Scott William Cox

Case information

Name: Scott William Cox

The offence

Tia Hicks vanished in 1990 after Scott William Cox was later linked by DNA evidence to murders of two women in Portland, Oregon. Cox was linked to the Brunson and Rhone murders by DNA evidence and was described as a long-haul trucker whose long-hauling took him across the West from Canada to Mexico and as far east as Ohio.

Six months after Tia Hicks vanished, police learned that she had been murdered. Investigators later said decomposition was so complete that there was nothing to indicate when or where Tia was killed, and that the evidence was circumstantial, with investigators not knowing what caused her death. Time had also eliminated any recoverable DNA that might have been used to match the victim to her killer.

Investigation

Seattle police originally treated the missing-person report as unfounded and purged it from state and national crime computers. The missing-person report had been filed as “unfounded” and purged from state and national crime computers.

A month after Tia Hicks’s body was found, HITS received a Seattle police report of a woman who had been raped, choked and left for dead in May 1991. The case was not being pursued because the woman, a prostitute, was intoxicated, and because those factors made it a long shot that police would ever make a case. A HITS investigator determined that the assailant clearly intended to kill the woman and that his method of operation indicated it probably was not a first-time attack. Although the victim did not know the man’s name, he was thought to be a truck driver, making it easier to avoid detection for similar crimes elsewhere.

HITS activated the case and sent a bulletin to police agencies in the state and in Oregon, where investigators recognized similarities to the murder of two Portland prostitutes.

On Nov. 24, 1990, a week after Tia Hicks disappeared, Rheena Ann Brunson, a suspected prostitute with no history of arrest, was found dead in front of a Portland Safeway store. She had been handcuffed and was stabbed in the heart.

On Feb. 19, 1991, the partially clad body of Victoria Rhone, who had a prostitution record, was found in a railroad car in suburban Portland. She had been strangled.

Scott William Cox was linked by DNA evidence to the Brunson and Rhone murders.

Mountlake Terrace police considered Cox their only suspect in the Hicks case, though Cox had not been charged in connection with the Hicks murder. Investigators checking out Cox’s long-hauling trips to Washington placed him in Mountlake Terrace between the time of Tia Hicks’s disappearance and the discovery of her body. A delivery route to a car dealership would have taken him past the Silver Dollar Casino.

Mountlake Terrace Police Sgt. Craig McCaul said investigators sent people to interview Cox twice. McCaul said the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office wrote a memo stating they wanted to close the case and would give Cox immunity, but Cox would never confess to Tia Hicks’s case.

Timeline

• Dec. 13 2:20 p.m. — Leonard Hicks signed the missing-person report for his daughter Tia Hicks.
• Nov. 19 — Leonard Hicks had dropped Tia Hicks off near the Elbow Room Cafe in Columbia City, planning to go cash a check to give her some money later.
• Day after the missing-person report was filed — A Seattle detective responded to the missing-person report and wrote that Hicks explained it was not the first time that Tia had not come home in several days; the report was filed as “unfounded.”
• April 22, 1991 — Jensen was working Tia Hicks’s case and noticed Seattle police had reopened its “unfounded” case, entering it in state and national crime databases and superseding the case Jensen had posted there.
• May 1991 — A woman was raped, choked and left for dead; HITS received the Seattle police report of that case about a month after Tia Hicks’s body was found.
• Nov. 24, 1990 — Rheena Ann Brunson was found dead in front of a Portland Safeway store.
• Feb. 19, 1991 — Victoria Rhone’s partially clad body was found in a railroad car in suburban Portland.
• September 1993 — Cox pleaded no contest to two counts of intentional murder.
• Oct. 2 — Tia Hicks had been set to turn 32nd; each year, her family gathered with her two sons for a celebration of her life.

People

Victims

• Tia Hicks — missing in 1990; her body was identified through fingerprints and dental work; decomposition prevented investigators from determining when or where she was killed.
• Rheena Ann Brunson — found dead in front of a Portland Safeway store; handcuffed; stabbed in the heart.
• Victoria Rhone — partially clad body found in a railroad car in suburban Portland; strangled.

Other people named

• Leonard Hicks — Tia Hicks’s father; signed the missing-person report at 2:20 p.m. Dec. 13; had dropped Tia off near the Elbow Room Cafe in Columbia City on Nov. 19; later walked into the King County Sheriff’s Office and asked for help a month after the first report was snubbed.
• Deborah McDaniel — Tia Hicks’s mother; lived in Federal Way; kept Tia’s ashes in a box surrounded by angel dolls and family photos; asked for resolution and closure after years.
• Tom Jensen — a veteran King County detective who took up Tia Hicks’s case when no one else would; later retired and remained a consultant to the revived Green River Task Force.
• Robert Ressler — a former FBI agent who interviewed dozens of serial killers and helped start the bureau’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP).
• Steven Egger — a University of Houston-Clear Lake criminologist and professor and former police officer.
• Michael Nault — a retired King County police detective commander and U.S. Department of Justice and State Department contractor working with Indonesian police.
• Dick Kraske — a former King County Sheriff’s major who first headed the Green River serial murder investigation in 1982.
• John Turner — chief criminal investigator of Washington’s Homicide Investigation Tracking System (HITS), a unit of six veteran homicide investigators.
• Jim Hansen — a HITS investigator.
• Bob Keppel — Attorney General’s chief investigator and a former King County detective who pursued Bundy; founded HITS.
• Kirk Mellecker — a major-case specialist with ViCAP.
• Rheena Ann Brunson — suspected prostitute with no history of arrest.
• Victoria Rhone — had a prostitution record.
• Craig McCaul — Mountlake Terrace Police Sgt.
• Ted Bundy — referenced as a serial killer.
• Kenneth Bianchi — referenced as the Hillside Strangler.

Trial

Cox pleaded no contest in September 1993 to two counts of intentional murder.

Sentencing

Cox was sentenced to consecutive 12.5-year terms on two counts in 1993, for a total term of 25 years in Oregon.

Appeals

No appeal information was provided.

Outcome

Cox served a 25-year term in Oregon after pleading no contest in September 1993 to two counts of intentional murder.

Cox had not been charged in connection with the Hicks murder, but Mountlake Terrace police said they considered him their only suspect.