Police Needed THERAPY After Witnessing This Crime: SHE WAS JUST 19! | True Crime Documentary 

have no respect for this court. This is you are the what the rudest person I’ve ever met. I would spit in your face if I was close enough. >> Well, >> Don’t don’t even start. >> [music] >> Some cases don’t just make headlines. They change the way an entire state sees safety. This is one of them. >> THIS IS MY HOME.

 YAY! >> 19-year-old Brooke Wilberger was the fifth of six kids in a tight-knit Oregon family. The kind of girl everyone assumed was untouchable. Sharp, athletic, deeply faithful, with her whole future mapped out. But on an ordinary Monday morning in the summer of 2004, all of that changed in the blink of an eye, setting off one of the most gripping true crime documentaries to come out of the Pacific Northwest.

If you’re new here, welcome. Hit subscribe for more true crime documentaries like this one, and drop a comment letting us know where you’re watching from tonight. Now, let’s rewind. Because to understand what happened to Brooke, you first need to understand who she really was. Growing up, Brooke did everything right.

 She threw herself into her studies and proved to be a real athlete, too, splitting her time between basketball, snowboarding, and long runs. Always moving, always pushing herself. At 16, she started dating Justin, a guy she’d known since they were kids. They were both devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the type of couple everyone back home figured was in it for the long haul.

When Justin left for a 2-year church mission, Brooke packed up and headed to Brigham Young University in Utah. It wasn’t only about staying close to her faith. BYU also had one of the top speech pathology programs in the country, and that mattered to Brooke more than most people realized. As a little kid, she’d struggled to speak at all, not saying her first real words until she was four.

That early struggle stuck with her, and she wanted to spend her life helping other people find their voice and the confidence that came with it. She wasn’t loud. Her family always described her as soft-spoken. But get her talking about something that actually mattered and she wouldn’t back down.

 If she thought someone was wrong or something wasn’t right, she said so. By the time freshman year rolled around, Brooke was more than ready. She’d outgrown her small hometown and was hungry for something bigger. That first year turned out to be everything she’d hoped for. And when summer rolled around, she headed home to Oregon looking to make a little extra cash before the fall semester.

Her older sister Stephanie came through. She and her husband managed Oak Park Apartments in Corvallis, about 30 miles from their parents’ place. And they needed the help. For Brooke, it was the perfect fit. The job barely cut into her packed social life. And she’d stay with Stephanie for a few days at a time to work her shifts before heading out to catch up with everyone else.

It was steady, simple, nothing anyone would think twice about. >> Until one particular Monday morning. May 24th, 2004. A warm Monday in Corvallis, Oregon starting out like any other. Stephanie and Brooke had plans to grab lunch together that afternoon in between Brooke’s shifts. Around 10:00 a.m.

, Stephanie glanced out her window and saw her little sister filling up a bucket of water getting ready to clean some of the complex’s outdoor lights. Just another ordinary task on just another ordinary day. A few hours later, buried in making lunch for her kids and her sister, Stephanie finally checked the clock. It was well past 1:00 p.m.

Brooke was late. And Brooke was never late. Half joking, she grabbed her kids and said, “Okay, let’s send out the search party.” She figured Brooke had gotten pulled into a conversation with a resident or lost track of time on some odd job around the complex. Then she saw it, and the joke stopped being funny.

 Sitting by a lamp post were Brooke’s cleaning supplies and the very buckets of water she’d filled that morning, untouched, abandoned. A few steps closer, Stephanie spotted her sister’s flip-flops lying nearby, the straps torn clean through and caked in mud. It looked like there’d been a struggle. Stephanie forced herself to stay put, not touch a thing, and called her husband.

The two of them searched every corner of the property they could think of. By just after 3:00 p.m., they found Brooke’s phone, her bag, and her wallet, all still locked inside her car. That’s when they knew. This wasn’t a missed lunch date. It was time to call 911. >> 911, what’s your emergency? >> Yeah, I’ve got someone who’s missing, a worker of mine, but we can’t seem to find >> I have a name from where? >> I’m the manager of the Oak Park Apartments, and this worker actually happens to be my sister-in-law. She’s

uh 19. >> And when was the last time anybody saw her? >> Around 10:30. >> Police didn’t wait around. Lieutenant Ron Noble put it simply, “Normally, an adult going quiet for a day isn’t cause for alarm. People come and go as they please, but this was different, and everyone on the force felt it right away.” Brooke simply wasn’t the type to vanish without a word to anyone.

