HUCKLEBERRIES: Time passes, memories remain strong

Sixty years have passed, but the question remains: Who killed Susan Stewart?

The naked remains of the 17-year-old summer visitor from Missouri were found face down in shallow water along the west side of Tubbs Hill.

Susan’s body was discovered by off-duty Fire Chief Joe Turk on Saturday morning, August 22, 1964.

According to the Coeur d’Alene Press, that afternoon, Turk and his family were heading to the southwest tip of Tubbs Hill for a picnic when they saw blood stains on the ground. Turk followed the blood trail about 200 feet through rocks and brush to the water’s edge.

His worst fears were confirmed when he located Susan’s bludgeoned body.

The girl’s murder remains unsolved today.

None of the local police officers at the time remembered a murder in Coeur d’Alene.

“This is the most significant case we’ve had in my 18 years with the Coeur d’Alene Police Department,” Police Chief George Lenz said in a 2014 Inlander article on the 50th anniversary of the unsolved crime. Lenz had been named police chief three weeks earlier.

An intensive search of the area by police and sheriff’s deputies yielded few clues. Twenty officers and volunteers combed Tubbs Hill that weekend. Three dozen more volunteers searched the hill the following weekend after Chief Lenz offered a $50 reward for anyone who found evidence.

Sheriff John Bender spotted the murder weapon: a 5-by-6-inch rock covered in blood. He and Chief Lenz believed it had been used to bash Susan’s head in. They also found a religious medallion with a broken chain that the victim’s mother said belonged to her daughter. But the girl’s clothes were gone: a pair of cutoff blue jeans, a short-sleeved light green blouse and green flip-flops.

According to The Press, Susan, a 5-foot-11 blonde, and her mother had arrived in Coeur d’Alene from Pacific, Missouri, two months earlier. The Army had transferred Susan’s father, Airman James R. Stewart, to Okinawa. The family planned to join him once he settled in.

Susan’s mother called Coeur d’Alene police at 2:06 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 22, after her daughter failed to return from an evening walk. The teen had left her home in the 1400 block of Sherman Avenue around 7 p.m. The distraught woman told police that Susan never stayed out past 9 p.m.

Earlier in the day, The Press reported that Susan had taken the car of a 25-year-old man she knew. Later, after being questioned and given a lie detector test, the potential suspect said he dropped Susan off on West Lakeshore Drive around 4:30 p.m. Friday. A witness confirmed his version of events.

Local police followed leads throughout the Northwest and conducted 12 polygraph tests. They even interviewed Susan’s boyfriend in Missouri, who had an alibi. It all led to a dead end.

A private funeral was held the Thursday following Susan’s murder at English Funeral Home. Cremation followed. Her mother and one brother later joined her father in Okinawa.

And time has almost erased Susan Stewart’s memory.

Preach it, pastor

You may not remember Minister Clell Dietz. But old-timers will remember his iconic masterpiece: a massive billboard along Interstate 90 near Ramsey Road that extolled the virtues of Scripture.

45 years ago today (August 25, 1979), Pastor Clell, then 89, shared the story of his remarkable ministry with the Coeur d’Alene Press.

In the late 1950s, he was feeling restless while leading a Methodist church in Tekoa, Washington. So he prayed for guidance. He said, “The Lord led me to get my ministry on the right track.”

Shortly thereafter, while pastoring in Post Falls, he learned that the Idaho Department of Transportation had 3 acres for sale along the highway, one of the most strategic areas in the state for highway evangelism. The purchase of the property led to the construction of a 42-by-27-foot billboard and the opening of the former Bible Book Nook.

Pastor Clell’s first billboard read, “The churches of Coeur d’Alene welcome you.” The second was more direct: “The revelation of your words gives light (Psalm 119:130).”

The Bible Book Nook is gone, replaced by Sower Bible Bookstore. But a smaller version of Pastor Clell’s bulletin board still displays Bible messages. Last week, the featured Bible passage was John 3:3, “Jesus said, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

In 1979, Pastor Clell was convinced that the billboard had had a “profound effect” on passing travelers. He said: “The billboard has brought many people into contact with the Word of God.”

Rhythm of the rain

It’s unlikely that a band named after a TV soap opera would produce a one-hit wonder, especially when the song was on the B-side of an old 45. But The Cascades did it in 1963 with a gold record: “Rhythm of the Rain.”

Thirty years ago (August 21, 1994), drummer Dave Wilson, then 49, explained to the Coeur d’Alene Press why he lived in Post Falls and drove guest vans to the Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course. He’s the one you can hear singing “pitter patter, rap, tap, tap” in the background of the song.

It seems that it was love that brought him to the region.

