No Way to Bury the Hatchet

The street lights flickered on and mixed with the dregs of day as 20-year-old Daniel William Pierce left his home, located in the 2500 block of Southwest 23rd Circle in Trout­dale, Oregon, and headed for his job as assistant manager at the Pizza Hut outlet in nearby Gresham. Although the winter of 1985 had mellowed into the bright, colorful spring of 1986, the evening air was still crisp, which prompted Pierce to turn his car's heater on full blast as soon as the engine became warm enough.

Fifteen minutes later, with circles of fatigue beneath tired, uncertain eyes, Pierce walked into the pizza parlor, as ready as ever for yet another shift, inno­cently unaware that it would be his last.

A young, bright-eyed man, Pierce was described by friends, co-workers, and relatives as a marvel of organized effi­ciency, an ambitious man who didn't feel right unless he was constantly mov­ing forward, going somewhere with his life. At times he burned the candle at both ends, but he seemed to have two wicks to burn in his aspiration to move upward. He was an amiable young man with a perpetual smile and, despite his ambitious nature; he was still boyishly benign, utterly harmless to anyone. That's what made it so difficult for near­ly everyone close to the case to under­stand why anyone would want to kill him.

It had been a typically slow Monday at the pizza shop, which allowed Pierce to get the restaurant cleaned up, the cash tills balanced, and the deposit made, en­abling him to go home early to the house he'd moved into barely two weeks before and shared with two roommates. After the short drive from the pizza shop, he pulled carefully into the driveway to a spot near his roommates' vehicles and, after he parked and locked his own car, Pierce let himself into the rented, split-level two-story house, located on the north side of a cul-de-sac, and walked quietly up the stairs to his room.

Pierce had apparently just finished readying himself for bed and had just laid down when the attack occurred — he pro­bably never even knew what had hit him. Even though the precise details of the attack are not known, one thing is cer­tain: the killer's blood lust was at fever pitch as he raised the sharp hatchet over his sleeping victim's head.

Pierce's head must have erupted in blinding white pain as the hatchet fell, bringing with it a moment of extreme horror as he realized something terrible had happened to him. With each succes­sive blow colors likely exploded in his brain, bringing with them unconscious­ness and death moments later.

The following day one of Pierce's roommates, a young woman named Sal­ly, who occupied the downstairs bed­room, noticed Pierce's absence but thought little of it at the time, thinking that perhaps he'd spent the night some­where else. After all, Pierce was good looking, she thought, and women were naturally attracted to him. Since he worked in a public place, it was not an unreasonable assumption for Sally to consider that he'd met a young lady and had gone home with her. But when Pierce failed to return home by early Tuesday evening, Sally became con­cerned and decided to check his room.

She knocked softly on the door to Pierce's bedroom and gently called out his name. Not receiving a response, she turned the knob and entered. She turned on the light, and the illumination was accompanied by an unanticipated exhala­tion of breath when she saw the blood.

Terror, she soon realized, had stuck its icy finger to her heart. She also felt somewhat sickened by the awful con­frontation and its dreadful implications.