Whispers from the Forest
The Making of Dayton Leroy Rogers: The Molalla Forest Serial Killer
The End was Only the Beginning
Somewhere deep in the woods, the truth was waiting to be found.
Dayton Leroy Rogers is probably best known for the murder of Jennifer Lisa Smith. She fell out of his truck onto the cold concrete ground after he stabbed her 11 times in the chest and abdomen. Witnesses at a nearby Denny’s Restaurant, while eating their eggs and bacon, heard horrific screams that abruptly stopped. Rushing outside to help, the witnesses tried heroic efforts to stop Rodgers from fleeing, while others tried helping Jennifer stay alive. The witnesses jumped into their vehicles to block his escape, but Rodgers drove over bushes and other pieces of landscaping to flee. One individual was able to follow him, sometimes going at speeds of 100mph. This brave individual followed him to his home and watched him pull into his driveway. He was able to give authorities the address of the suspect.
Dayton Leroy Rogers was tied to the murders of at least 8 women due to his habit of pouring vodka from little bottles into orange juice. He tended to pick up sex workers and take them to secluded areas. He ultimately was convicted of killing 23-year-old Lisa Marie Mock, 26-year-old Maureen Ann Hodges, 35-year-old Christine Lotus Adams, 20-year-old Cynthia De Vore, 26-year-old Nondace (Noni) Cervantes, and 16-year-old Riatha Gyles. The 7th body remained unidentified until 2018. Her name was identified as 18-year-old Tonya Jerry Johnson. Dayton Leroy Rogers was given the death penalty four separate times. However, the death penalty is very controversial in the United States. The Oregon court overturned his convictions but commuted them to a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Born from Silence
In the quiet corners of a broken childhood, monsters learn to hide.
Dayton Leroy Rogers was born in Moscow, Idaho, on September 30, 1953, to parents Ortis and Jasper Rogers. His was a large family—two biological sisters, three adopted sisters, and one adopted brother. His father was the sole breadwinner who often took odd jobs to keep food on the table. His mother had her hands full as a stay-at-home mom. The family was deeply religious and were members of the Seventh Day Adventist church. The evenings in the household were spent reading the Bible.
Ortis ruled his family with a heavy hand, often beating his children bloody. There were times when the children would go to church black and blue. However, no one did anything about it. Ortis thought that when any of his children misbehaved, it was the Devil inside them. The only cure he found was to beat the evil out of them.
The family was poor and moved often because Ortis would lose his job regularly. One time, the family had to move into a chicken coop with dirt floors. I guess they thought they could fix it up.
Growing up, the family was pretty isolated. Dayton would only have his sisters for reference when he started thinking about the opposite sex. He developed violent sexual fantasies about them. He stole his sisters’ shoes and used them to act on those sexual needs.
All of these circumstances created a life of despair, anger, and repression. He acted out his aggression by committing petty crimes. He was arrested for shooting a BB gun at passing cars when he was in the 7th grade.
His father sent him away to a strict religious academy called Upper Columbia Academy in Spangle, Washington. This would be short-lived because Ortis lost his job again. The family moved to Oregon because Ortis got another job as a house painter. Dayton Leroy Rodgers was sent to another strict religious school called Emerald Jr. Academy.
When Dayton was sixteen, he dropped out of school. He despised his parents and wanted to get away from the abusive environment. He hated his mom because he felt she should have stood up for him against his father. She never did. He moved to Corvallis, OR, and became a house painter.
Three years later, when Dayton was nineteen, he moved again to Eugene, OR. There, he met and married 16-year-old Julie. When his parents discovered she was Lutheran, they cut off all contact with Dayton. This development in his life gave him a newfound freedom—something he never had.
Buried Beneath the Pines
Every buried secret eventually claws its way to the surface.
When the police arrested the attacker, they identified him as Dayton Leroy Rogers, a married man and small business owner. During the interrogation, Dayton was at first cooperative. But as the questions continued, he became less than truthful, often changing his story. He told them that he did know Jennifer Smith and then said that he didn’t know her. It seemed the more questions they asked, the quieter he became.
When the police searched his home and workshop, they found a treasure trove of evidence. Evidence that made them sit up and take notice. There was too much evidence for just one murder. Among the incriminating evidence, investigators found at his home, shop, and vehicle were a hacksaw, boots stained with blood, burnt-up women’s garments, and many bloodstains. In his vehicle, they also found hair.
Sure enough, barely a month later, a hunter found the remains of a woman under some ferns. She was nude, and one of her feet had been sawed off with what they determined to be a hacksaw. Police, thinking that there could be more bodies, did a grid search. Their hunch paid off. They uncovered the bodies of six more women. Each body was nude, with some missing feet. The bodies were at different levels of decomposition, meaning that some had been there as long as three months, and some as little as one month.
Among the evidence they found among the bodies, police recovered orange juice and vodka bottles, a knife with human tissue still clinging, and tied-up stockings and shoelaces.
With the evidence unearthed and the forest’s secrets exposed, there was nowhere left for Dayton Leroy Rogers to hide. The courtroom would become the final place where his darkness was laid bare.
Echos in the Courtroom
The trees kept his secrets. But in the courtroom, every whisper became a scream.
In February of 1988, Dayton Leroy Rogers went on trial for the murder of Jennifer Smith. The defense tried to present his actions as self-defense; however, the prosecutors painted him as a sadistic killer with a deviant sexual desire. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
The following year, Dayton went on trial for the 6 women found in the Molalla Forest. His downfall came from the testimony of other sex workers he tried to kill. They testified that after giving them vodka and orange juice, he tied them up with their hands and feet bound behind them. They said what started as a fun date had turned into a nightmare. He threatened to cut off their feet. They were ultimately able to get away.
On June 7, 1989, Dayton Leroy Rogers was found guilty on two counts of aggravated murder for each of the six victims. They could not charge him with the seventh victim because she had yet to be identified.
In 2018, the seventh victim was finally identified as 18-year-old Tonya Jerry Johnson.
Over the next 20 years, the death penalty was given to him time and time again, only to be overturned.
The now 70-something Dayton is serving his sentence at the Two Rivers Correctional Facility in Oregon.
Dayton Leroy Rogers still has his secrets—but not every secret stays buried. Especially when the earth itself remembers.
Sources:
Molalla Forest Serial Killer- Oregon’s Hidden Nightmare
chilling....
it made me have goosebumps