He had met his wife, Terrie, at the old Rathskeller Inn on Sherman Avenue in the mid-1960s, when the Cascades were touring the Northwest. She had reunited with him after the band broke up; they had been married for a year when The Press came to visit.

The band, Wilson explained, was originally called Thunder Notes. But the name changed one day when its producer opened a box of Cascade soap while doing dishes and — lo and behold — he liked the name.

He also said the San Diego-based band preferred the A-side of its hit 45: a driving rocker called “Let Me Be.” But listeners kept spinning the record.

Said Miller: “We just got lucky, I guess.”

Fan mail

“I’m the 18-year-old girl in the photo with Robert Taylor in 1954,” Nancy Moen Wilson, a former colleague in the Spokesman-Review’s old Coeur d’Alene bureau, wrote to me. Nancy was referring to the 1954 photo of her, in a bathing suit, with actor Robert Taylor and his new wife, Ursula, at Beauty Bay (Huckleberries, Aug. 12). She and Dick Rice had performed water rides for the actors, who were guests of Nancy’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Anton Moen. Last month, Nancy said, she and other 88-year-old students from the Coeur d’Alene High School class of 1954 celebrated their 70th birthdays.

Cranberries

• Poets’ Corner:He grew forgetful with age,/which led him to make mistakes on stage;/forgetting well-learned habits,/he snatched top hats from rabbits” — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Why the Magician Retired”).

• End of sequence:Actor John Hurt was on a winning streak when he arrived in town in 1979 — you know, the guy who had a creepy creature crawl out of his chest in “Alien.” He’d starred in two blockbuster movies in a row until he was cast as drunken Billy Irvine in the mega-flop “Heaven’s Gate,” which was partly filmed in Wallace. Well, he enjoyed his summer boating on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

• Did you know? — Crooner Bing Crosby and his four sons played in a charity softball game at Memorial Field on Aug. 29, 1949. The Crosbys played for a Spokane team that beat the Coeur d’Alene Knights of Columbus 6-3 before a crowd of 2,000. Bing, the second baseman, had one hit in two at-bats. The event raised $1,156 for the construction of a Catholic school,

• Sold! On August 19, 1969, North Idaho Junior College announced the purchase of the McHugh House, located at 917 W. Garden Ave., which was once the headquarters of the commander of Fort Sherman. The college purchased the historic building from former mayors John McHugh and Don Johnston. Prior to this purchase, it served as an apartment building.

Tee shot

On August 18, 1999, Mayor Steve Judy announced the city’s purchase of 33 acres of Cherry Hill, including its famous toboggan run, for $500,000. Judy said, “In 10 to 15 years, people will look back on this as one of the most important decisions Coeur d’Alene made in the ’90s.” If Judy sounded like he was bragging, he wasn’t. The acquisition was a smart move. The city built a third fire station on 2 acres of its new property. It later added a BMX track, a police and firefighter memorial, and now a pickleball complex. All this, and kids are still racing down the hill in the winter.

• • •

You can contact DF (Dave) Oliveria at [email protected].

In 1964, Coeur d’Alene police officer Robert Thom pointed out bloodstains along a trail in Tubbs Hill.

In 1964, a week after Stewart’s murder, three Houston, Texas, residents joined the community in searching for clues on Tubbs Hill. From left, Mrs. W. H. Waters, Michael McGinnis, and Michael’s father, Bill.

In 1979, Pastor Clell Dietz, 89, posed along Interstate 90 with his iconic Highway Evangelism billboard.

In 1994, former Cascades member Dave Wilson posed with his gold record for “Rhythm of the Rain.”

Last month, Nancy Wilson, third from left, was photographed with her classmates at the 70th reunion of the 1954 class of Coeur d’Alene High School. Others in attendance included former state commerce director Jim Hawkins, second from left, and retired businessman Bill Drake, second from right. Nancy was 18 in 1954 when she performed water tricks on Lake Coeur d’Alene for actor Robert Taylor and his wife, Ursula. Nancy said of the photo, “We all look pretty good for a bunch of 88-year-olds.”

In 1979, actor John Hurt went boating on Lake Coeur d’Alene during a break from filming “Heaven’s Gate.”

In 1969, North Idaho Junior College President Barry Schuler, left, and Dean Ray Stone discussed the college’s purchase of the historic Fort Sherman officers’ quarters.

In 1999, Mayor Steve Judy, center, announced the city’s purchase of 33 acres of Cherry Hill. Joining him, from left: Councilman Chris Copstead, Councilman Dave Walker, Judy, firefighter Lee Holbrook, real estate agent Pat Acuff and Fire Chief Rick Lasky.