The Projection Transfer Theory

La Grande, Oregon, is a small city of about 13,400 people in Union County, in the dry northeast of the state. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it On the evening of Friday 11 February 1983 he went drinking and ended up at My Wife's Place, where twenty-year-old Dana Lynn Dumars was the cocktail waitress. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed Page calmed him and took him outside.

At about 2.15 a.m. on 12 February Stroud left with her boyfriend Brian. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now A few blocks away the truck broke down near Candy Cane Park. They pushed it towards the park, abandoned it and walked to the apartment of Brian's cousin, passing Dana Dumars walking back towards the bars. The cousin did not answer and the couple separated. Stroud walked back towards the park, heard moaning and saw in the dark a cream-coloured shape in the middle of the park, one person on top of another. She took it for a couple having sex and went on. details of the account remain covered until revealed At 7 a.m. two men found Dana Dumars in the park, barely alive, with hatchet wounds and her head half severed. She died before reaching hospital. A pool of blood lay near the sidewalk with a trail leading to where she was found.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The murder was all over town, and he told colleagues the victim worked at the bar where he had been, before police had named her. this part of the story is covered for now That evening Lieutenant O'Rork and another officer searched his home with his consent, found nothing and took him to the station, where O'Rork and Sergeant Button questioned him from about 7.40 p.m. until 2.40 a.m. He first denied any row with Stroud, then admitted grabbing her by the throat and face and threatening to cut her head off. He denied crossing Adams, the main street between the bar and the park, then admitted driving down to the park and seeing a couple leave a broken-down pickup.

The interrogation was extraordinary. details of the account remain covered until revealed O'Rork held a colour photograph of Dana's face in front of him and asked three times whether he had done it. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it From 11 p.m. the questioning was taped. Button told him to close his eyes and watch the night as a film, convinced him he had a special gift and could see what he had never witnessed, and under the technique he called projection transfer got him to describe a shiny metal object that became a hatchet, hidden in thick bushes behind Homer LaFell's house across from the park. The questioning then moved to the earlier killing of Sylvia Heisteman. this part of the story is covered for now

Three months later a boy mowing LaFell's yard found a hatchet handle in a grass pile. The FBI laboratory found no fingerprints or blood on it, but the state crime lab matched striations on the blade to the victim's skull and found hair on the blade, and called it the murder weapon. details of the account remain covered until revealed His defence argued that his low IQ meant he could not have done it and that he had been tricked; the state's theory was that he mistook Dumars for Stroud, who was dressed similarly, and attacked her over his grievance with Stroud. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Bail was set at $100,000. In 1986 the state decided it had no evidence apart from the statements, since the hatchet carried no fingerprints, and did not recharge him. He went free and was still living in La Grande at the time of the episode. this part of the story is covered for now Candy Cane Park gained a reputation for being haunted by Dana Dumars; its merry-go-round was removed in 2003 after reports of it spinning out of control, and people report a ghostly woman on the benches and swings warning them to leave.