Sarah Leffler touches the framed pencil drawing her daughter, Linda Peterson, created and remembers a time when she could look at the artwork and feel happy.

A time when she could have phoned Linda simply because she wanted to hear her voice.

A time when they might have spent an afternoon together, perhaps laughing about that drawing, which Linda made one day at Phillips Reservoir, a tableau of mountains and water and cabins.

The cabins were the inside joke, the one that mother and daughter shared.

There are five cabins, scattered about the lake shore, or at least that’s the number Sarah came up with.

But Linda, she said, always claimed there was a sixth cabin.

A “secret” cabin.

“She drew that in 30 minutes,” Sarah says, a palpable wonder in her voice as she contemplates Linda’s artistic ability.

“Linda is good,” Sarah says, briefly lapsing into the present tense as she talks about the second-oldest of her six children, whose art hangs on the living room walls of Sarah’s Baker City apartment.

But mostly Sarah refers to Linda in the past tense.

So does another daughter, Linda’s younger sister, Mary Lane.

For Sarah and Mary and many other relatives and friends, Linda’s story, terrible though it is, remains unfinished, a book with its final chapters ripped from the binding, the pages scattered in the wind.

They believe Linda is dead.

That she was murdered.

But they don’t know — can’t know — for certain.

More than three and a half years after Linda, then 52, went missing from Baker City in March 2019, the lack of answers makes the emotional wounds that her disappearance inflicted burn even more fiercely.

“I think about Linda every day,” Sarah, 73, said.

Sadness competes at times with anger.

“I get so mad I want to tear things up,” Sarah said — particularly when she thinks about the people she believes killed Linda and disposed of her body.

Sarah’s eldest daughter, Loretta Peterson, who’s about a year older than Linda and grew up with her in Grants Pass, said that when she drives by the apartment at 2450 Broadway St. where Linda was living when she disappeared, she “starts crying really bad.”

“Sometimes I get angry,” Loretta said. “Whoever has done this needs to be brought to justice by the law.”

That’s the goal, Baker City Police Chief Ty Duby said.

“This is an active homicide investigation,” Duby said on Wednesday, Nov. 9. “We’ve followed every single lead that we’ve ever gotten, and we continue to do this.”

Linda is missing — March 2019

Linda’s relatives became alarmed in mid March 2019 when she didn’t attend a dance recital for her granddaughter in Baker City.

Alesia Lawrence, one of Linda’s two children, was immediately worried.

She and her mom had a regular schedule. And Linda was planning to attend the recital for Alesia’s daughter.

Alesia had been appointed legal guardian for Linda about two years earlier, after Linda left treatment for drug addiction at Juniper Ridge Acute Care Center in John Day.

Loretta, Linda’s older sister, was troubled as well by Linda’s absence.

Although Linda, who moved to Baker City in 1989, had lived on the streets for periods before moving into her apartment, Loretta said her sister was not prone to disappearing without telling relatives in advance.

But Loretta had another reason to fear for her sister.

Not long before, the last time Loretta drove Linda to her apartment, Linda had acted strangely.

“I had a feeling about her that something was wrong,” Loretta said. “She was not herself.”

Specifically, Linda said she was afraid to go to her apartment. She was frightened of the people who were staying with her.

“She hesitated to get out of the car,” Loretta said. “Then she stood there, not saying anything. I wish now that I would have went up there with her. I think there were people in her apartment that shouldn’t have been.”

This was not typical of Linda, Loretta said.

“Linda was always independent and strong,” she said.

When Loretta learned a couple days later that Linda was missing, the sense of discomfort escalated to something closer to panic.

Loretta remembered other conversations with Linda in the previous month or so. Linda had moved into the apartment earlier that winter.

“Not long before she went missing that I started noticing changes in her behavior,” Loretta said.

Linda even talked about what Loretta should do if Linda were to die.

Sarah also recalls her daughter, in the few weeks before she disappeared, saying she was afraid of people who were living with her.

Sarah believes Linda was a victim of her own kindness, that she tried to help the people who ended up killing her.

