Nearly a year after the death of 31-year-old Hannah Walker, her family and friends are still searching for answers. They are alleging the Klickitat County Sheriff’s Office mismanaged the case, not taking the necessary steps to find justice for Walker.
Walker died on Oct. 12, 2022, in Trout Lake. According to the official autopsy report, the cause of death was water submersion complicated by elevated blood alcohol levels.
Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer said that after investigating the incident and reviewing the autopsy, he and his staff believe there is no evidence that Walker’s death was suspicious.
Walker’s death
According to the police report, Walker, a Portland resident, was visiting a friend who owned a cabin in Trout Lake following a domestic violence incident with her 35-year-old ex-boyfriend. According to police records, her ex-boyfriend had been arrested following an incident on Oct. 7, 2022. He was released on Oct. 10, which was the day she went to stay in Trout Lake.
On Oct. 12, the friend Walker was staying with, a 66-year-old man, called 911 to report her missing at approximately 6:50 p.m. At 7:40 p.m., Klickitat County Deputy Tony Warren arrived at the location on Trout Lake Road. In Warren’s report of the incident, he writes that he met the friend on the scene, where they spoke briefly about what had happened.
According to the friend, he and Walker arrived at the creek that day at 2:30 p.m., but the last time he saw her was around 3:30-4 p.m., when she swam downstream. She was an experienced swimmer, the friend said, and would often swim off for around an hour. After an hour, the friend said he went to look for her but was unable to find her.
The friend led Warren to the beach where he had last seen Walker. Her cell phone was on the shore with a towel. Warren then checked around the scene and found Walker’s bathing suit around a bend about 75 yards from where she had last been seen.
Continuing his search, Warren saw something floating in one of the areas of stagnant water. It was in an area with many stumps and thorny brush, which made it difficult to make out. With help from a Klickitat Search and Rescue team member, Warren was able to get into the brush and found that what he had seen was Walker’s body. She was floating facedown in the water, and was unclothed.
Warren was joined by another deputy, nine Search and Rescue team members and then-White Salmon coroner Derek Krenz, who gave the recovery teams permission to remove the body from the water.
According to the coroner’s report, Walker was pronounced dead on Wednesday, Oct. 12 at 11:32 p.m. The report stated that her body was transported to Vancouver, Wash., to the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Notification of kin
According to Walker’s mother, Aia Walker, she was only notified of her daughter’s death three days after she died, and after she reached out to the Klickitat County Sheriff’s Office to do a welfare check on her.
Aia Walker, a resident of St. George, Utah, had been texting with Hannah Walker on and off before her passing. It wasn’t unusual for Walker to go quiet for a while, but when she continued to not get a response from her daughter, Aia Walker became worried and reached out to the Multnomah County victim advocate who was handling Hannah Walker’s domestic violence case. The advocate also tried to reach Walker but was unable to.
On the night of Oct. 14, the advocate suggested Aia Walker reach out to Klickitat County for a wellness check. However, she thought that her daughter could be having difficulty responding due to cell service at the cabin. She didn’t want the cops showing up in the middle of the night, so she decided to wait until the morning of Oct. 15.
“I couldn’t take it anymore around seven in the morning, so I called [Klickitat County] and asked them to check on her and told them what I knew about where she might be,” Aia Walker said. “I got up to make breakfast and about an hour later or less, the St. George police showed up at my door to tell me that she had passed away and gave me the coroner’s number to call.”
Aia Walker expressed her frustration that no one ever tried to reach her and that it wasn’t until she called the county first that she found out her daughter was dead.
“It was three days later after she passed, I realized that when I talked to the coroner,” she said. “That just blows my mind. If you think about a whole day in your life, a business day. You get a shower, you get coffee, you go to a meeting, have your lunch, you know what I mean? It’s a long period of time, a day. And they waited. Three days, and they didn’t even call me.”
Sheriff Songer declined to comment on the delayed death notification, redirecting questions on the matter to the Klickitat County prosecuting attorney, who also serves as coroner for the county. The prosecuting attorney also declined to comment on the record.
Autopsy
After learning of Hannah Walker’s death, her mother flew into Portland to identify the body. She was denied by the Clark County coroner’s office because the autopsy had not yet been performed. Requests to view the body were ignored and viewing was not able to be facilitated until two weeks later at the crematorium, Aia Walker said.
Klickitat County Detective Tim Neher stated that he met with the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office to review the evidence found during the autopsy. The autopsy was performed on Oct. 21 — nine days after Hannah Walker’s passing.
The Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office said that in 2022, 89% of their examinations were conducted within 72 hours of a body arriving at the facility. Times between the pronunciation of death and the examination can vary based on scheduling issues and staffing shortages.
The autopsy labeled the cause of death as water submersion complicated by elevated blood ethanol. At the time of the autopsy, Hannah Walker’s blood alcohol concentration was 0.22, though the friend who was with her did not indicate she had been drinking at the time of her passing. It is also uncertain if this was how high her BAC was at the time of her death, as bodies can produce alcohol post-mortem as part of the decomposition process and there were nine days between her passing and the autopsy.
According to Neher’s report, the medical examiner stated that Hannah Walker’s urine had returned positive results for ethanol and Benzodiazepines, which when paired together “are a dangerous combination and should never be taken at the same time.” The Benzodiazepines had been prescribed to Walker.
There were no internal injuries, but the coroner noted that Walker showed hyperexpanded lungs with edema — caused by too much fluid in the lungs.
According to Neher, the medical examiner stated that Walker’s skin had surface level scratches that were consistent with someone stumbling around in the water. They noted that Walker's body did not have any signs of trauma and the injuries found were not consistent with someone who was fighting with someone else or trying to defend themselves against an attacker.
According to the medical examiner “the combination of ethanol and Benzodiazepines would affect Hannah’s ability to swim, and taking that information and the information related to Hannah breathing in water and not exhaling the water, would be consistent with someone who had drowned.”
In the crime lab report, Walker’s fingernails were clipped and vaginal, anal and oral swabs were taken. Semen was found in the vaginal canal and the profile was a potential match for her ex-boyfriend. Additionally, DNA was found on the fingernail clippings. It was determined to be a mixture originating from two individuals, one of which was Walker. They were unable to determine the second individual, as the sample was not fit to be entered into their database.
Further investigation
On Oct. 26, 2022, two weeks after Walker’s passing, Klickitat County Sergeant Erik Andersen reassigned the case to Neher from the initial investigator, Deputy Warren. No clear reason was cited in the supplemental narrative.
On Nov. 8, Neher contacted Walker’s ex-boyfriend and inquired about her death and their previous domestic dispute five days before her passing. According to the supplemental narrative, the ex-boyfriend stated he had been arrested and booked into the Multnomah County Jail on Oct. 7, but was released on Oct. 10 after Walker did not follow up with the District Attorney’s Office to file charges.
Police reports show that, according to the ex-boyfriend, he returned to work Wednesday, Oct. 12 — the night of Walker’s death. He said he worked from 3-10 p.m. and returned home immediately after.
On Nov. 10, Neher told Aia Walker the case would be placed on inactive status until additional information was presented. However, according to the records, an investigation did take place after this. It is not known if the case was taken out of inactive status at any point.
In January 2023, Neher was away from work for personal reasons and Detective Robert Bianchi was tasked to temporarily help with the case.
On Jan. 27, Sheriff Songer instructed Bianchi to contact the friend Hannah Walker had been with the day she died and inquire about taking a polygraph test. Three days later, on Jan. 30, the friend responded that, on the advice of counsel, he would not submit to the polygraph.
On March 9, 2023, Neher confirmed with the ex-boyfriend’s boss that according to their records, he had worked that night. It is not clear why the follow-up did not take place until March.
As of Sept. 27, the case is inactive. Though the family still has questions and is requesting the county reopen the case, Sheriff Songer has stated that he feels the county has done its due diligence.
“I feel for [Aia’s] loss,” Songer said in a statement to Columbia Gorge News. “But the autopsy shows [Hannah] drowned. There was no indication of homicidal play. So it is what it is. I can’t go out and arrest people on mere suspicion, or I believe this or that. I have to have probable cause.”
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