 A couple of residents at the complex mentioned hearing some kind of commotion around 10:30 that morning, but nobody had actually seen a thing. Word spread through Corvallis fast, anyway. Investigators split up. Some went door-to-door through Oak Park Apartments. Others started working through the area’s registered offenders.

In that part of Oregon alone, that list ran close to 2,000 names. A lot of ground to cover, and not much time to cover it in. Naturally, Brooke’s boyfriend, Justin, was an obvious first call, except he was about as far from Oregon as anyone could be. Deep into a mission trip in Venezuela, with no doubt about his whereabouts that day.

Brooke had been talking marriage, a big family, the whole future together. And now Justin was getting news nobody could have prepared him for. He was cleared almost as fast as his name came up. Police Captain Jonathan Sassaman described just how tense those early days were. An entire community on edge, wondering if someone out there was hunting for a next victim.

Within days, Brooke’s disappearance turned into one of the most talked about cases in Oregon’s history. Hundreds of volunteers joined the search. The FBI stepped in, and reported sightings of a young woman who might have been Brooke started pouring in from all over the state and beyond. A couple of days into the search, investigators caught a break.

 A tip on a man named Sunku Kim, who quickly became a person of interest. Kim was 30, deeply reclusive, and lived with his parents about 80 miles from Corvallis. He was already known to police over a string of break-ins at local college dorms, where he’d been stealing personal items. Enough to get him charged with burglary.

One of those break-ins had happened at Oregon State University, practically next door to Oak Park Apartments. When detectives searched his home, they found a disturbing stockpile of stolen belongings. To them, it looked like the kind of behavior that could easily escalate into something far more dangerous. Just before sunrise, almost a week after Brooke disappeared, police raided Kim’s house.

 And what they found on his computer was disturbing, plain and simple. Thousands of files, none of it easy to stomach. Sitting right on his desktop was a file named osu.doc, written after Brooke had already gone missing, laying out disturbing criminal thinking. Still, nothing in it actually connected him to Brooke. As strong as the lead looked, it eventually collapsed.

 Phone records, computer data, and store receipts placed Kim at home and out shopping with his father at the time Brooke vanished. He was in the clear. Kim would go on to serve 7 years on burglary and related charges. And his parents later sued the authorities over how the raid was carried out calling it excessive and terrifying.

They ultimately settled for just over $300,000. Days stretched into weeks and weeks crept toward a full month with still no sign of Brooke. With every day that passed the odds of finding her alive kept slipping. But investigators had one thread they kept pulling on. Reports of a dark green minivan maybe a ’97 model that kept surfacing in connection to the case.

They put out a call for a man named Brian who’d phoned 911 before Brooke ever went missing to report that same van tearing through the area at reckless speeds. He wasn’t the only one who remembered it either. Several people described seeing what sounded like that exact van cruising around Oregon State University on the day Brooke disappeared.

 One University employee, Bob, said he spotted the van in a parking lot Minnesota plates and all and watched its driver strike up a conversation with a female student. One that left her rattled enough to report it to campus staff right after. Not long after that a second student described the same van pulling up in front of her the driver asking for directions.

 She didn’t stick around to chat. The second he stepped out and reached for the back door she took off. Solid leads, sure. But solid didn’t mean solved. Investigators still had no idea who was behind the wheel or whether any of it actually connected back to Brooke. Six agonizing months went by without a single real break.

 The search parties had disbanded and life in its own strange way kept moving forward. Then in November more than 1,400 miles away in Albuquerque, New Mexico police got a call that hit way too close to home. A woman named Dara had been out driving with her daughters when she spotted a young woman sprinting across the road in a full panic.

 desperately trying to yank open the door of a nearby restaurant. Dara didn’t hesitate. She pulled over and got the woman safely into her car. The woman, a 22-year-old exchange student from Russia, was shaking as she told her story. She’d been grabbed from behind while walking, threatened with a weapon, and forced into a stranger’s car.

The man, tall, broad-shouldered, white, with a shaved head and beard, attacked her, then restrained her before driving into an apartment complex and heading inside one of the units. Somehow, she broke free and ran for her life. Dara called 911 and gave police a description of the man along with his car, a distinctive two-door red vehicle with a red floral interior and a stuffed animal hanging from the mirror.

