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THE DEVIL’S AUDITION
Episode Three: The Body by the River
For more than twenty years, Valerie McDonald’s family lived without an answer.
Valerie disappeared from San Francisco in November 1980 after Michael Hennessey offered the aspiring actress a small role in a Dustin Hoffman movie—a movie that did not exist. Hennessey and John Gordon Abbott subsequently fled north toward Canada, where Hennessey was killed in a shootout with police. Valerie’s identification was reportedly found among the fugitives’ belongings, but Valerie herself seemed to have vanished.
Then came the discovery nobody initially understood.
On October 3, 1991, hunters found partial human remains near the Kettle River in Ferry County, Washington, roughly a mile from the Canadian border. The woman could not be identified and became a Jane Doe. For nearly another decade, two investigations continued independently: Valerie remained a missing woman in California while her unidentified remains waited in Washington.
In January 2001, dental records finally connected them.
The Kettle River Jane Doe was Valerie McDonald.
In the final episode of The Devil’s Audition, we follow Valerie home and confront the tantalizing geography of her case. Her remains were discovered near the Canadian border—the same general direction Hennessey and Abbott traveled after she vanished—but geography is not proof. No one has ever been convicted of Valerie’s murder.
We also return to Phillip Arthur Thompson, whose later conviction for the murder of twenty-one-year-old Betty Cloer established just how dangerous at least one man in Valerie’s orbit truly was, while still providing no legal answer to what happened to Valerie. TDW_Devil Audition_3
And finally, we reconsider the Satanic-cult theory that has followed this case for decades. Valerie reportedly described some activity around the Tower Apartments as Satanic, but there is no reliable evidence establishing that she was murdered in a Satanic ritual or sacrificed by a cult. The documented story may be considerably simpler—and considerably more frightening. TDW_Devil Audition_3
Valerie knew she was in danger. She was already leaving.
Then someone offered the aspiring actress exactly what she wanted: an audition.
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This is the conclusion of The Devil’s Audition. Thank you for spending these three episodes with Valerie McDonald and with us.
We’ll have an entirely new story next week. Stay tuned.
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