“Sandra Renee Morden, Happy 15th Birthday. Love Always — Mom.”

Lindsay Schultz, a cold-case detective for the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, has spent a lot of time thinking about that simple message.

“Was it just a mom who loved her daughter — or did her mom know something and put it out there for that reason?” Schultz says. “It’s one of those two, right? You ponder it. You look at it and you think, What does it mean?”

The birthday greeting was published in The Oregonian’s classified-advertising section on April 29, 1977.

Which was right about the time Sandra Renee Morden disappeared — forever.

Nearly three years after that small newspaper ad appeared, skeletal remains were discovered at Fly Creek near Amboy, Washington. Forensics found evidence of trauma “that is not natural,” but detectives couldn’t identify the victim beyond determining she was an adolescent girl.

She became known as The Fly Creek Jane Doe.

And that’s essentially where the homicide case stood for nearly 40 years — until investigators uploaded a DNA sample to a public genetic genealogy database recently and followed the branches of the possible family trees.

“I had no idea Sandra Morden even existed until I made a cold call and explained the awkwardness of the call,” Schultz says.

Thanks to the DNA investigation by Virginia-based Parabon NanoLabs and Schultz’s awkward phone call to a cousin of Sandra Renee Morden, The Fly Creek Jane Doe has now been identified.

This was a dramatic breakthrough in a very cold case, and yet Sandy Morden’s murder remains shrouded in mystery. So detectives are asking for the public’s help. They want anyone who knew Sandy, or knew her parents, to get in touch with them.

“We do believe people have information about what happened to her,” Schultz says.

One of the problems in solving the long-ago murder is that it seems Sandy, an only child, was largely “unsupervised,” the detective says. “She was a latchkey kid. That possibly had something to do with her demise.”

There are a lot of blanks to fill in. Investigators don’t even know whether Sandy’s parents reported her as missing to the police.

“We didn’t have [the National Crime Information Center] at that time,” Schultz points out.

Sandy’s parents divorced in the early 1970s and apparently didn’t keep in touch with each other thereafter. Sandy’s mother, Kathryn Irene Morden, had custody of Sandy, and then at some point the girl was living with her father, Andrew Bain Morden — even though he often was gone for long periods, working on tugboats.

Family lore, Schultz says, is that “Dad believed she was with mom.” He came home after an extended stretch of work, and she was gone. Schultz says he apparently “had suspicions that she may have run off with Mom. We don’t know for certain. We know that’s what family members believe.”

Irene Morden died in San Francisco in 1988, Andy Morden 11 years later in Washington state.

Photos of Sandy Morden, a Wilson High School student at the time of her disappearance, capture a striking, dark-haired girl with a big smile. One series of snapshots show her in November 1974, goofing around with — or maybe endearingly embarrassed by — her father as he strikes funny poses during a family gathering.

Schultz says there was “nothing notable” about Sandy — no trouble with the law or other known problems.

Records indicate Sandy may have still been in school in May of 1977, but it’s not clear. That lack of clarity fits with the rest of the case.

“There are a lot of unknowns,” Schultz says.

The detective says the investigation could “go in any direction. A stranger, a neighbor, family friend.”

She said they aren’t calling either parent a suspect, “but we have very limited information on Mom.” After her divorce, Irene Morden seems to have dropped into a black hole for a while.

Cold cases are always tough, but Shultz believes Sandra Renee Morden’s murder can be solved.

“People do remember things even after 40 years,” she says. “Sometimes they need [a cold case] put in front of them, and they realize, ‘I knew her mom,’ or ‘I worked with her dad.’ Sandy must have had a girlfriend she hung out with. We want to talk to that friend.”

Anyone who might have information about any of the Mordens should contact Det. Lindsay Schultz at Lindsay.Schultz@clark.wa.gov or call the Clark County Sheriff’s Office at 360-397-2036.

— Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry

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