seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/101757_burkheimer27.shtml
NEWS 13 Local 14 Transportation 15 Consumer 16 Education 17 Elections 18 Environment 19 Legislature 20 Joel Connelly 21 Robert Jamieson 22 Visitors Guide 23 Obituaries 24 Neighborhoods 25 Sports 26 Nation/World 27 Business 28 A&E 29 Lifestyle 30 NW Outdoors 31 Photos 32 Special Reports COMMENTARY 33 Opinion 34 Columnists 35 Letters 36 David Horsey 37 Saturday Spin 38 Forums COFFEE BREAK 39 Comics & Games 40 Mike Mailway 41 TV Listings FIND IT! She framed others in her bedroom and hung Cory Haynes' obituary on a wall. The teenager struck up a friendship with his mother, and they grieved together. Rachel Rachel Burkheimer At an age when friends form the fabric of one's universe, the high school student lost six to drowning, suicide, gunshots and wrecks. Every time she turned around, it seemed, someone else was gone. No one can know precisely the trail that led to Burkheimer's own death in the woods outside Gold Bar on Sept. But it was the death of Haynes -- her closest confidant -- that changed her, her family says. Literally," said Meghan Burkheimer, Rachel's older sister. She considered some to be friends, but no one intervened as she was stuffed into a black bag, carried from the garage and driven to her grave. Court documents, sheriff's reports, witness statements and letters written by 20-year-old John "Diggy" Anderson, accused of her murder, depict a violent and intensely jealous ex-boyfriend worried that the best thing in his life might leave him. Burkheimer did, and poured salt in the wound by dating one of his best friends. The documents describe a convoluted web of "crankster gangsters" that Burkheimer had fallen in with who dealt in marijuana and cocaine and robbed other dealers. Some in that gang allegedly believed Burkheimer was betraying them to people they considered enemies. According to one defendant who has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, Anderson and Yusef "Kevin" Jihad thought that Burkheimer, a week before she died, had tried to lure them to a motel room to be robbed or killed. Those who knew another Rachel Burkheimer -- a thoughtful, arrestingly beautiful prankster who had more friends than anyone could keep track of -- dismiss those suspicions as drug-induced paranoia. But they agree that a change came over her after the death of her close friend in August 2001. Although she and Haynes weren't romantically involved, they had been close for years. She told family members who tried to get her to bounce back that he knew her better than any other person on Earth. It was just a real struggle for her, and that's putting it mildly," said her father, Bill Burkheimer. Bill Burkheimer 64 Zoom Meryl Schenker / P-I Bill Burkheimer, sitting on his daughter Rachel's bed, says that as a child, "she was so theatrical and creative. She switched from Marysville-Pilchuck High School to an alternative high school and eventually dropped out. She continued to work at Jimmy's Pizza & Pasta in Stanwood, where customers all remembered her smile. The Budweiser sales rep said she was the brightest spot in his Thursdays. But Burkheimer left that job last June, then made a little money baby-sitting. The girl who had always been an organized go-getter -- writing weekly goals on an eraserboard above her bed and making endless to-do lists -- was uncharacteristically adrift. It was during this time that her drug use appeared to progress, according to police reports. A former boyfriend told deputies they argued and broke up over her increasing use of methamphetamine and cocaine. Her father, with whom she lived on the Tulalip Indian Reservation, said he worried about her lack of direction. He confronted her on several occasions to ask if she was in trouble. But as the summer progressed, he laid down the law: Go back to school or find a job. The imaginative youngster Rachel Burkheimer's parents worried she might be deaf when she hadn't started talking by age 2 1/2. But when the dam burst, the flow of words never stopped. She had a big imagination, talking to her fingers in preschool and creating elaborate family trees and storylines for her troll dolls. She had a gift of mimicry that rivaled Jim Carrey's and a range of funny voices. If anyone got mad at her, she took it as a challenge to charm her way back into the person's good graces. I don't want to say it was a fantasy but it was kind of like . Her athletic talents led her to compete in volleyball, track and soccer on into high school. She was so fast that coaches made her start sprints 10 feet behind the others. She grew to just 4 feet 11 inches, which perhaps explained her attachment to 4-inch heels. The pretty blonde with the killer smile turned heads wherever she went. As a gregarious teenager, she made friends easily -- on the Tulalip reservation where she lived, at high school, work and parties, her father said. Sue Buma, the mother of Cory Haynes, said that after the accident Burkheimer often called to ask how she was doing. Burkheimer left gifts -- things for the garden or sculptures of angels -- on her porch. She had an independent streak, too, and wasn't a pushover. If somebody gave her a bad time, she didn't stand there and take it. The obsessive boyfriend Rachel Burkheimer met the man accused of orchestrating her murder at a high school party in the spring of 2001, friends say. Several warned her away from Anderson, who had a long arrest record and convictions on robbery and drug charges, among others. Burkheimer finally stopped taking his phone calls or reading his letters. In letters written from jail in December 2001, Anderson wrote she was the best thing in his life. He asked her to give them another chance and discussed marriage. In one, he scrawled "I Love You" 33 times across the page. He grew increasingly frustrated and angry when she didn't respond. He admitted his jealousy created problems in the relationship. One friend told police he would sniff Burkheimer up and down to see if he could catch the scent of another man. I just don't know what to do sometimes when we get in arguments. The two had a hot and cold relationship in the months before Burkheimer was killed, witnesses told police. Anderson reportedly was angered when she started dating his close friend. Bill Burkheimer said he believes Anderson was incensed because Rachel was one of the few people he couldn't control. But he doesn't think jealousy alone led to his daughter's death. The drug factions Most of the eight people charged in Burkheimer's disappearance and death were engaged in some way in the drug trade, according to court documents. Some robbed coke dealers, others grew pot plants and some baked marijuana cookies to sell at high school, according to interviews conducted by police and prosecutors. According to witness statements, Anderson, Jihad, Jeffrey Barth, John "Whit" Whitaker and others were attempting to form a "Northwest mafia" to orchestrate drug dealing and robberies. There were at least two other factions of drug dealers and ex-friends that the gang didn't like. Burkheimer was friendly with all of them, according to witness statements. Others suspect that Anderson feared Burkheimer might turn them in to police. The original plan to abduct Burkheimer at a Lynnwood house went awry when one defendant's father came home unexpectedly. But the suspects persuaded Burkheimer to meet Anderson and others at the Everett duplex where Jihad lived. He later accused Anderson of "going nuts" and "jumping the gun" by hitting Burkheimer and dragging her into his garage, according to witness statements. There she was beaten, gagged and held hostage for several hours. Jihad's girlfriend came home, discovered Burkheimer bound in the garage and threatened to call police -- though she never did. Several of the others put Burkheimer into a black duffel bag, drove around for hours and eventually went to a popular off-road recreation spot near Gold Bar, according to participants' statements. Anderson told her to get in the hole, according to charging documents -- then shot her. The plans for a new life Weeks before her death, friends say, Burkheimer started trying to reestablish direction in her life. Now 18, sh...
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