“She always tried to help people out,” Sarah said. “Because she had lived on the street, she tried to help the people she met out there.”

Lucille Lane, another of Linda’s younger sisters, agrees.

“She had always kind of taken in the outcasts and the troubled ones,” said Lane, who lives in Pocatello, Idaho. “She had been in and out of that lifestyle.”

Sarah still wonders whether she made a mistake, even though she was trying to help Linda, by encouraging her daughter to move into the apartment.

“I talked her into getting that apartment — I wished I hadn’t,” Sarah said. “She was safe on the street. Safer, anyway.”

Lucille remembers the “sick feeling” she had in March 2019 when she learned, from Linda’s daughter, Alesia, that Linda was missing.

“She was very schedule-oriented,” Lucille said of Linda. “She had never just disappeared without telling anyone like that.”

Loretta said she suffered from severe depression after Linda’s disappearance.

Loretta lived for about four months with a friend in New Hampshire before returning to Baker City.

What happened?

Linda’s mother, her sisters and her daughter-in-law, Stephanie Mailman, who lives in La Grande and is married to Linda’s son, Anthony Mailman, all believe that Linda was murdered and that they know two people who were involved.

That pair, a man and a woman, seem to be inextricably linked to Linda’s disappearance, Sarah said.

Many people have mentioned those two names when talking about the case, she said.

Stephanie, who helped Alesia, Linda’s daughter, clean out Linda’s apartment after she disappeared, said there was no evidence that a struggle had taken place in the apartment. No blood, no marks on the walls.

Stephanie, like Linda’s other relatives, believes she was killed somewhere else.

“Whatever happened did not happen at that apartment,” Stephanie said.

Although Linda’s relatives know she had a history of drug addiction, and that she associated with people who both used and sold drugs, they believe that the motivation for her murder was more likely money.

Sarah said Linda had withdrawn $400 from an account just before she went missing.

“The two people I think did it, I think they wanted that money,” Sarah said.

Duby, the police chief, said officers removed a variety of items from Linda’s apartment, including sections of carpet and furniture.

The items were tested but none yielded evidence that suggested any crime had been committed in the apartment.

But neither does that mean Linda wasn’t harmed there, he said.

“It’s an unknown,” Duby said.

He said Sgt. Wayne Chastain was recently assigned to oversee Linda’s case. Detective Shannon Regan, who has been on paid leave since July 2021, was originally the lead investigator.

Sarah and other relatives said they appreciated Regan’s efforts to keep them up to date on the investigation while she was working the case.

They said they haven’t had as much contact with police recently, however.

Duby said he understands that Linda’s loved ones are frustrated by the lack of resolution — her body hasn’t been found and no one has been charged.

“I would be (frustrated) too,” he said.

Duby said police have obtained warrants to search multiple buildings and properties and have employed dogs trained to find cadavers.

Police towed a van from one property that, according to rumors, might have been involved in Linda’s disappearance, and that she had been in the van, possibly after she died.

“We tore that thing apart,” Duby said. “There was not one iota of evidence.”

None of the other searches has turned up evidence about Linda’s whereabouts, either.

Duby shares the suspicion of Linda’s family that Linda knew the people who killed her.

“This is not the bushy-haired stranger kind of situation,” Duby said.

“The person or persons responsible were known to Linda, associated with her. We’re pretty focused on a very limited number of people, and kind of always have been.”

Duby said the police department’s file on Linda’s disappearance contains nearly 1,000 pages of documents.

One area of contention between Duby and Linda’s relatives is the value of distributing new fliers about her disappearance.

Stephanie, who maintains a Facebook page where she frequently posts about Linda’s case, contends that putting out fliers not only would “let people know that we haven’t forgotten about her,” but could potentially also prompt someone who was involved in her disappearance, or who has information, to contact police.

Stephanie believes the people involved could be influenced by remorse or guilt.

She said she wants to “put pressure” on people who have knowledge that could resolve the case.

Lucille said she got a call more than a year and a half ago, in March 2021, from a woman who said her niece claimed to have been present when Linda was killed.

