Eileen Wafer

CrimePAY$        $20,000 Murder Reward               TipLine 1-888-755-TIPS (8477)

The Homicide Reward Fund is currently offering money for information in solving the murder of 14 year old Eileen Wafer.

Up to $20,000 will be paid for information that leads to an arrest or conviction of people involved in the murder.

The Alaska Bureau of Investigation’s Cold Case Unit has reopened the case of Eileen Wafer, who was 14 when she disappeared from her home in 1982, according to Elizabeth Ipsen of the Department of Public Safety.

Eileen Wafer was a typical teenager, living in the small coastal town of Haines when she disappeared over 30 years ago. She was last seen at home on June 10, 1982, baby sitting her younger brothers as her mother went out for the evening. When her mother came home later, the two boys were in bed, but her 14-year-old daughter was gone. Friends told investigators Eileen would have never left her brothers at the apartment alone. Eileen’s body was found by her older brother and her boyfriend four days later. Her body was left in some bushes along the beach frontage of Portage Cove just several hundred feet from the apartment where she lived. Investigators believe her murderer possibly knew her and coaxed her out of the apartment before killing her. His identity remains a mystery, but Cold Case Investigators are determined to find him

Eileen’s murder is another one of the cases getting another look by the Alaska Bureau of Investigation’s Cold Case Unit. Investigator Tim Hunyor said the effort could shed new light on a case that is almost three decades old.

“Sometimes a new fresh set of eyes looks at the case and something pops out,” Hunyor said. “Sometimes people will recall some information that they thought they had told someone before or something they may have heard over the years.”

Investigative methods also have changed since the girl’s death. For example, investigators now ask broader questions instead of focusing on one theory.

There is also the addition of DNA testing. The Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, is the national repository for the DNA profiles from casework and offender samples from all 50 states.

So far, CODIS has not found a match for DNA from Eileen’s case.

Meanwhile, investigators continue to comb through evidence from the crime scene and track down people who knew Eileen, or may have seen something that seemed odd or heard something.

“People may not have thought something was strange at the time, but over the years, maybe something sticks out as not being quite right,” Hunyor said. “It may be a person they’ve often wondered about, someone they just had a weird feeling about, or just something that developed when talking to a friend about Eileen’s murder.”

CrimePAY$         $20,000 Murder Reward              TipLine 1-888-755-TIPS (8477)

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2012 at 1:20 pm and is filed under $10,000+, Alaska, Cold Case, Unsolved Murder. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.