us that this weirdo, the suspect, his father is serving on
Death Row in San Quentin for killing a couple in Bakersfield, Ca. and he
buried the bodies there and then a week later came back and dug up the woman
and took her home and buried her in his backyard and covered her with a
cement pad. Mutant Genetics, perhaps??

Then as soon as we leave, I call my son on the cell phone and start to tell
him what we found. He was just interupting me like I was on drugs or
something, saying how the hell could we have been there and just wouldn't
shut up about it, so I finally told him to Shut the %*#@ up and listen to me
and if he didn't believe me he could hang up on me.

By the time I got through especially when I mentioned the reporter David
Wilson and told my son that David wanted to do another story on Brian ( he
also did two feature stories on Brian about the same time he intervied me on
the cougars, not knowing we were even related) he was listening and said he
was calling a gal that he knows that is an FBI agent.

She was out of town, mourning the basejumping death of her boyfriend and a
collegue of my son's. So he instead calls the Clackamas County Medical
Examiner and told him what we were up to and about the cement. They said
they know all about it and are waiting until this next week to present the
evidence to the Grand Jury for an indictment to get a search warrent to dig
up the cement walkway.

That night, on the local news, DeAnn said it was too chilling. I had already
turned in and on the news was the mother of one of  the little girls and she
had made a sign out of cardboard that said "Please Dig Me Up" and placed it
right on the cement where we had been standing and had it surrounded with
candles.


Next time anyone sees DeAnn at the rides, please accuse her of getting me
involved. DeAnn, I need you to verify all of this.
amber



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