The woman who stared down suspicion

By Andy Parker

Monday, June 13, 2005

The Oregonian

Portland, Oregon

There was the time years ago when the sheriff called her up and asked for a pretrial haircut -- not for himself but for Dayton Leroy Rogers, the Canby lawn-mower repairman who'd killed seven women.

Other than that, Alveta Gibboney can't recall being anywhere near the limelight.

That changed last week after the retired hairdresser noticed a school bus heading toward a dead end just past her house in the foothills east of Molalla.

She'd seen it go by several afternoons. "Nobody had any reason to be driving a school bus up there. No kids live up there no more."

So after a while, she flagged down her 16-year-old stepdaughter's bus and told the driver what she'd seen.

"She said she was gonna drive up there and see about it, and I said, 'Not without me you ain't.' "

So the 57-year-old who'd suffered two heart attacks back in January hopped aboard, and the two women headed to the dead end high above the Molalla River, fearing the worst.

The steep, thickly timbered 37 acres where Harold and Alveta Gibboney have lived for 25 years is the Oregon you always see in the movies -- a dense, soggy green wonderland of towering firs, plush mosses and waist-high sword ferns.

Through the years, several Bigfoot sightings were reported on nearby ridges. And when Dayton Leroy Rogers went looking for a place to dump his victims, he chose a spot just down the road.

Past a clear-cut hillside, not far from where the pavement ends, you'll find the house Harold Gibboney built by himself 40 years ago, surrounded by a comforting jumble of flowers, yard art and pets. They've got dogs -- 18 in all -- cats, horses, even a raccoon that Alveta bottle-fed after finding it screaming in the middle of the road, still so tiny its eyes hadn't opened.

Harold is 73 but looks a full 20 years younger. A barrel-chested man with a head of thick, wavy white hair and a matching beard, he still logs these hills by himself with his self-loading hydraulic log truck, just as he has since the 1960s. That's the way he likes it.

Harold's lived in the hills above Molalla his whole life. Alveta grew up just down the road in the Silverton area. She and Harold met after they'd both been through two marriages.

Her childhood memories aren't all that good. Growing up, she was sexually abused, repeatedly. It's that memory that got her to thinking about that bus at the end of the road.

So last Wednesday, she and her daughter's bus driver rode up to the dead end. Through the windshield of the parked bus, they saw a partially clad woman she recognized and a man pulling up his pants.

After persuading the mentally disabled 21-year-old woman to get off the bus and telling her grandson to go get a gun, Alveta told the man to stay put, that she was an undercover officer. Twice, the man tried to pull his bus past, but with Alveta barking instructions, the Molalla bus driver blocked the road.

Regardless of whether he ends up being found guilty, Alveta wasn't about to let him get away until the police got there. Her own childhood memories are still too horrible to allow her to just look the other way and wonder.

After the police came and took the man away, word spread quickly about what Alveta had done. Four TV crews and three newspaper reporters showed up. Three radio stations called for interviews.

In the days since, the Gibboneys' phone hasn't stopped ringing -- friends, family and long-lost relatives calling to congratulate her.

Alveta admits she's enjoyed all the attention. Still, she doesn't really see herself as a hero. She tries to do the right thing, but as her minister tells her, "I still cuss too much."

And make no mistake about it, she does cuss, a lot.

"None of us," she says, "is perfect."

Maybe so. But for one June afternoon, Alveta Gibboney was about as close to perfect as any us can ever hope to get.