Snoqualmie Spooked By More Deaths -- No Motive Determined Yet For Weekend Stabbings

Stunned by the stabbing deaths of a woman and her two teenage daughters, people in rural East King County are feeling "spooky" about the community they have cherished for so many years.

Two Mount Si High School students died in car accidents late last year, and now two more have been killed.

Anouchka Baldwin, 37, and two of her daughters - Salome Holly, 18, and Amanda Baldwin, 15 - were stabbed to death Saturday morning in their Snoqualmie home on Southeast Reinig Road.

Baldwin's new husband - Dayva Cross, 39 - was booked Saturday into the King County Jail in Seattle in connection with the slayings. King County sheriff's deputies found him at the home, smoking a cigarette.

About five hours after the stabbings, Baldwin's 13-year-old daughter, Mellissa Michelle, escaped to a nearby house, where a 911 call was made. She apparently fled through a kitchen door after Cross had fallen asleep.

Cross was expected to appear in court today.

Baldwin and the two daughters were stabbed around 8:15 a.m., said sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart. What officers found at the rambling, brown ranch home were bodies in the living room, kitchen and a bedroom.

Sheriff's detectives recovered several knives at the house, including one thought to be a murder weapon, though more than one knife may have been used.

Detectives are still investigating the motive and why the youngest girl was spared.

"We believe he did it," Urquhart said. "Right now, we want to

know why he did it."

Authorities know little about Cross, who married Baldwin late last year.

He appears to have no criminal history, according to state-court records. Civil-court records show that in June 1990, he changed his name from David Mark Watt to Dayva M. Cross, his grandfather's name.

A native of Pennsylvania, he had been married and divorced twice before marrying Baldwin. He has children with both of his previous wives.

Court papers show he has worked at a Kent trucking company and was ordered to pay child support to the second wife, Ellen Cross of North Bend, for their son.

A stipulation of the custody agreement involving the boy is that Dayva Cross "shall not consume alcohol or any other mood-altering substance while the child is in his care."

Baldwin worked as a certified nursing assistant in Fall City. Her slain daughters were students at Mount Si High School - Salome Holly was a senior and Amanda a freshman.

Holly is Baldwin's maiden name, which her eldest daughter took as her last name, said Baldwin's ex-husband, John Pritchett of Lynnwood. Baldwin and Pritchett divorced about two years ago.

Mellissa, a student at Snoqualmie Middle School, suffered a minor bump on the head. She is staying at a friend's house in the Snoqualmie area.

Yesterday, the slayings were the talk of this town of just over 1,600, and at Mount Si High, where more than 100 people gathered to share their grief.

"It's an upsetting feeling," said Mike Dilley, an auto mechanic who lives near the house where the slayings occurred. "It would have to get a lot worse than this to scare people out. But I think people will be more ready to have a gun next to the bed. . . .

"It's been sort of a spooky situation."

Nestled among hundreds of acres of forests and brush at the edge of the Cascades, the outskirts of Snoqualmie and North Bend have long been known as something of a dumping ground for bodies.

Just two weeks ago near Snoqualmie, a family dog brought home part of a human hand. Police traced it to a woman's remains.

In November, the community mourned the deaths of two high-school boys who died in car accidents within three weeks. First, Mount Si freshman Dane Rempfer was killed by a hit-and-run driver on a North Bend road. Then, a few days before Thanksgiving, 18-year-old David Szczepanik, a senior, lost control of his car on North Bend Way and slammed into a tree.

"It feels like I'm just losing everybody," said Nicole Howard, 14, who was a friend of Amanda's and Rempfer's. "Our town has never experienced anything like this. It's like, who's next?"

As students arrived at school this morning, they walked in quietly, many standing in near silence around the entryway.

"It's numb. People are in shock," said student-body president Jordan McDaniels.

Students wore butterfly clips in their hair like Amanda did. She was a thin, petite beauty who was adored for her kindness.