 It didn’t take long for a name to come back. Joel Patrick Courtney, a married father of three living in an Albuquerque suburb. Police found him just a few blocks away, sitting in his car with drug paraphernalia and a knife. Courtney wasn’t a stranger to the system. He’d already served time back in 1991 for a serious assault, along with a string of other charges over the years.

At 38, he’d bounced between states his whole adult life, Alaska, Florida, New Mexico, Oregon, never staying anywhere long. His wife Rosie had just filed a restraining order against him after he’d violently attacked her. To understand how Joel Patrick Courtney ended up here, his sister Dina has since described what he was like growing up, and it wasn’t what you’d expect.

As a kid, she said, he tested off the charts smart, the type everyone figured was headed for something great. But at just 11 years old, he started using drugs, and things spiraled fast from there. By his teenage years, he’d developed a fascination with dark, disturbing interests. He dropped out of high school and cycled in and out of juvenile detention for one offense after another, including a serious assault at 18.

Dina has said those years at home were frightening in ways she’s never fully put into words, that Joel would come into her room at night and turn physically abusive. For a while, things actually seemed to improve. At 23, Joel met Rosie. They had kids together, and despite everything she’d been through with him, Rosie chose to forgive him and try to build a life together.

But a few years in, Joel slid back into drugs and heavy drinking. And from there, things got a lot darker, a lot faster. By the time of his arrest, Joel was drinking heavily, deep into illegal substances, and racking up one alcohol-related charge after another. He was booked on multiple violent charges tied to the 22-year-old exchange student, and during his interviews, one detective couldn’t shake a feeling.

Something about this case felt familiar. Too familiar. Brooke’s disappearance had been dominating headlines for months, and the resemblance was hard to ignore. Not just in how the two women looked, but in how they’d both been taken. That detective picked up the phone and called the department handling Brooke’s case, just to ask if anyone had ever heard the name Joel Courtney.

The answer came back fast. On the day Brooke vanished, Joel had been in the area, with his own family, no less. Around the same time, Joel’s sister Dina got a call from his wife, Rosie, filling her in on the arrest. Almost immediately, Dina’s mind landed in the same place the detectives had. After she hung up, she turned to her husband and said, “Do you think he could be involved with it?” “It’s impossible to even think it’s possible.

” Her voice trailing off as her thoughts drifted to the missing 19-year-old. She could never quite bring herself to say it out loud, but somewhere deep down, her gut was telling her Joel knew exactly where Brooke was. >> Good afternoon. I’m Natalie Marmi, and General Hospital will be seen at a later time.

 Right now, we’re bringing you the latest in breaking news in the disappearance of Brooke Wilberger. We now know police believe Brooke was murdered and police believe a man currently sitting in an Albuquerque jail was the one who killed her. >> With no body and no answers, authorities had no choice but to presume Brooke was dead. Joel sat behind bars while investigators spent months building their case against him piece by piece.

It didn’t take long before they tracked down the vehicle he’d been driving that day and sure enough, it was a dark green minivan, the same vehicle multiple witnesses had already reported seeing speed through the area. A forensics team tore the thing apart swabbing and testing every inch of it. Then came the wait.

By the spring of 2005, the results were in and they left no room for doubt. Forensic testing pulled Brooke’s blonde hairs from a hairband tucked inside one of Joel’s bags. DNA evidence went further confirming that Brooke had been seriously assaulted. >> [music] >> We are at a milestone in this case in that on Friday, July 29th, last Friday, the Benton County Grand Jury reviewed this case, the case of Brooke Wilberger.

The Grand Jury, after hearing all of the evidence, returned a 19-count indictment accusing Joel Patrick Courtney, who’s 39 years old, of 14 counts of aggravated murder alleged in alternative theories, two counts of aggravated kidnapping in the first degree, one count of first-degree rape, one count of first-degree sexual abuse, and one count of first-degree sodomy.

Under Oregon law, the maximum possible penalty for aggravated murder is death. With charges pending in New Mexico, however, it is unlikely that he’ll be available for extradition to Oregon for some time. So, don’t expect to see the defendant before an Oregon court in the next few days or the next few weeks. As you know, the defendant was arrested November 29th of last year in Albuquerque on similar but unrelated charges in their jurisdiction involving the abduction and sodomization of a college-age student there in New

Mexico. The huge difference between that case and our case is that the victim in New Mexico was able to escape and survive the attack and report it to the police. >> With that, Joel Patrick Courtney was hit with 19 separate charges, including the most serious homicide charge on the books. When prosecutors showed him the paperwork, he reportedly spent the rest of the afternoon laughing about it with other inmates.

