On a summer afternoon in 1971, college students Joyce LePage and Loretta Salvadalena sat together at the ledge of a community pool. Loretta was a lifeguard and had invited Joyce to come by during her lunch break. The two were neighbors and college classmates. “She always had a smile on her face,” Loretta said, describing her friend. “She had a little bit of a goofy side.”
The two young women grew up together in Pasco, Washington. After graduating from high school, they both headed to Washington State University (WSU).
“I often reflect back on that hour we sat on the edge of the pool, you know… And I can’t remember what we talked about. It was probably just college girl talk,” Loretta said. “But it was a good conversation.”
It would also be their last conversation. A few weeks later, in the late hours between July 21 and July 22, 1971, 21-year-old Joyce LePage went missing from the college campus in Pullman. Nine months later, on April 16, 1972, her remains were found in a ravine by a creek 12 miles from her last known location.
Joyce’s case remains unsolved 55 years later. Loved ones and law enforcement continue to seek answers in her death.
At the time of her disappearance, Joyce was enrolled in summer courses at WSU. Friends and family said she often spent time in Stevens Hall, a women’s dorm, which was closed for renovations at the time. Joyce would sneak into the building, often staying the night there rather than in her rented off-campus apartment.
Investigators believe Joyce likely died in that building.
“My parents knew that she was due back [home], um, to come to our unlimited hydroplane races here for the weekend, and did not show up,” Joyce’s younger brother Bruce recalled. After waiting ten days to hear from her, he said the family reached out to authorities in Pullman. Sheriff Brett Myers of the Whitman County Sheriff’s Office has led Joyce’s investigation for the past 30 years. He told Dateline that responding officers quickly learned no one had been in contact with Joyce in several days.
Investigators found her car parked within a few blocks of her apartment. Joyce’s younger brother Bruce told Dateline his sister’s purse, sandals, and a parking ticket were found in the car, but her driver’s license, student ID, and car keys have never been recovered.
“At school, everybody was at a loss,” Loretta Salvadalena’s brother Russ told Dateline. He attended school with Joyce’s younger siblings at the time. “How do you say, ‘Sorry your sister’s missing’?”
The worst news was yet to come. According to Sheriff Myers, on April 16, 1972, a gem hunter stumbled upon a “scattered” partial skeleton in Wawawai Canyon, a short drive west of WSU.
Much of the remains were wrapped inside a square of green carpet that was later found to have been cut from Stevens Hall, the dorm where Joyce was known to spend time.
Responding investigators sent the remains to the FBI Crime Lab in Quantico, Virginia, where dental analysis confirmed they belonged to Joyce.
Sheriff Myers says that given the condition of Joyce’s remains, “an absolute cause and manner” of death has never been determined. Striation marks on her ribcage suggest Joyce may have been stabbed. But investigators say those marks could also have been the result of animal activity after her death. Therefore, Myers couldn’t “ a hundred percent say for sure if it was some sort of accidental death, and somebody freaks out and gets rid of a body.”
Adding to the mystery, Myers says Joyce’s body was wrapped in a plaid blanket and an army blanket in addition to the green carpeting from the dorm. But none of those items had blood stains, which would have suggested a stabbing. “Unless she’s immediately stabbed in the heart and her heart stops beating, I don’t know why there’s not a bloody scene somewhere,” he said. “ So if she’s killed in that room at WSU, why isn’t there blood marks, a struggle? And there isn’t.”
Myers says his office had the wrappings tested for DNA evidence but they did not yield any concrete results.
The sheriff told Dateline he is inclined to believe Joyce’s death was intentional. “ People don’t die and get rolled up in carpet,” he said. “ There’s foul play involved in some point, ‘cause if it’s an accident, why don’t you just call 911?”
Bruce LePage and Sheriff Myers both believe the reason Joyce often spent nights at Stevens Hall was to avoid her male roommate. Notes from interviews conducted during the initial investigation describe the relationship between the two as “incompatible.”
“You don’t just go two blocks away, hang out, and sleep in a dormitory if everything’s fine back in your apartment,” Myers said.
According to Myers, investigators learned that at around 10 p.m. on July 22, Joyce was dropped off by friends outside her apartment. Her roommate told law enforcement he saw her sleeping on the couch in their apartment the next morning at 8 a.m. “That’s not possible, because the carpet is reported missing around that same time,” Myers said. “ She absolutely goes missing the night of the [22nd] into the early morning hours of the [23rd] of July.”
According to the sheriff, Joyce’s roommate has been uncooperative during the investigation. “I mean, I tried to call him numerous times. He hangs up on me,” Myers said. “Claims he took a polygraph. We can’t find it.” Myers describes the roommate as a narcissist and told Dateline he considers him the prime suspect in Joyce’s disappearance.
Joyce’s roommate has never been charged in relation to her disappearance or death. He has not replied to Dateline’s request for comment.
Bruce did mention another provocative theory. He says that while researching Joyce’s case, he read the book “The Stranger Beside Me,” about serial killer Ted Bundy, written by Ann Rule. Rule and Bundy were friends and co-workers in the 1970s.
In the book, Bruce read that law enforcement officers from Oregon and Washington had met to share information about the victims they had in their jurisdictions, victims who were later attributed to Bundy. “And they came up with a list of what they called commonalities. And there were about, I’d have to count them again, but there were somewhere around 12 commonalities,” Bruce said. “And Joyce fit every one.”
Bundy was living in Seattle in 1971. Sheriff Myers says investigators have considered, and still consider, him to be a possible suspect in her death. However, “there’s nothing that places Bundy in this immediate area in July,” he said. Bundy confessed to killing more than two dozen women before he was executed in 1989. He did not include Joyce in those confessions.
Sheriff Myers acknowledges that after 55 years it will be “really, really hard” to get justice for Joyce LePage, but he’s still hoping to provide closure and “let Joyce’s brother and family know we did what we could.”
Bruce LePage is 73 years old today. He and Sheriff Myers have become friends over the years through the investigation. He understands he may never get answers or justice in his sister’s case, and told Dateline that when the sheriff retires, he will probably end his own search as well. “As Sheriff [Myers] has actually said, ‘You know what, I’ve traced this out as far as I can.’”
Bruce LePage remembers Joyce as an effortlessly creative renaissance woman, whose talents and originality could have led her wherever she wanted. “She had, um, so many options that I have no idea where she would have ended up,” he said. “She was heavily into writing, and she could have been a teacher… just about anywhere she wanted, probably. She could have written novels, potentially. She could have been -- become an airline pilot. There was no limit. So that’s -- the big loss.”
Loretta Salvadalena also reflects on that loss. “The older I get, when I think of her, the harder it is for me. Because I know the life I’ve had, and the life she didn’t have,” she said.
“She brought a lot of joy to the world,” Loretta added. “The world was robbed of that.”
For the past 15 years, Bruce has offered a split reward totaling $100,000 in Joyce’s case, $60,000 for information that leads to an arrest, and $40,000 for information that leads to a conviction.
“The probability in my mind of that reward being exercised is very slim. I’d love to have to pay it out,” he said. “But I won’t pull it. I’ll keep it there as long as I’m alive.”
If you have any information concerning Joyce LePage’s death or disappearance, please contact the Whitman County Sheriff’s Department at 509-397-6266 or via their online form.
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