Slaying Victim Sought New Start -- Woman Came North To Get Off Drugs, Family Says

Across miles and after years of anger and worry, Nicole Michelle French and her mother had reached an accommodation.

They had agreed in October to stop fighting about French's immersion in the local drug scene and about who would raise Nicole's 2 1/2-year-old daughter.

French, 19, left to live with a friend in the Seattle area and to try to stay off drugs. Her mother, Judith Mangan, stayed in Sacramento, Calif., bringing up the child and trying not to be judgmental.

The new peace between mother and daughter lasted only a month. French's half-clad body was found a week ago by a hunter in the Snoqualmie-Mount Baker National Forest off Middle Fork Road about 10 miles northeast of North Bend. She had been strangled.

French had been arrested by King County police on prostitution charges during her short time in the Seattle area. Her mother thinks she resorted to prostitution after losing her job at a factory in the Seattle area.

French's death may be linked to that of Sarah Habakangas, 17, whose partially clad body was found about a year ago in the same area French's body was found, King County Police Capt. Michael Nault said last week. Habakangas also was strangled and had twice been arrested by Seattle police on prostitution charges. Her murder has not been solved.

For Dennis Mangan, French's stepfather, the news of her death had a ring of inevitability.

"As much as we tried to help her, too much damage had been

done," he said in a telephone interview from Sacramento.

Judith Mangan said that shortly before French left for Washington, she said someone was threatening her and wanted to kill her. But French did not elaborate, and she did not mention threats when she spoke to her family from here, Mangan said.

French loved to ride horses in her early teenage years, and was well-liked in school, her mother said. Then Nicole French told her mother she had been molested. She started experimenting heavily with drugs. She left home at 14 to live with her father in Colorado and ended up hitchhiking around the country, Mangan said.

After years of living off and on with her mother, Nicole French finally agreed to leave her daughter, Brittany, in California until Nicole could become drug free.

French moved to Seattle to live with a family friend, Beverly Harris, in mid-August.

Harris lived on the edge of the SeaTac strip, a section of Pacific Highway South notorious for prostitution. Many of the victims of the Green River serial killer were last seen on the strip. The Green River killer is thought to be responsible for the deaths of 49 young women between the summer of 1982 and early 1984. The murders remain unsolved.

Harris helped French get work at a bag factory, but lost her job when she went back to California for a brief time. Harris said French was quiet and friendly and not the stereotypical prostitute.

"She was a very likable person who was confused and got into things that weren't her style," said Harris. "She wasn't just a prostitute, she was a person. She wasn't suited to it and didn't like it."

French lived with Harris until about Halloween when she moved to a motel. She would not say how she was supporting herself and her mother didn't ask.

On the night she disappeared - Friday, Nov. 6 - French called her mother about 6 p.m. She made another call from the corner of Southeast 216th Street and Pacific Highway South, near the SeaTac strip, about 11:30 p.m., according to police. She was never heard from again.

"If they had arrested her and arrested her and arrested her, maybe this would not have happened to her," Judith Mangan said. "These girls who've been abused, they are victims."

-- Times staff reporter Richard Seven contributed to this report.