Gregg Olsen - Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest

Authors Notes
and
Acknowledgments

The boxes had barely been unloaded when a cabinetmaker from up Banner Road slowed his pickup to a halt in the middle of the lane to welcome my family to Olalla. He was a friendly sort, with a steel wool-wiry beard that would have put Papa Hemingway to shame. When neighborly conversation turned to what I did for a living, I told him I was a nonfiction crime writer.

Have I got a story for you, Bill Murphy confided as he waved a car around his truck. It happened here in Olalla nearly a hundred years ago.

I smiled with polite interest. It happens all the time. New acquaintances always know of a family member or friend who would make the basis for a true crime book. It comes with the territory.

They call the place where the murder happened Starvation Heights. A woman doctor killed her patients up there.

Sounds kind of interesting, I offered as I shrugged toward the house indicating I had other work to do.

Murphy said hed take me up to see the old place.

Opal Jones lives up there. Shes a great gal... kind of an old hippie.

A day or two later Murphy called and drove me up the hill to Starvation Heights.

And so it began. It was the start of a three-year search for the bits and pieces of a story that had nearly slipped into oblivion.

T HE JOURNEY TO Starvation Heights, the book, that is, has been remarkable for the generous help of the many people who assisted me in assembling my research materials. Two who stand out are Bev Simpson and Clifford Cernick.

I owe a tremendous gratitude to Bev Simpson. No author has ever been more fortunate to find such a talented and driven researcher. Over the course of more than a years time, flight attendant Bev made dozens of visits to New Zealand and Australia. Each time she returned home, she had a packet of information from libraries, government offices, and friends she enlisted to help search out any possible nugget about the Williamson sisters and Dr. Hazzard. Without Bevs astonishing finds, it is fair to say this book would not be half what it is. She will never know how much I appreciate every bit of the material that she brought back for me or that she discovered here in the States.

Her messages often ran to the end of the tape.

Famous author? Bev here, she would begin before launching into an idea or suggestion on another way to overcome a research stumbling block. I hated to erase those messages from my answering machine. Her enthusiasm was a motivator when frustrating miles of census reels gave nothing but eyestrain.

I thought I knew how to research something. That was before I met Ms. Simpson.

W HAT COULD I say about Cliff Cernick? He and I are kindred spirits. I saw Cliffs name on a letter written March 25, 1949, seeking information from the Washington State Penitentiary. He was writing an article about Dr. Hazzard. I went to the library to see if a Mr. Cernick ever published a book. He had. Books on aviation and Alaska. When I finally tracked him down, Cliff Cernick, now in his late seventies, knew instantly what I was talking abouteven though nearly fifty years had passed.

I asked him why he hadnt completed the project.

Oh, Mr. Olsen, he said, I was a young man at the time, busy with other things in life, and I just couldnt do the story justice. But Ive never forgot it.

Any chance you have some notes or any source material? I asked hopefully.

There was a short pause.

Think I do. Ive got a regular rats nest of boxes around here, but I think I kept that Hazzard stuff. That book will be a best-seller!

A couple of weeks later, a big manila envelope arrived postmarked Anchorage, Alaska. I ripped the package open, knowing that the man who sent it had a five-decade jump on the story. I was not disappointed. Inside I found literally hundreds of slips of paper, scraps of notes, interviews, little bits and pieces that I imagined would likely find their way into Starvation Heights. Cliff Cernick, you are my hero. I only hope I did this storya story that nagged at you for fifty yearsjustice.

P EOPLE AND PAPER. When it gets down to it thats what makes a book based on a true story. It was more than a stroke of luck that the fasting specialist had fought her conviction in the Williamson case. Without Linda Burfield Hazzard being true to form and appealing her conviction, I would have been robbed of some of the best materialthe basis for critical areas of Starvation Heightsthe trial transcript and case exhibits. Though no one had asked for it for more than eighty years, I had access to letters Claire and Dr. Hazzard wrote, the diary entries, copies of the doctors books, and much more. I thank Tyler Williamson of the Archives for the Washington State Supreme Court, Temple of Justice, Olympia, for his help in retrieving the case material for me and ensuring that I got every available page. The transcript from Samuel Hazzards bigamy trial was also a godsend, discovered among the archives at the Hennepin County Government Center, Minneapolis. Lucian Agassizs correspondence concerning Dr. Hazzard came by way of Joan McPherson at the Library and Records Department, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Hanslope Park, Milton Keynes, UK.

There are so many who helped with Starvation Heights (either consenting to interviews or digging through their attics and basements to unearth bric-a-brac like letters, comics, books, even a Wilderness Heights business card), and if I have made an oversight, please forgive and know that you did your part in keeping this story alive.

I thank wonderful new friends Chuck and Opal Abundis for their enthusiastic hospitality as I counted the stairs of their homethe old Hazzard residenceand plundered the ravine for clues to the life that was; Janetta Nelson, for her gorgeous photographs, archival treasures, and warm friendship; and Verna Fagerud, Bernice Crouse, Hardis Smith, Cammie Tallman, Irene and Ray Tallman, Bill and Bunny Kuhlman, Cathy Wolfe, Ken Oas, Ray Johnson, Art Banfil, Duke the Duke of Hazzard Tanksley, Anne Scott, Ernest Bloomquist, Theresa Heyer, Don Bruer, Marcia Beck, Marvin Lillie, John Smith, Pauline Fein Petersen, Ed Fein, Charlee Glock-Jackson, Becky Beck, Jack Eaton, Cliff and Florence Hurd, Lu Pendarvis, Sandra Ashlock, Ernie Carlson, Bill Burchett, Marie Sheedy, Helen Gage, Hugh Buchanan, Alfred Gangness, Maggie Forsman, Hertha Willock Bancroft, Marie Jessen Bowman, Ethel Olander, Myrtle Nelson, Andy James, Helen Ross, Fredi Perry, Warren B. Anderson, Bill Burchett, Patricia Park, June Wolfe, Paula Bates, Dr. Raj Vasudeva, Tina Marie Schwichtenberg, and quick information specialist Barbara Erickson.

I also wish to thank the contributions of some I never met. Through the generosity of Janetta Nelson, I was able to meet Jennie Tuttle, Rose Willock, Ruby Baker, and Myrtle Culver through oral history tapes recorded by Janetta and her late husband Carl in 1972.

R ESEARCHING A CASE as old as the Hazzard story took me to museums, libraries, and archives from Washington to Minnesota. Many thanks to the historians who guided my efforts along the way. Chief among them: Charles LeWarne, author and Washington State historian; Richard Engeman, University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections; Brian Kamens, Northwest Room, Tacoma Public Library; Suzanne Annest, director, Kitsap Historical Society and Museum; Virgil Reames, South Kitsap Historical Society and Log Cabin Museum, Port Orchard; volunteers at the Federal Records Center, National Archives, Seattle; Marty Lukens, Family History Center, LDS, Tacoma; Ivy Larsen, genealogist, Salt Lake City; and the very efficient and always helpful Pat Hopkins, research/archivist at the Washington State Archives, Olympia.

I visited and corresponded with a number of court clerk offices as I sought information on civil or criminal actions concerning the Hazzards or their cronies. I thank the folks at the King County, Kitsap County, Pierce County (Washington), and Ottertail County (Minnesota) clerk offices for their assistance.