OREGON CITY, Ore., Aug. 25 (UPI) -- The worst fears of a suburban Portland community were realized Sunday when the remains of a missing schoolgirl were identified, and a second set of remains were found in a barrel buried beneath a concrete slab at the home of a self-proclaimed lead suspect.
A small crowd of onlookers gathered outside the home of Ward Weaver III for the announcement by Oregon City Police Chief Gordon Hurias and Stephen Mathews, the head of the FBI's Portland office, that the remains of Miranda Gaddis had been identified, and that a second set of remains -- presumably those of 12-year-old Ashley Pond -- had been dug up in Weaver's yard across the street from the apartment complex where the girls had lived.
"The Oregon State Medical Examiner has positively identified the remains discovered yesterday as the body of Miranda Gaddis," Mathews said. "This identification was made by the use of dental records. The cause of death won't be officially determined until other laboratory results are obtained."
"I know agents and officers are now with Miranda's mom, and I know she appreciates the support the community has given them," Mathews said as the neighbors who had been glumly watching the methodical processing of the crime scene stared sadly or wept on each others' shoulders.
"I know the chief and I have appreciate the support we have been provided in the past few months during this very difficult investigation," he added.
Mathews and Hurias said the search would continue until the entire property was covered, but they did not expect to find any additional bodies.
"The crime scene investigation is ongoing," Mathews said. "We want to make sure that when law enforcement finally leaves this residence, every piece of evidence is recovered and brought to bear on whoever is responsible for these acts."
The discoveries appeared to end the baffling mystery of how Ashley could have vanished into thin air on her way to school Jan. 9. Her disappearance was followed March 8 by Miranda's disappearance under nearly identical circumstances.
In both instances, there were no witnesses and no physical evidence.
The best lead appeared to be Weaver, an ex-convict with a violent criminal record whose father was sentenced to death in California for the 1981 murder of a young man and his fiancé, whose body was found the following year under a concrete slab at his Oroville, Calif., home.
Weaver himself had told reporters in July that the task force considered him a suspect in the case, but he denied any involvement.
Weaver raised genuine alarm among the families of the missing girls when he laid down a slab of cement on the side of his house as a foundation for a hot tub.
Ashley's former stepmother went so far as to post a sign next to the slab that read, "Dig Me Up!" and Kristi Sloan, one of Weaver's two ex-wives, told reporters she had reported the slab to the task force almost before the cement had dried.
Authorities refused to elaborate on the seeming delay other than to say they had been unable to legally enter the property until Saturday.
"I can tell you that it was not a matter of 'taking a long time,' it was a matter of the investigators making day-to-day progress on the investigation," FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said. "They used every legal means at their disposal, each and every day. ... That is what has brought us to this point; they were on the property as soon as they could be."
Approximately 40 FBI agents and officers from the Oregon State Police and Oregon City Police began a methodical search Saturday of the small house and yard where Weaver lived until his arrest Aug. 13 for allegedly raping the 19-year-old girlfriend of his son, Francis. Francis Weaver told police at the time that his father had admitted killing the two girls and was getting ready to flee Oregon and head for Mexico.
There were media reports in Portland Sunday that Weaver had confessed to the killings, but those reports were denied.
"Mr. Weaver has not made any such statements to investigators," Steele said.
Searchers began looking at the Weaver home Saturday after obtaining what Steele said were a search warrant and signed consent form from Weaver.
The search quickly yielded material results when the skeletal remains were found hidden in a small shed behind the house Saturday afternoon.
Meanwhile, details of Weaver's upbringing and family life were emerging.
Weaver himself has been in prison several times for violent assaults, and police were frequently sent to the Oregon City home on domestic violence calls.
Weaver's father, Ward Weaver Jr., is awaiting execution in California for the 1981 murders of a young couple whose car had broken down. The woman's body was found buried in the yard of his Oroville home in 1982 beneath a concrete slab laid over a grave he had had his 10-year-old son, Rodney, dig.
The Oregonian reported Sunday that, according to Kern County, Calif., prosecutor Ron Shumaker, the elder Weaver, the one on death row, was a trucker whose routes matched up with the areas where some 26 hitchhikers had vanished; however, Weaver was never charged in any of the cases.
Rodney Weaver, now 31, told the newspaper that seeing his condemned dad languishing on San Quentin's Death Row put him on the straight-and-narrow, and he was stunned once again to learn that his brother had laid down his own piece of concrete at the time he was being looked at under eerily similar circumstances of missing female victims.
"I would like to believe" that he is not responsible, Rodney Weaver said. "It's not going to shock me if he did, not because of his past history, but because I've dealt with it before."
(Reported by Hil Anderson in Los Angeles)