The two eldest girls excelled in academics and music at Mount Si High. Amanda played the flute in the band, Salome the clarinet.

Amanda was known as funny and flamboyant, with oval glasses and an eyebrow ring. But some friends said she was afraid to bring home a 3.8 grade-point average, afraid that her new stepfather would punish her for failing to get a perfect 4.0.

School counselors and King County chaplains talked to students and parents at the high school yesterday, deciding that tending to the grieving town couldn't wait for the school week. Some students said they were afraid to leave their homes. And counselors said they want to make sure students don't become fearful that family problems will lead to violence.

"We've been hit so hard," said Linda Joslin, a Mount Si counselor. "Parents want to know what's normal" in terms of their children's reactions "Right now, " she said, "close to everything is normal."

Friends and neighbors described Baldwin and her two slain daughters as a likable family, well-known in the community. They had lived in their caramel-colored house for about 10 years.

Along with being a nursing assistant, Baldwin was a newspaper carrier in Bellevue. She also enjoyed elk hunting and raised goats.

She first married a hometown boy, Kelly Baldwin, when she was 19. But he died in a car accident in 1988 - on Amanda's fifth birthday. Her second marriage, to Pritchett, ended in divorce.

Pritchett described his former wife as a strong-willed parent who was stern but fair with her daughters. He had lived with the family in Snoqualmie for four years.

"All of this is such a tremendous loss," Pritchett said yesterday. "I still care quite a bit for Anouchka, and I do love the girls. I will open our home to Mellissa. I would hope that, if given the opportunity to decide where she wanted to live, she would want to live with us."

When they weren't busy at school, the girls would take care of their pet rabbits or 13 cats. The family also had several koi fish in a backyard pond.

Like many folks in town, Baldwin and her daughters were active in church - theirs being the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in North Bend.

Pritchett says Salome, the eldest daughter, wanted to be an oceanographer and was fascinated with microbiology.

Last year, she delved into politics as a volunteer in Democrat Art Skolnik's campaign for the state Legislature. Tall and studious, she was talking about enrolling at classes at Bellevue Community College after graduation.

Skolnik, who lives down the road from the family, described Holly as an "extremely intelligent, balanced person."

"She was interesting to talk to. You sensed that this girl had extremely good values," he said.

In December, Baldwin married Cross, whom few neighbors and local residents know much about. Many were surprised to learn that the couple had married.

Cross had a slew of beat-up cars parked in front of the house, and "every once in awhile, this man would come zooming down the road, then would pull in there," Skolnik recalled yesterday. "I never quite knew if he was an older brother or a boyfriend."

The three sisters didn't talk much about life at home. Friends say they got along with their mother, described as a funny person and an attentive parent who went to school functions and made sure her daughters finished their homework before they watched television.

"Mellissa's going to need a lot of help for a long time," said Martin Redman, a King County chaplain who counseled the girl this weekend. "She's a wonderful child, with a wonderful heart. I fell in love with her right away."

"I don't know why she was spared," freshman Chance Babcock said as he stood outside Mount Si, next to a plaque in memory of Rempfer. "I just thank God she survived."

The Snoqualmie/North Bend community is small and close-knit. Friends and families meet each other through churches and coffee shops. So any death, said Councilwoman Colleen Johnson, hits people much harder.

That there have been so many deaths in recent months involving high-school students has been even more troubling. Some residents are starting to wonder whether the triple slaying has some symbolic connection to all the newcomers moving in.

"I've lived here almost all my life, and it's pretty traumatic," said Johnson, a Snoqualmie police officer. "I'm hoping it's just coincidence."

Aside from the two high-school boys killed, Mount Si High lost two former students to tragedy during the past year. In September, Stephanie Breeding, 17, drowned when the car she and two young men were in flipped off the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge into Lake Washington. And two months ago, Thomas Rolland Keene, 19, died after falling from a train-trestle ladder in a remote area east of Black Diamond.