Crime Immemorial

Nancy was a longtime employee of the Washington State Department of Ecology, working as a financial analyst in Lacey, north of Tenino. Friends and colleagues described her as outgoing and cheerful; her sister Sharon Wilbur called her a “social butterfly.” At roughly five feet tall and 115 pounds, Nancy was physically petite but remembered as someone with a large personality.

Nancy and her husband, Bill Moyer, had separated in 2007 after approximately ten years of marriage. Their separation was described as amicable, and rather than engaging in a contentious custody battle, they worked out an arrangement under which Nancy generally had their two daughters during the week and Bill cared for them on weekends. Police publicly stated shortly after Nancy disappeared that Bill was not considered a suspect.

That custody arrangement is important to the timeline. Friday, March 6th, was a weekend when the children were staying with Bill. Nancy therefore expected to have the house to herself until the girls returned on Sunday. Nothing about her plans suggested she intended to go anywhere.

Nancy finished work at the Department of Ecology on Friday afternoon and drove a coworker home. Accounts differ slightly on the precise time she dropped him off, but investigators established that she subsequently stopped at a grocery store near Tenino. A receipt recovered during the investigation showed that she made a purchase at approximately six forty-five p.m., reportedly buying food and wine for the weekend.

What Nancy did during the next couple of hours is less certain. One of the most unusual breaks in the timeline came from a Tenino police officer who had been running radar near Nancy’s home that night. The officer later reported seeing Nancy outside the residence sometime between approximately nine and nine thirty p.m., carrying shopping bags from her vehicle. According to the officer, she appeared to be alone. If the sighting was accurate, it placed Nancy safely back at her house several hours after her grocery purchase. It would also become the last known sighting of her.

Around midnight, a neighbor later recalled hearing what sounded like a hurried female voice and the slamming of car doors. At the time, the neighbor apparently did not find the sounds alarming and assumed Nancy’s daughters might have returned. Only after Nancy was reported missing did the noises acquire possible significance.

Investigators later examined Nancy’s utility records and reportedly found that the home’s heating usage increased dramatically at around eleven thirty p.m. or midnight. Detectives believed the spike could be explained by the furnace struggling to heat the house after the front door had been left open on a cold March night. That observation helped investigators narrow the possible window in which Nancy disappeared to roughly between nine p.m. and midnight. Exactly what occurred during those few hours remains the central mystery of the case.

On Sunday, March 8th, Bill Moyer drove the couple’s daughters to Nancy’s house as he normally did at the end of the weekend. Her car was parked outside, but Nancy did not come to meet them. The front door was ajar.

Initially, Bill did not assume the worst. Nancy occasionally walked around the neighborhood, and it was possible she had simply stepped out. He and the girls went inside and waited, expecting her to return. She never did.

Inside, the house presented a strange mixture of normality and abandonment. The television and lights remained on. Nancy’s purse and keys were there. So were her identification, credit cards and other personal belongings. Her car had not been taken. Police found no obvious evidence of forced entry and no unmistakable signs that a violent struggle had occurred.

Perhaps the most memorable detail was on the coffee table. A partially consumed glass of red wine was sitting there, with another drinking glass beside it. Investigators fingerprinted the glasses but, according to Detective Mickey Hamilton, identified no fingerprints other than Nancy’s. The existence of the second glass naturally raised the possibility that she had been entertaining someone, although investigators have never established publicly that another person had actually been drinking from it.

After Bill contacted relatives and coworkers and learned that no one had heard from Nancy, she was reported missing. The circumstances immediately raised alarms. Nancy had left virtually everything she would need to start another life, or even to spend a night away from home. More importantly, her family insisted that disappearing voluntarily and abandoning her children was entirely inconsistent with her behavior.

Within weeks, law enforcement officials were publicly acknowledging that foul play appeared increasingly likely. A Thurston County Sheriff’s lieutenant described the inquiry at the time as essentially a homicide investigation despite the absence of a body.

Searchers descended on the Tenino area. Volunteers, investigators, bloodhounds and cadaver dogs searched the property and surrounding countryside. Nancy’s family distributed posters and initially offered a $55,000 reward, which was later increased to $105,000. Yet no search produced Nancy’s remains or a decisive piece of physical evidence explaining what happened to her.

The rural geography surrounding Tenino complicated the investigation. The area south of Olympia contains forests, rivers, isolated roads and large stretches of private and undeveloped land. If Nancy had been removed from her home in a vehicle, investigators faced an enormous potential search area.

Police also examined the people in Nancy’s life. Bill Moyer cooperated with the investigation and was publicly cleared as a suspect early on. Other acquaintances and coworkers were interviewed as detectives attempted to reconstruct Nancy’s personal life and determine who might have known she was alone that weekend. But the investigation gradually went cold.

Then, more than a year after Nancy disappeared, another murder in Tenino briefly raised a disturbing possibility. On August 8th, 2010, a man named Bernard K. Howell III was arrested in the Tenino area after the body of sixty-year-old Vanda Boone was discovered in his vehicle. Howell later pleaded guilty to killing Boone and received a lengthy prison sentence.

Because Howell lived near Nancy and had worked selling meat door to door, investigators examined whether he might also have encountered her. Detectives found the same brand of meat Howell sold in Nancy’s freezer, and Nancy’s daughter reportedly identified Howell from a photo montage as a man who had previously sold meat to her mother.

The coincidence understandably drew investigators’ attention. Howell was interviewed about Nancy after his arrest and became a person of interest in her disappearance. Howell denied involvement, and investigators never developed evidence tying him to Nancy’s disappearance. He has never been charged with anything related to her case.

For years afterward, the case remained largely stagnant. Then, in July 2019, investigators received a call that appeared, at least briefly, to offer the breakthrough Nancy’s family had waited a decade to receive.

On July 9th, 2019, Eric Lee Roberts contacted Thurston County 911. Roberts was not a stranger to Nancy. He had lived near her and had also worked for the Washington State Department of Ecology. Investigators had spoken with him during the original investigation.

According to the Thurston County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Roberts made incriminating statements during the 911 call implicating himself in Nancy’s disappearance and presumed homicide. Sheriff’s detectives subsequently arrested him on suspicion of murder.

Court records described a dramatic series of interviews. Investigators said Roberts repeatedly claimed that he had killed Nancy, at various points giving different accounts of how her death had supposedly occurred. Detectives said he discussed strangulation and acknowledged a sexual relationship with her. During the investigation he also directed detectives’ attention toward an area of his property containing a concrete fire pit.

The statements seemed explosive. After ten years without a body and without an arrest, investigators suddenly had a man apparently claiming responsibility.

Detectives searched Roberts’s property, including excavating areas around it and collecting potential evidence for forensic analysis. They did not find Nancy. And then Roberts withdrew his confession.

During subsequent interviews, Roberts recanted the statements implicating himself. He later maintained publicly that he had nothing to do with Nancy’s disappearance and said he did not remember making the alleged confession.

On July 11th, 2019, a Thurston County judicial officer nevertheless found probable cause for second-degree murder based on Roberts’s incriminating statements and other circumstantial evidence described by prosecutors. Bail was set at $1.5 million.

But a probable-cause finding is not the same as a criminal conviction, or even the filing of a formal murder charge. The prosecutor’s office elected not to immediately file homicide charges, explaining that detectives were still investigating and that all of the evidence needed to be considered. Roberts was later released. No murder conviction resulted from the episode.

Nancy Moyer remains missing. No one has been convicted of her presumed homicide.