Mother Sure Brenda Called For Justice From The Grave -- Detective Wouldn't Give Up On Cracking Murder Case

Brenda Gere has been gone six years, but for some she never really left.

Three months after her disappearance in 1985, she appeared in her mother's dreams to say her neck was tingling before she died.

She was in and out of a Snohomish County detective's thoughts, a memory often summoned by the photograph of the man suspected of killing her displayed on his office wall.

Her disappearance Sept. 19, 1985, begot another tragedy when her father, Joe Gere, put a .22-caliber pistol to his head and pulled the trigger one Easter Sunday.

Now the traces of her skeleton have finally surfaced in a remote corner of the Tulalip Indian Reservation northwest of Marysville, bringing the frustrating case to a head.

Michael Kay Green, 38, the suspect whose photo is on Detective Joe Ward's wall, was to appear in court today for arraignment on a charge of first-degree murder in the girl's death.

Green, serving a 10-year sentence in the Pine Lodge Correction Center in Medical Lake near Spokane for rape and robbery, was brought to Everett yesterday.

An affidavit supporting the murder charge filed by Deputy Prosecutor Ken Cowsert details witness statements that Green was seen walking behind Gere near her home the day she disappeared, and that he was seen trying to break into a home in the same area the day before.

Green fled to Colorado shortly after Gere disappeared.

Returning with Seattle police detectives to face King County

robbery charges, Green reportedly described being in the Gere house.

Asked about the girl, "He stated everyone was making her out to be a nice girl. He stated she might not have been as nice as everyone was saying," the affidavit said.

Snohomish County homicide Sgt. Tom Greene said the suspect Monday night apologized to Ward for accusing the sheriff's office in court several years ago of harassing him in the Gere case.

At that time, detectives saw Green as a prime suspect, but prosecutors declined to charge him with the murder because there was no body.

Once Gere's remains were found Sunday morning, there was no hesitation.

Ward refused to discuss the 6-year-old case yesterday, but others said it became something close to an obsession for the detective.

He was the first to suspect the bones might belong to Gere; he recognized the comforter that had been missing from her bedroom, which was found near the bones.

The affidavit indicates Gere, 12, was killed during an attempted burglary of her house, though nothing else was missing. Detectives refused to say what kind of evidence, if any, they found that Gere's body had ever been in Green's car.

When Elaine Gere returned home at 3:30 p.m. to take her daughter to soccer practice, no one was there. A massive search was begun, including students and staff from Canyon Park Junior High School, which Brenda had attended, her mother said.

"We went through enormous pain and questions back in '85," said John Loy, Canyon Park assistant principal. "Several teachers here still remember her vividly. . . . Brenda would have graduated (from high school) this year."

Instead, Elaine Gere pressed a Bothell High School graduation announcement from Brenda's best friend, Annie DeSantis, into a scrapbook to commemorate the occasion that should have been. Gere, 46, now lives in Sandpoint, Idaho, with her sons, Joey, 17, and Mike, 12. She said she has relied on Ward for emotional support through the years.

"Detective Ward is like family now," Elaine Gere said by telephone yesterday. "He's taken it personally that he was going to see it through. He's like a bulldog - he just keeps going."

Others couldn't.

Joe Gere, a former sheriff's deputy in San Bernardino, Calif., gave up hope almost immediately. He told his wife after a few days that `I've seen this before. If you don't find 'em in the first three days, you just don't find 'em,' " Elaine Gere said.

The waiting got harder instead of easier. As the searches ended, trails grew cold and tips diminished, the family's heartache grew. Joe Gere started drinking and grew increasingly depressed, his wife said.

Three years ago Easter Sunday, the family was planting grass outside their new home in Idaho when a minor dispute erupted. Joe Gere, 40, sitting in the cab of a pickup he had loaded with six rifles and a pistol for a hunting trip, suddenly shot himself with the pistol, Elaine Gere said.

"He said the day she died, he died. I didn't. I have two more kids to live for."

Green's earliest release date on the rape and robbery charges would be July 1992, according to the state Department of Corrections. Elaine Gere anticipated the date with frustration.

Several weeks ago she began praying to Brenda to give her a sign - anything to help solve the case.

"I asked her please, to help all this end," she said. "I know Brenda had something to do with it."

-- Reporter Marc Ramirez of the Snohomish County bureau contributed to this report.