Staff Photo by Flint Carlton
Rick Princehouse, left, and Bob Davidson from the Hood River County Sheriff’s Office
 

n observant Gresham tow truck driver is being credited with providing Hood River police their first break in a case of a woman who disappeared three weeks ago.

Gresham police confirmed that a burgundy 2000 Ford Explorer belonging to Kimberly Forbes, 48, of Hood River was found in a vacant Rockwood lot on Friday, Nov. 19.

“We had no leads before this,” Hood River County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Dwayne Troxel said. “No cell phone activity, no credit card activity, nothing. It was like she’d been swallowed up.”

According to the Hood River News, Forbes’ 19-year-old daughter last saw her at 10 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 30. Forbes planned to have breakfast with a friend on Sunday, Oct. 31, and then drive to Portland to buy flannel sheets. But she never made it to her friend’s house. When Forbes failed to show up at work Monday morning, her daughter filed a missing person’s report.

“She solid as a rock,” Troxel said, adding that he knew Forbes from her career in banking. “This is not a meth head.”

Forbes’ friends and coworkers, shocked by the disappearance of a reliable woman from a rural community, embarked on a search effort. They looked along roads and highways for signs of her crashed vehicle. Finding none, they appeared before television news crews pleading for her safe return.

Danny Closser Jr., who drives a tow truck for his family’s business Dinky Towing in Gresham, saw those broadcasts.

“Being in this profession, plates kind of stick in the back of your head,” he said, adding that he memorized Forbes vehicle information and plates just in case.

Meanwhile, Pedro Sanchez noticed a red car in a vacant lot behind his restaurant Don Pedro in the 18800 block of Southeast Stark Street.

Sanchez said the car had been there for more than a week, but he thought it belonged to an employee.

By Thursday, he took a closer look at the vehicle. There was no sign of forced entry, and he noticed a Social Security card on the backseat.

Sanchez asked his staff whose car it was. Nobody claimed it. An employee was told to have the car towed, but didn’t.

By Friday morning, the car’s wing window had been broken. The Social Security card was gone.
Police later found a blank check from Forbes’ account on the ground. Fed up with the vehicle, Sanchez called Dinky’s Towing to take it away.

Closser got the call at 11:12 a.m. He had just finished hooking up the car’s back end when he noticed Hood River on the license plate frame. Then the plate — XTB 679 — caught his eye.
“I knew what it was,” Closser said.

He called the Gresham Police Department, which confirmed the car was registered to Forbes.
Hood River investigators spent the afternoon combing the scene for evidence. Closser eventually towed the car to the new Oregon crime lab office in Clackamas.

Troxel called Closser’s find the biggest break police could have hoped for, short of finding the missing woman.

Closser just hopes it helps police solve the mystery.
“This may be a good lead to the case to find out where she is or what happened to her,” Closser said. “Hopefully, they do find her. … Hopefully, this will give some sort of closure to her family and friends.”

Now detectives are checking with local businesses to see if anyone has a security camera with footage of the vehicle.

“I think there’s every chance it’s been here since she disappeared,” Troxel said.
Investigators also hope to talk to the car prowler who broke in between Thursday night and Friday morning.

“We’ll forget about it (the break-in),” Troxel said. “We just want to know what was in it.”
Anyone with information on the case is encouraged to call the Hood River Sheriff’s Office at 541-386-2711.