Tulalips fighting graveyard stigma
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TULALIP RESERVATION - These are good times for the Tulalip Tribes.
The reservation's new Wal-Mart is bursting with customers, and the tribal casino keeps hauling in profits. The number of enrolled tribal members has nearly tripled in the past decade, and people who moved away from the sprawling Snohomish County reservation are returning, drawn to a place flush with optimism and new opportunities.
But one of the tribes' most recent successes - the creation of an incorporated city on the reservation - has been eclipsed in headlines by unwelcome news. In the past six months, bodies in two high-profile murder cases have turned up on the reservation.
The slayings - of a young, mail-order bride and of an Everett man allegedly killed by five teens at the behest of one of their mothers - aren't related. Neither the victims nor the alleged killers have ties to the Tulalips. Nevertheless, tribal members and other reservation residents say, it is not surprising the bodies ended up there.
"People are always dumping bodies here," said Scott Keeline, who has lived on the reservation 27 of his 30 years. "Who knows how many they haven't found."
At least seven bodies have been found on the reservation in the past decade. Police say the number is not unusually high for the largely rural area, but residents insist it is significant, especially because the cases involve people bringing victims to the reservation from elsewhere. And, they say, it is not a recent phenomenon.
"Where the fire station is now, that's where they used to dump bodies," said 42-year-old Louie Pablo Jr., a lifelong resident of the reservation. "People think, `Bring 'em to the reservation.' It doesn't feel good."
Pablo and others say people leave bodies for the same reason they illegally dump garbage on the reservation.
"Basically, we're a rural location right outside an urban location," said John McCoy, the Tulalips' governmental-affairs director. "Unfortunately, we're an easy target for people wanting to dump things."
The 22,000-acre reservation sits right off Interstate 5, just north of Everett, Snohomish County's biggest city, and west of Marysville, one of its fastest-growing. Clusters of development punctuate broad stretches of wild lands; narrow gravel roads branch off the reservation's main street, which is often winding and desolate.
Forensic experts say criminals are often drawn to such places, sparsely populated but easy to get to, when choosing where to dispose of bodies.
Jerry Heimann's killers drove to the reservation to drop off his body after beating him to death in his Everett home April 13, according to prosecutors. His body was found when the 11-year-old son of Barbara Opel, the only adult charged in the killing, led detectives to him.
The body of Anastasia King, a Russian mail-order bride allegedly killed by her husband and his tenant in September, wasn't found until December - and then only because the tenant told police where the body had been left.
In another well-known murder case, the body of Brenda Gere, a 12-year-old Bothell girl raped and killed by former University of Washington football player Michael Kay Green in 1985, lay partly buried on a vacant lot on the reservation for six years before it was found.
Some residents say criminals are drawn to the reservation because they believe - incorrectly - that there is no law enforcement.
"It's `the Rez,' so they think it's not patrolled," Keeline said.
Others, like McCoy, say they don't think the reservation has been targeted more than other secluded-but-accessible places, echoing sentiments of local police and medical examiners.
"I've been here 19 years, and there are bodies left all over," said Leon Reichle, chief investigator for the county Medical Examiner's Office.
Nonetheless, local law-enforcement authorities are sensitive about the effect murder cases can have on the reservation's reputation. Some have asked the media not to mention the reservation when bodies are found there and to substitute phrases such as "west of Marysville" in news reports.
It's a gesture many on the reservation appreciate, saying that the reservation's reputation is affected by such activity.
"The bodies are brought here; they're drop-offs," said Clyde Haynes, who has lived on the reservation for nearly 26 years. "But there's still a stigma. ... I'm sure those people who lived on the Green River didn't like all those bodies there, either."
Such a stigma is especially upsetting to many residents when so many good things are happening on the reservation.
The 9-year-old casino has sparked an economic boom, funding new building and helping the Tulalips purchase thousands of acres of reservation land from nontribal members. The tribes are providing computers to all tribal homes, and are believed to be the first tribes in the Northwest to charter a municipality.
Tribal officials say the new city of Quil Ceda Village, essentially a business park that encompasses the Wal-Mart and, soon, a Home Depot, will provide a stable tax base.
Officials hope that one recent triumph, in particular, will discourage criminals drawn to the reservation.
County sheriff's deputies have long been responsible for criminal law-enforcement there, with a small tribal police force tending to civil matters. But the tribe has recently completed a process known as retrocession, which gives tribal and federal governments criminal jurisdiction on tribe-owned land.
The Tulalip police force has already nearly tripled in size - from three to eight officers - in anticipation of the change, which goes into effect in November. Tribal police will still not be the lead agency handling homicides and some other crimes.
But the tribe's new police chief, J.A. Goss, and others hope the extra police presence will help deter criminals from coming to the reservation.
"It gives us self-determination, self-governance," McCoy said. "Are we going to be able to stop all of this? No. Are we going to be able to get a handle on it? Maybe. ... We're doing what we can."
Janet Burkitt can be reached at 206-515-5689 or jburkitt@seattletimes.com.