Joel kept insisting he’d never even heard of Brooke, let alone done anything to her. But when his own mother visited him in jail and asked point-blank if he’d taken Brooke’s life, he went quiet for a moment before answering, “They’ll never hold me accountable for this.” In January 2007, Joel’s defense tried a new angle, arguing his mental health made him incompetent to stand trial for what he’d done to Brooke.

The court wasn’t convinced. The ruling came back clear. He was mentally fit to face the charges. For Brooke’s mom, Cammie, the relief was immediate. She was actually driving when she got the news, and she pulled over just to do a little dance right next to her car. She’s admitted since that she hadn’t realized how close she’d come to a very different outcome.

One where Joel never had to answer for what he did to her daughter at all. But first, there was unfinished business in New Mexico. Joel still had to face justice for the attack on the exchange student there. >> A Rio Rancho man who faces a murder charge in a highly publicized Oregon case has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for kidnapping and raping a University of New Mexico foreign exchange student back in 2004.

>> And he eventually pleaded guilty, landing an 18-year sentence for multiple violent offenses. Even at sentencing, he couldn’t resist showing his true colors. >> No respect for this court. This is you are the rudest person I’ve ever met. >> I would spit in your face if I was close enough. >> No. >> Don’t Don’t even start.

>> Mouth off at the judge and treating the whole courtroom with contempt. For investigators, each outburst only sharpened their resolve. One way or another, Joel was going to tell them where Brooke was. And they intended to find her, whatever it took. By 2010, 5 years since Brooke was last seen, Joel’s trial was finally on the calendar.

 And this time, he was staring down the death penalty. Prosecutors saw an opening and offered him a deal. Give up Brooke’s remains and the death penalty comes off the table. For months, Joel refused, treating the whole thing like a game, dragging everyone along for the ride. Then things shifted. A string of violent run-ins with other inmates, combined with being denied anxiety medication, left Joel wanting out of his current facility.

And it turned out he had just the leverage he needed. He’d been sitting on the truth about Brooke’s location for years, holding it over everyone until the moment he could cash it in for something. So, that’s what he did. Joel laid out his terms. Finish his 18-year sentence in New Mexico, close to family, then transfer back to Oregon once that was done.

 And the death penalty had to be completely off the table. Prosecutors agreed to all of it. With that, Joel changed his plea to guilty, finally giving Brooke’s family the answer they had spent 5 years praying for. >> Missing [music] person posters are being taken down for Brooke Wilberger. More than 5 years after she disappeared, police in Oregon have finally located the remains of the 19-year-old college student.

>> Oregon’s Attorney General is in Eugene for several reasons, but he spent the day tackling questions about the Wilberger case. John Kroger says he applauds the work done by the Benton County District Attorney’s office. Oregon’s AG is pleased with the outcome. Getting Joel Courtney to give up Wilberger’s remains as part of the plea deal.

 He also believes the DA’s office handled the case well, especially since the case came with a lot of public scrutiny. >> I think it was very important uh not only to make sure that he serves a life sentence without any chance of release, but also to make sure that the the remains of the victim were found. I think that was extraordinarily important.

>> [music] >> True to his word, Joel led investigators to where he’d hidden her. An abandoned road about 12 mi west of where she’d been taken on a stretch of private property. Her body tucked beneath a fallen tree in a spot no one would have ever thought to search. Dental records confirmed what the family had feared for over 5 years.

 And it was Brooke’s mother, Cammie, who made the final identification. Recognizing the silver watch she’d given her daughter for Christmas, still right there with her. Even facing something this painful, Brooke’s family found room for grace. Cammie said, “We are thankful that justice is served and he will have no opportunity for parole.

Now he can go on with what’s left of his life.” In court, Joel finally admitted the truth. He said he’d spent that morning driving around the area actively hunting for someone to target. Before Brooke, he’d already tried and failed twice going after the same two university students who’d come forward about their unsettling run-ins with his van.

Cases he was later charged in as well. Both times he came up empty. Then he spotted Brooke, alone and working by herself. He switched tactics, posing as a delivery driver to get close. The moment she was near the van, he grabbed her, forced her inside, and drove her out to the woods where he restrained and abused her, holding her overnight before ultimately taking her life.

