Free The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule Page A

radio listeners had heard twenty-one-year-old Lynda Ann Healy's voice without really knowing who she was. It was a sexy-sweet voice, the kind of voice that disc jockeys could talk back to, that commuters driving to work at 7 A.M. could enjoy. The last names of the girls who gave the pass reports were never revealed, no matter how many interested men might call in, however. They 50

THE STRANGER BESIDE ME
    were anonymous, the vocal personification of the All-American girl. Lynda was as beautiful as she sounded, tall, slender, with chestnut hair that fell almost to her waist, clear blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. A senior majoring in psychology at the University of Washington, she shared an older green frame house with four other students. Marti Sands, Jill Hodses. Lorna Moss, and Barbara Little split the rent at 5517 12th N.B.'
    Lynda had grown up in a sheltered, upper-middle-class home in Newport Hills on the east side of Lake Washington from Seattle. Gifted musically, she had played Fiona in Newport High's production of Brigadoon, and she been a soloist in the Congregational Church's "Winds of God" folk mass. But it was psychology-particularly working with retarded youngsters-that interested her most. Certainly, in her years at the University, she had had ample opportunity to study the deviant mind. Study, not know.
    None of the five roommates in the big old house was particularly naive, and they were all cautious young women. Jill's father was the prosecuting attorney in an eastern Washington county, and, as a criminal lawyer's daughter, she had been aware of violent crime, but none of the girls had ever been exposed personally to violence. They had read of the attack a few blocks away on January 4th, and they had heard rumors of a prowler in their own neighborhood. They took the proper precautions, locked their doors, went out in pairs after dark, discouraged men who seemed odd.
    Still, with five of them living in the same house, they felt safe. Lynda's job at Northwest Ski Reports meant that she had to get up at 5:30 in the morning, and bike over to the office a few blocks away, so she rarely stayed up past midnight. Thursday, January 31 st, began routinely for her. She'd recorded the ski report, gone to classes, and then come home to write a letter. She hadn't a problem in the world-other than the fact that her boyfriend worked such long hours that they had little time together, and some vague stomach pains that had been bothering her. She wrote a note to a friend, the last letter she would ever write:
    "Just thought I'd drop a line to say 'Hello.' It's snowing outside so I'm writing this letter bundled up in my blue afghan. You wouldn't believe how comfortable it makes studying,

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    or napping. Everyone at my house is fine. I've invited Mom and Dad. Bob and Laura to dinner. I think I'll make Beef Stroganoff. I've been doing a lot of skiing, some working, and studying .. . not necessarily in that order."
    At 2:30 that afternoon, Jill Hodges drove Lynda to the University for chorus practice, and returned at five to pick up Lynda and Lorna Moss. They ate dinner and afterward Lynda borrowed Marti Sands's car to go to the grocery store, returning at 8:30.
    Lynda, Lorna, Marti and a male friend then walked to Dante's, a tavern popular with University students, located at Fifty-third and Roosevelt Way. The foursome shared two pitchers of beer, and the girls talked to no one, although Lorna and Marti would later recall that their friend Pete had visited briefly with some people who were playing a dice game at a nearby table.
    They were home in an hour and Lynda received a call from a former boyfriend in Olympia. Her roommates remember that she spoke with him for about an hour. The girls then watched "Miss Jane Pittman" on television before retiring.
    When Lynda left to go to her basement room, she wore blue jeans, a white blouse, and boots.
    Barbara Little had been at the library that Thursday