A 37-year-old Jefferson County missing-persons case has turned into a suspected triple murder case involving two jurisdictions with interest newly focused on Protection Island as the possible site of related human remains.
Investigators will trek back out to the island for the fourth time later this month to look for bones at several locations where an old development burn site may have been located.
The date of the next visit had not been set as of Tuesday.
Lack of water halted residential development years ago. The island, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and visible from Port Townsend, has been a national wildlife reserve since 1982, largely through the efforts of Eleanor Stopps of Port Townsend.
Investigators are not even sure the bones are there, said Joe Nole, chief criminal deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
They were tipped by someone who saw a KIRO-TV program about the case last fall. The witness remembered a fire and the odor of burning flesh all those years ago.
Since then, investigators have visited the island three times.
“We’ve searched all over for the bones,” Nole said. “Who knows, were they even human bones?”
This time, it may take some serious digging to uncover bones or fragments, said Nole, who is consulting with the state archeologist for the as-yet-unscheduled next visit.
Wildlife officials asked investigators to postpone digging until after nesting season.
The island is home to huge populations of sea birds, including rhinoceros auklets and tufted puffins, which nest on the ground.
Law enforcement authorities suspect a former civil engineer for Jefferson County, Glenn Bagley, who now lives in the Philippines, in both cases.
Bagley had a romantic relationship with 23-year-old Althea Blankenship, who rented a room for herself and her 4-year-old son, Jeffrey, from Bagley at the time of their disappearance, police said.
Bagley was overseeing development on Protection Island at the time.
He is also a suspect in the disappearance of his ex-wife, Esther Mae Gesler of Kent, who was last seen in 1976, authorities say.
KIRO’s interest in the cases was generated when producer Bill Benson tried to track down Blankenship, a former high school classmate, for a reunion.
But detectives had been working the two cold cases since 2004, Nole said.
KIRO’s attention last year attracted a tip from the witness, who believed bones recovered from the burn were turned over to the Sheriff’s Office.
If they were, they weren’t kept, Nole said. Neither case was investigated further at the time.
When Kent Police Detective Wayne Himple contacted Jefferson County deputies about another case in 2004, conversation led to the discovery that they had this case in common.
After Blankenship disappeared, Bagley told authorities she had left to be with her parents in another state, investigators learned.
KIRO found and visited Bagley in the Philippines, but he denied any knowledge of the disappearances, Nole said.
Nevertheless, both jurisdictions consider him a suspect in the possible murders of the two women and child, Nole said.
What they lack is physical evidence, which the bones could provide.
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Julie McCormick is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend.