Town note
The original Alsea settlement first appeared as 'Alcia' or 'ALSEYA' on a General Land Office survey map in the late 1850s, with a Y between the E and A.
about 0:06:00The story
In the spring of 2017 a twenty-six-year-old Russian woman named Anna Rapkina was shot in the back of the head and left on a remote logging landing in the woods outside Alsea, Oregon.
He was short, heavy and not conventionally handsome, but friends described him as charismatic and funny. He worked as a bouncer at the Peacock Bar and Grill in Corvallis and then as an oil change technician at Lassen Chevrolet and Toyota in Albany. He told a close friend that he had been a Marine stationed in Russia, a claim that was completely false. He was fascinated by Russia and Russian women.
Anna Rapkina was twenty-six and lived in Moscow, where she worked for IKEA. She spoke several languages, loved cats and travel, had a good sense of humour and had recently ended a seven-year relationship. In 2016 she joined a Russian social networking site and met Will, then twenty-six. They exchanged thousands of messages, moved to video calls and fell for each other.
At the same time Will was involved with Michelle Chavez, a thirty-three-year-old taxi driver. Michelle was married to Rawley Green, an Oregon State University professor, and they had two young children and a house in Albany. Their marriage had become platonic, and Michelle asked for an open marriage so she could find emotional and physical intimacy elsewhere. Rawley agreed, though reluctantly. Michelle met Will at the Peacock in 2015 and they began an affair. In 2016 Will moved into the spare bedroom of the family home. He paid rent only sporadically, Michelle paid some of his bills, gave him $500 towards a car and co-signed the loan. Their sex life was built around her submission: she called him sir or master and he called her Mishka.
In December 2016 Anna flew to Oregon for the holidays. She mistakenly flew to Portland, Maine first, then made her way across the country. At the end of the ten-day visit Will proposed. He gave her a ring he said was his grandmother's, but it was in fact the wedding ring Michelle had given him as a promise that she would leave her husband. Michelle knew Anna was coming and had agreed to Will's plan that Anna would be an addition to their relationship. Anna stayed in Will's room and Michelle met her only once, briefly, on New Year's Eve. Anna knew nothing about Michelle except Will's description of her as a crazy ex-girlfriend.
Anna went home, then returned on March 1st, 2017. She and Will rented an apartment in Corvallis. Will kept seeing Michelle, splitting nights between the two women and sometimes not coming home at all. Anna asked his friends where he was. On March 22nd Michelle messaged Anna on Facebook about sharing Will, and Anna told her to stop being a bitch. Michelle replied that she was only being mouthy, not threatening. On April 7th a friend, Stevie Ray, saw a long gun case and shotgun shells in Will's car. On April 9th Will and Michelle argued so loudly at the Peacock that a bouncer asked them to calm down. On April 11th Michelle texted another lover, "if she's not gone by Thursday, I'm building a snowman", a family phrase she later said meant killing someone and hiding the body in a snowman.
On April 15th Michelle was due at Will's apartment for dinner, but he cancelled because Anna had come back. They argued by text. Will promised that Anna would be gone by April 19th, the deadline Michelle had set for choosing her. He also promised to pack his things and be at Michelle's Albany house by midnight, but he never arrived. Michelle left two voicemails overnight, the first saying "I guess you made your choice" and the second asking why.
April 16th was Easter Sunday. Will's car insurance was about to lapse and Progressive refused to delay the cancellation. At about 4.30pm he called Michelle and said he had run off the road near the coast and had a flat tyre. He waited at a Corvallis convenience store, buying a Pepsi, a candy bar and cigarettes. Michelle drove out to meet him, and they had sex in the front seat of her car before she returned to her family's Easter dinner. Cell phone records later placed Will's phone at the murder site between 4.35 and 4.48 that afternoon. Afterwards he withdrew $200 from Anna's bank account at one ATM and $600 at a Chase ATM, deposited $160, and paid his insurance. That night he was at the Peacock, drunk and crying, calling himself a piece of shit and a terrible person. He told a woman there that he had two women and could not choose between them.
On Monday, April 17th, a caretaker walking his dog found Anna's body on a logging landing near Alsea. She had been shot in the back of the head, and fast food bags, cigarette packs and candy wrappers lay around her. Will texted her phone over and over, asking where she was and begging her to let him know she was safe. He then searched the internet for how to travel back in time, saved screenshots of a spell, and messaged strangers on WhatsApp saying he needed to correct a horrible mistake. He asked to go back to April 16th at about 11.30am and simply stay home. He offered his soul to anyone who could help.
On April 19th investigators traced a KFC receipt in the rubbish beside Anna's body to Kevin Thomas, Will's best friend, who said he and Will went to KFC every Friday and that he had lent Will a shotgun. Police interviewed Will at Michelle's house and then at the sheriff's office. He lied about how he met Anna, said they had gone on two dates and that he had not seen her since the middle of March. When told that his rubbish had been found where a woman was killed, he said that was not where he left it. Michelle was questioned too.
His defence argued that Michelle had killed Anna. They pointed to her jealousy, her heavy drinking that day, her lies to police, her possession of Anna's phone and a visit her phone records showed she had made to the logging road a month before the body was found. Michelle testified that she had no reason to want Anna dead, that she only wanted her to go home, and that "building a snowman" was a family joke. The judge refused to suppress the evidence. Anna's ashes were returned to Russia.