10 years on, Jenner beach killings haunt 2 families

Kathy and Chris Cutshall take a moment at the spot where daughter Lindsay and her fiance were killed. Kathy and Chris Cutshall take a moment at the spot where daughter Lindsay and her fiance were killed. Photo: James Tensuan, The Chronicle Photo: James Tensuan, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close 10 years on, Jenner beach killings haunt 2 families 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

The pain of the most devastating loss a parent can imagine has hardly faded for Kathy and Chris Cutshall.

Ten years ago, the couple from rural Ohio lost their daughter Lindsay, 22, and her fiance Jason Allen, 26, in what remains a uniquely horrific - and still unexplained - act of violence in Northern California.

Lindsay and Jason, who had come west to lead rafting and rock-climbing trips in the Sierra foothills, were found Aug. 18, 2004, on an isolated beach in Jenner, tucked in their sleeping bags and shot in the head at close range.

The two had taken an impromptu trip to the Sonoma County coast, just weeks before they were scheduled to return to the Midwest to wed and begin their life together.

Someone with a .45-caliber Marlin rifle halted that plan in a case that county sheriff's deputies say they continue to investigate a decade later and even expect to solve.

On Friday, the Cutshalls embraced their memory of the unsolved crime by visiting the sandy shore where the couple were slain.

"It just hit me. That's where I wanted to be on the anniversary," said Kathy Cutshall, who joined about 60 friends and family members for a vigil at Goat Rock Beach. "I want to let everyone know we will never forget them."

And it's clear they haven't.

"More than anything I just really miss them," said Kathy, 58, who credits her Christian faith with helping her cope. "There's this homesickness that's deep in your heart and doesn't go away. We fall out of our chair crying sometimes - every holiday, every birthday. On my way home from work I just heard a song and I started crying."

Evangelical minister

Her husband Chris, 59, wears Lindsay's gold ring on his pinkie. And, as the minister of a small-town evangelical church where they live in Fresno, Ohio, he keeps his daughter's Bible close.

"There's not a day that goes by that she hasn't come into my mind and my heart and oftentimes my prayers," he said. "And yes, there are still times that I shake my head a little bit. It was all so surreal."

The Cutshalls' life took a turn when they came home after mailing their daughter's wedding invitations. They got a call that Lindsay was missing.

She hadn't shown up for her last week of work at the Rock-N-Water camp, a Christian youth facility on the American River about 50 miles east of Sacramento. She and Jason, who had met at a Bible college in West Virginia and bonded over their devotion to Scripture and love of the outdoors, worked summer jobs as counselors guiding children through the Sierra wilderness.

All that was known was that the two had left camp for a weekend getaway.

Bodies on the beach

Photographs later recovered from the couple's camera put them in San Francisco that Saturday, posing in front of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. They looked happy. A credit card receipt showed they bought hot sauce at Fisherman's Wharf.

It's believed they drove up the coast that evening to camp. They were seen alive and well in Sonoma County, but were reported missing after not returning to Rock-N-Water, where they were due back Sunday at 5 p.m.

Their bodies were found three days later on the beach.

Jason's father Bob Allen, 67, who will be gathering with his family in his home state of Michigan this weekend to commemorate Jason's death, still wonders what happened to the couple.

"Did they run into somebody who doesn't like Christians? They freely talked about their love for the Lord," he said in a phone interview. "Or was there someone down on the beach who was planning something illegal and they just happened to wander upon it? I don't know. Lots of things it could be."

Both sets of parents have visited California to check in on the investigation with the sheriff's office.

"You know, it's still something they want to solve," said Allen, remembering photographs of his son and Lindsay posted in the cubicles of detectives.

Lt. Carlos Basurto, one of the first officers to arrive at the scene of the slayings 10 years ago and now head of the sheriff's violent crime unit, said cracking the case remains a priority.

"Not to say you don't want to do that for the rest of the cases, but in this case, if ever there was an innocent victim, here you have them," he said. "I think about this case all the time. My wife still talks to me about this case. She'll ask, 'Hey, what's going on in Jenner? Did you ever think of this?' "

Detectives, who quickly ruled out murder-suicide, chased down several leads over the past decade.

There was a fugitive suspect, Joseph Henry Burgess, who had been linked to the eerily similar killings in 1972 of two campers on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. But he died in a 2009 shootout with police in New Mexico, as did a police officer, and DNA evidence didn't connect him to the 2004 crime.

A drifter from Wisconsin was also pursued shortly after the killings. But he was cleared by a polygraph test.

"There have been several times in the investigation where our adrenaline got going and we thought we had something good," said Basurto. "It turned out it wasn't as good as we thought."

Fewer investigators

The team of several dozen investigators initially working on the case has been slimmed down to just one. New tips don't come in as regularly as they used to, but they still come in - and each is examined.

As recently as February, Basurto said, the office pursued a "person of interest" on the East Coast. He said he couldn't elaborate for fear of compromising the investigation.

A $50,000 reward stands for information leading to an arrest.

The Cutshalls say they'd like to see the case solved, but they've found solace in believing that God will ultimately bring justice to the killer.

"We don't need to have him captured to have closure," Chris said. "I let him go into God's hands a long time ago."

The group that came to the beach Friday included Lindsay's best friend from college, who had flown in from Pennsylvania, family friends from Toronto and a former classmate of both Lindsay and Jason who had come by Greyhound bus from Boomer, W.Va.

"It was just their sense of adventure that struck me," said the classmate, Christine Perdue, through tears. "Lindsay was the first girl I knew who had a motorcycle. Jason was the first person who belayed me while rappelling."

After several songs and prayers, half the group ventured north, to the more secluded beach where Lindsay and Jason had gone. It was a steep climb, and Chris and Kathy tightly gripped each other's hands.

They stood quietly in the dark gray sand, amid a salty breeze and sound of breaking waves, while a bouquet of flowers was placed at the spot where the couple's bodies were found 10 years earlier.

The couple are believed to have parked Lindsay's old Ford Tempo at a turnout above the beach on Highway 1, about a mile north of central Jenner and its small collection of inns, restaurants and shops.

They must have walked about a quarter mile down the bluff with their camping gear in tow.

'Perfect' last days

A visitors' log in a wooden hutch documented their presence on the unmarked beach, a spot considered popular with locals.

There, Jason wrote, "I've just spent two awesome days with my fiancee Lindsay. Can life ever be so perfect?"

Shortly afterward, the two fell asleep on the beach. Authorities say they probably never awoke for what was to come.