NOELLE CROMBIE/The Oregonian/OregonLive
Lincoln County authorities hope a new offer of a $50,000 reward will lead to the remains of a 17-year-old Newport girl who went missing more than four decades ago.
An anonymous donor put up money hoping it will spur information that leads not only to Kelly Disney’s remains but also to the conviction of her killer, according to Lincoln County District Attorney’s office cold case investigators. The donor this week confirmed the reward and their role to The Oregonian/OregonLive on the condition they remain anonymous.
Disney, then a junior at Newport High School, vanished from the east edge of Newport along U.S. Highway 20 in the early morning hours of March 9, 1984. She was living in an apartment with her boyfriend at the time; her parents and three younger siblings lived in Siletz.
At some point in the late hours of March 8, Disney and her boyfriend argued and she took off, heading out of Newport on Highway 20 by foot. She was spotted by a pair of janitorial workers driving into town for an early shift; they stopped to ask if she needed help, but Disney declined.
A Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputy also saw the teen walking along the highway going east; she told him she was headed a short distance away and didn’t need help. The following day, her family reported her missing after realizing she never showed up at home or for work at a Newport pizza parlor.
Newport police at first treated Disney as a runaway, although cold case investigator Linda Snow said authorities and family members did organize searches early on.
But the case quickly went cold.
Disney’s boyfriend is not considered a suspect in her disappearance, cold case investigators said this year.
In 1994, 10 years after she disappeared, two men found an abandoned car near Big Creek Reservoir northeast of Newport. Inside, under a carpet remnant, they found a human skull.
Snow said the discovery led to a strange series of events: One of the men took the skull home, washed it with Dawn dish detergent and then, at a friend’s urging, tried to turn it into Oregon State Police, the sheriff’s office and Newport police. But because it was a Saturday night, he was told by each agency to return on Monday.
He eventually managed to turn in the skull, which was later identified as Disney’s, Snow said. That led to a flurry of investigative activity by Newport police that ultimately went nowhere.
The case was reopened in 2000 but stalled out again.
Snow, a volunteer investigator for the district attorney’s office, became involved in the case in 2009. The FBI’s behavioral analysis unit began working on the case in 2023.
She said the collective memory of Disney’s disappearance has lingered in Newport and many of the teen’s associates are still around.
“I believe that $50,000 is enough to get somebody who’s been keeping quiet on it to come forward,” she said.
Snow told the Lincoln Chronicle on Friday that Newport police chief Jason Malloy recently offered the services of Detective Darren Cicerone to help cold case investigators because the detective position in the district attorney’s office remains vacant.
“This is wonderful news … we need a sworn officer and someone familiar with the case,” she said. “I’m really optimistic now.”
Disney’s younger sister, Angela Dodds, 54, lives in Prineville and this week recalled one of her last memories of her sister. After Disney got one of her first paychecks, she borrowed their parents’ car and took Angela into Newport for a shopping trip. Dodds recalled her sister bought her lip gloss and the two went out for pizza.
“That was the last time I remember being with her,” Dodds said.
Dodds said her sister loved living on the Oregon coast, loved school and dreamed of becoming a hairdresser.
Disney’s mother, Betty Kelly, lives in Prineville; Disney’s stepfather died in 1997. Dodds said the family hopes the reward helps resolve the mystery of what happened to her sister. Dodds has kept her sister’s ashes in a box on her mantle but the family doesn’t want to inter them until the rest of Disney’s remains are recovered.
“We need to lay her to rest,” she said. “My mom needs to be witness to that and that’s our main goal right now.”
- Noelle Crombie reports on the justice system for The Oregonian/OregonLive and can be reached at NCrombie@Oregonian.com
To read previous Lincoln Chronicle news stories about the Kelly Disney investigation, go here:
