A convicted serial killer serving two life sentences pleaded guilty Tuesday to murder in the 25-year-old unsolved disappearance of pizza delivery girl Sherry Eyerly.
William Scott Smith, 48, entered a guilty plea before Marion County Presiding Judge Paul Lipscomb in a brief hearing attended by law enforcement officials and Eyerly's family.
Smith killed Eyerly, 18, during a botched kidnap attempt, according to a confession he made to Marion County Sheriff's cold-case investigators.
After kidnapping the wrong woman, Smith strangled his victim to death in a secluded spot along the Little Pudding River, he told police. He left her body in the river. It has never been recovered.
Under a plea deal with prosecutors, Smith immediately starts serving a third life sentence that will run alongside the two he is serving for the sex slayings of two other young Salem women in 1984.
Eyerly disappeared the evening of July 4, 1982, after being sent to deliver three large pizzas to a remote location on Riverhaven Drive near Minto-Brown Island Park late at night, Deputy District Attorney Don Abar said.
Her car was found near there less than a half hour later with the driver's door open, the engine running, the headlights on and the emergency brake set. The pizzas lay on the ground near her car.
Her disappearance created a sensation in Salem. Searches for the young woman proved fruitless. Thousands of dollars in reward money went unclaimed. The television show "Unsolved Mysteries" revisited the case multiple times. Psychics were quoted in the Statesman Journal as to who the killer might be.
"This is probably one of the more famous missing persons cases in this area," Abar said after Tuesday's hearing. "She was just, poof, she was gone, and her family spent thousands looking for her."
Lipscomb summed up the city's feelings in his closing remarks Tuesday.
"On behalf of the community, we're all happy to have this closure today," he said.
Eyerly's family declined comment, but her mother released a statement to the media.
"I want to thank all the law enforcement personnel who worked so hard these last two and a half decades to bring some justice for Sherry and the people who loved her so," Linda Eyerly Tunnell said in her statement. "I have special gratitude for the cold case team which never forgot about my daughter, and never gave up trying to bring a definitive resolution to her murder."
Smith shuffled into the courtroom with a grimace Tuesday morning, his head bald and his chin sporting a bushy beard that jutted straight out from his face. He wore a black sweater and shackles on his hands and ankles.
Smith seemed anxious, shifting from foot to foot and answering most of Lipscomb's questions with a brief, "Yeah."
When Lipscomb asked if he was freely confessing, Smith responded, "As long as I got an agreement, I'll plead guilty to it."
That was the most he spoke in court.
He was convicted in July 1984 of the murders of Willamette University student Katherine Redmond, 18, and convenience store clerk Rebecca Ann Darling, 21.
Both women were found strangled to death after disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Redmond's car was found abandoned in Salem less than an hour after she left a fraternity party, the engine running and the driver's door open. Smith dragged Darling from the Circle K store in which she worked. Both women had been raped.
Smith confessed to Eyerly's murder during interviews with sheriff's cold-case investigators in November and December 2006, Abar said. Investigators spent some time trying to confirm his confession, but lacking physical evidence, it was difficult.
Investigators re-opened the Eyerly case in September 2005 and focused on Smith as a suspect after evidence came up that disproved his alibi.
Smith, a trucker, had told police he was on a long-haul trip at the time of her disappearance. But detectives discovered that Silverton police had stopped Smith the day after Eyerly vanished, proving he was in the area.
Eyerly worked at a Domino's Pizza on Commercial Street S. She had just graduated from Sprague High School and moved into a South Salem apartment with her cousin.
According to Smith, he and an accomplice named Roger Noseff intended to kidnap another of the restaurant's female workers and demand ransom, Abar said.
Noseff was never charged with any crime in connection to Smith's murders. He died of cancer in February 2003.
At 9:05 p.m., a caller -- Noseff, according to Smith -- ordered three large pizzas and asked that they be delivered by a girl in an orange Volkswagen, Abar said. The caller said the girl had delivered pizzas to him before.
That girl was not working, so Eyerly went in her place at 9:40 p.m.
"She was a completely random victim," Abar said.
People shooting off fireworks in the area of Riverhaven Road found her car running and abandoned less than a half-hour later, and called police.
After they took Eyerly from the area, Noseff told Smith they had taken the wrong girl. Smith responded that it was too late, and strangled her along the Little Pudding River.
The next day, Noseff made a ransom call to the Domino's restaurant. The call was never acted upon or made public. It is one of the key pieces of corroboration in Smith's confession, Abar said, as only someone involved in the crime would know about it.
