Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer speaks at a public meeting Aug. 1, 2023, to address concerns about how his office investigated a Portland woman's death in October 2022. Songer said he's convinced the woman died in an accidental drowning.
Troy Brynelson / OPB
News that a 31-year-old woman was found dead in shallow water last October recently jolted Klickitat County residents. Local law enforcement never publicly reported the death.
County Sheriff Bob Songer on Tuesday responded to accusations that his agency poorly handled the case by quickly insisting the death was accidental. He said it may have been his fault the death wasn’t more widely known.
“It might be my bad that there wasn’t a press release at the time, but it wasn’t intentional,” Songer said after a county meeting.
Deputies found Hannah Walker, of Portland, on Oct. 12 floating in a creek near Trout Lake. Her family described her as a capable swimmer and said she had unidentified DNA under her fingernails at the time of her death.
According to a detective assigned to the case, a medical examiner reportedly said Walker’s injuries were consistent with someone “stumbling around in the water,” the detective wrote. The detective wrote that was not “consistent with someone who was fighting with someone or trying to defend off an attacker,” according to records provided to OPB.
The detective also said the medical examiner believed Walker had been drinking and mixing benzodiazepines at the time of her death. The detective wrote, “the medical examiner advised benzodiazepines and alcohol are a dangerous combination and should never be taken at the same time.”
Walker had reportedly been staying with a married couple in the area. The husband called 9-1-1 to report her missing after they had been at the creek together.
Family members first heard from detectives that they considered the case a homicide. However, family members said, detectives later recanted. They called it an accident and placed it on “inactive” status.
“There’s just been so many questions that have gone unanswered,” said Aia Walker, Hannah Walker’s mother. She also said the sheriff’s office has dismissed her concerns in conversations.
Besides the unidentified DNA, the family has also questioned why there were bootprints near the scene that were never identified.
“None of this makes any sense to me,” Aia Walker added. “[The sheriff’s office] did nothing.”
The family has since published a website calling for more information, and their attorneys recently issued press releases to media outlets in the Portland area alleging the agency “neglected” Walker’s death.
Television news station KGW published an interview with Walker’s mother on July 20. The news has since spread to neighbors who have taken to social media to raise more questions about the case.
Songer sat in on a meeting of Klickitat County Commissioners on Tuesday, expecting that there would be several public comments asking about the case. However, only Walker’s mother spoke publicly.
Aia Walker said in the meeting she wanted more information and to meet with the sheriff and Klickitat County Prosecutor David Quesnel. Quesnel declined to comment for this article.
When asked about why the case was initially treated as a homicide, Songer said that it’s his “philosophy” to treat suspicious deaths as homicides until evidence suggests otherwise. He said he believed the medical examiner’s findings showed Hannah Walker drowned accidentally.
“I’m 100% confident at this point it’s a drowning,” Songer said. The sheriff declined to comment about the boot prints or DNA. He said he’s expecting the family to file a lawsuit.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly attributed some assertions about Walker’s injuries. The story has been updated to reflect that those are the assertions of a detective reporting an interview with the medical examiner.