He claimed he hadn’t even planned to kill her, not until he saw how hard she He back, how much stronger she turned out to be than he’d expected. He’d hidden her body so carefully, so deliberately, that he knew she likely never would have been found unless he chose to talk. >> Not much has been disclosed in the Wilberger case about where the crime actually took place.

 Authorities say it happened in the woods in Benton County in Coastal Range. And for the people who live in that area, they say they can’t believe something like this could have happened in their backyard. >> This is a real, you know, nice community and, you know, stuff bad stuff it just never happens out here. It just doesn’t.

>> It’s kind of eerie that he went in, you know, he could have been in here, he could have been in here the next day, the day before. >> Mark Skacco owns the Blodgett Country Store, which is about 3 miles from where he thinks the crime was committed. He says he’s surprised it could have happened so close to home.

>> Some of us actually did search that area cuz it’s a little abandoned road, um, and nobody seen anything. So, you know, if someone wants to be hidden, it can be hidden very well. >> But the news about Wilberger hasn’t changed their attitude about Blodgett. >> We love it here and, uh, we just are so sorry that this happened, but, uh, it doesn’t change our feeling about the community.

>> And no one worries there’s anything else hidden in these woods. >> I’m not going to pick up my bags and leave. This is my hometown and anywhere you go it can happen. >> [music] >> To this day, Joel has never apologized to Brooke’s family. Not once has he shown a flicker of remorse. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Joel’s sister, Dina, would go on to describe how the family navigated the months once the connection became too glaring to ignore. She said that from the very first hint Joel might somehow be involved, the family made their position clear. That while they loved him, they answered to God and the truth above anything else, whatever that meant for him.

Their very first prayer back on November 30th, 2004, was simple and direct. That if Joel really was responsible, he’d come clean, and that Brooke would be found. When that truth finally surfaced and Brooke’s body was recovered, Deena said she wept. “Bittersweet barely covers it,” in her words. But she was thankful the Wilberger family could finally have the resolution they’d fought so long and so hard for.

Investigators never confirmed it outright, but the FBI came to believe Joel might be tied to more than just Brooke. Three additional unsolved cases in Oregon that still bear his name as a suspect. One prosecutor, Leah admitted only one other person in her career had given her that same bone-deep chill of pure evil.

Convicted killer Richard Ramirez. >> It’s just a a total community effort, and not just Corvallis, but all of Oregon, really. Everybody worked together. >> Cammie Wilberger takes the podium at the LaSells Stewart Center in Corvallis. She sends her deepest thanks to those, some strangers, who’ve lent their support over the years to help find her daughter Brooke.

 Because it seems one way or another, everyone in Corvallis is connected to the Brooke Wilberger case. >> The story lingering strong for years in the town, so much that it easily brings tears to former volunteers. >> I walked several different days, you know, trying to find her. >> [music] >> Organizers say without a doubt, this has been a defining moment for Corvallis.

>> We do not want ourselves as individuals or this community to be defined by tragedy. >> [music] >> As for the next couple of years, Cammie Wilberger says she hopes not for closure, but a beginning to what’s been shown to them all these years, love. >> We have a lot of things that as a family we’re we’re doing.

 Um, everybody just moving on, doing good things, trying to, you know, do the best you can do, um, to love other people and and do what Brooke would have done. >> Brooke’s story is a stark reminder of how fast an ordinary morning can turn into an unimaginable nightmare. One minute washing outdoor lights and looking forward to lunch with her sister, the next gone without a trace.

Stephanie has said that even at 80 years old, with a full life behind her, she doesn’t believe she’ll ever be at peace with what happened to her sister. Time, in her words, just isn’t going to make that okay. She still catches herself replaying that morning in 2004 over and over, wondering if there was anything, anything at all, she could have done differently.

It’s a loop, she says, never fully lets her go. For Cammie, Brook’s mother, the grief runs deeper than most people could ever imagine. She’s compared it to an iceberg. What the public sees on the surface may already look devastating enough, but it’s nothing compared to what the family carries underneath, completely out of view.

If this case moved you the way it’s moved us, do us a favor. Hit like, drop a comment, share it with someone, and subscribe for more true crime documentaries. It genuinely helps us keep telling stories like Brook’s, and we’re grateful for every one of you watching.