PORT ANGELES — Investigators remained without suspects Friday in what may be Clallam County’s first triple homicide as they continue to collect a growing volume of videos and other evidence — and wait for that one telling tip.
Sheriff Bill Benedict said investigators do not have a suspect in the late-December shootings of Darrell C. Iverson, 57; his son, Jordan D. Iverson, 27, and Iverson’s girlfriend, Tiffany A. May, 26, at Iverson’s 52 Bear Meadow Road home on a 4.8-acre rural parcel east of Port Angeles.
Investigators remained at the site Friday, continuing to collect evidence that might yield valuable DNA or fingerprints.
“It’s a monumental task,” Staff Sgt. John Keegan said Friday.
“There are a lot of moving parts, a lot of directions we are going, a lot of evidence to be sorted through and sifted.”
Benedict would not say if investigators have identified a person or persons of interest — someone who may be involved in the slayings but has not been charged or arrested.
Keegan said “signs are pointing” to one shooter.
“That does not mean there was not more than one person up there,” he said.
Investigators believe the killer or killers are male because the supposition is supported by statistics, he said, adding that they are no closer to proving who killed the Iversons and May than they were when their bodies were found.
They were last heard from by family members around Christmas Day, Keegan said.
The Iversons’ bodies were discovered under a tarp in the driveway late afternoon New Year’s Eve.
Authorities waited about 14 hours to examine the scene to investigate in daylight.
May’s body was found in an outbuilding on New Year’s Day.
Benedict reiterated that the Iversons and May were shot multiple times.
Some items were stolen from the home, Keegan said, declining to say what they were.
“We don’t have a motive yet,” he added.
“The job of detectives is to basically recreate that moment in time and that’s what we are trying to do.”
Surveillance footage
The sheriff’s office issued a public request for home surveillance footage, game camera videos and other video recordings that might show those roadways around Bear Meadow Road.
Investigators are still collecting the records, downloading the information and seeking more videos from residents of the Deer Park Road-O’Brien Road-Township Line Road area of Bear Meadow Road.
Keegan would not say if any were from Bear Meadow Road but said that most of them were from commercial establishments.
“We are in the realm of terabytes of video,” he said.
“We are looking at probably a half-dozen systems we are downloading.”
Anyone with those records is asked to call the Sheriff’s Department tip line at 360-417-2540.
“Let us know, and we’ll come out and download it and have our information technician do it,” Keegan said.
Database of interviews
Keegan is compiling a database of interviews that have been conducted, some of them multiple times with the same subjects.
Authorities are urging people to call the tip line with information on the victims, especially people who lived there temporarily in what Keegan said was a “crash pad” environment in which up to about eight additional people stayed on the property.
The investigation is complicated by that fluid living situation, where friends would stay for one night or weeks, Keegan said.
Friends have said that the Iversons and May would help others, especially those in recovery.
“If someone needed a place to stay, they allowed them to stay there,” Keegan has said.
He said investigators are trying to contact people who stayed at the property.
Keegan urged people to call the tip line even if they have criminal backgrounds or have warrants and said they can remain anonymous.
The key is to call, he suggested — not necessarily show up at the sheriff’s office in person.
“We can’t arrest you over the phone,” Keegan said.
“My handcuffs will not fit through this radio.
“It’s more important to talk to them than them having warrants.
“We’re just really trying to get to the bottom of this triple homicide.”
Triple homicide rare
Benedict said he did not know of another triple homicide that has occurred in the the history of Clallam County, although there have been double homicides, including two since he was first elected sheriff in 2006 and one in 1992.
The county was formed in 1854.
The Clallam County Historical Society also did not have any records of triple murders in its archives, including a chronological list of murders in Clallam County from 1853-1994 that refers to the tenures of county sheriffs, Executive Director Kathy Monds said Friday.
There was a double murder-suicide in 1896 in East Clallam, later called Clallam Bay, that was noted in an obituary in the historical society’s records but was not on the list, Monds said.
Prosecuting Attorney-Coroner Mark Nichols said autopsies were concluded Monday and hoped to have the report this week.
Nichols said the autopsy will determine the cause of death. The manner has been determined to be homicide.
Information on how many times the victims were shot will not be released by his office, he said.
A toxicology report also is pending.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.