The woman told Lucille that her niece, the supposed witness, had been threatened by someone who was involved in killing Linda.

Lucille said she doesn’t know whether the story is true.

Duby said he understands Linda’s family’s motivation about publicity.

But he believes that there are “very, very few people out there who know what happened” — and possibly only those who were directly involved in Linda’s death.

None of those people has confessed in going on four years, and Duby is skeptical that publicity will persuade anyone to do so.

Greg Baxter, Baker County district attorney, said he’s optimistic that Chastain, the newly assigned detective, will bring a “fresh set of eyes” to the case.

Baxter said police have received multiple leads in Linda’s disappearance in 2022, and they will continue to probe each one.

“It’s an active case that we are pursuing,” Baxter said. “We are working hard.”

Linda’s relatives said they understand police are still working on the case, but some criticize aspects of the investigation, both in its early stages and continuing today.

Stephanie, for instance, said she and Linda’s daughter should not have been allowed to remove items from the Broadway Street apartment before police had searched.

Stephanie said her husband, Anthony, who is serving a sentence for drug and firearm possession charges in Powder River Correctional Facility in Baker City, told her recently he feels that Linda’s disappearance “is not getting the attention it deserves.” He attributes this to Linda’s socioeconomic status, and contends that if she were wealthy, rather than a sometimes transient, police would have been more aggressive in the early stages of the investigation.

Remembering Linda

Lucille, who at age 39 is 16 years younger than Linda, said Linda and Loretta were always the “older sisters.”

Lucille said Linda was “very artistic and very kind.”

“She would help anybody — including, I believe, the people who did this,” Lucille said. “She was just a good person.”

Lucille said Linda was interested in astrology, and she once created an astrological chart for her younger sister.

“I still have it,” Lucille said.

Stephanie said that when her husband, Anthony, Linda’s son, was in prison several years ago for selling drugs, Linda stayed with her for more than a year to help with Stephanie’s children.

Stephanie said she wishes Linda were here to help now.

“I’m a single mom right now with four kids, and I know if mom was here, she’d be here to help me,” Stephanie said, never adding “in law” when referring to Linda.

“I know it without a doubt.”

Stephanie said her older son, who’s 8, still asks about “Grandma Linda.”

“It’s really hard, and it doesn’t get easier,” Stephanie said. “We all want the same thing. Our number one goal, to bring mom home.”

Although Linda had suffered from mental illness as well as struggling with addiction, she had also volunteered at MayDay in Baker City and Shelter from the Storm in Island City, agencies that help victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Loretta said Linda had been a victim herself when she was younger.

“Horrific things happened to me and my sister,” Loretta said. “I don’t she think she ever got over that.”

Not long before she disappeared, Linda had completed a 90-day treatment program in La Grande.

Sarah’s favorite photograph of Linda, who is smiling broadly, was taken around that time.

Linda’s goal was to be clean and sober so she could be more involved with her family, including her granddaughters.

Lucille said the passage of time has not made it easier for Linda’s family to deal with her sudden, and still unresolved, disappearance.

“I always hope that someone’s going to come forward,” Lucille said. “For everyone’s sake, especially my mom. She needs to know what happened before she’s gone. It just eats her up. She talks about it all the time.

“I just keep hoping, for some closure, and some justice to be served.”

The Baker County Major Crime Team has offered a $2,500 reward, and Crime Stoppers of Oregon added the same amount for a total of $5,000, for information that leads to an arrest in connection with Linda Peterson’s disappearance. Anyone with information can contact the Baker City Police Department at 541-524-2014.

“I always hope that someone’s going to come forward. For everyone’s sake, especially my mom. She needs to know what happened before she’s gone. It just eats her up. She talks about it all the time.

— Loretta Lane, whose sister, Linda Peterson, went missing from Baker City in March 2019

“This is an active homicide investigation. We’ve followed every single lead that we’ve ever gotten, and we continue to do this.”

— Baker City Police Chief Ty Duby, talking about the investigation into Linda Peterson’s March 2019 disappearance

“She would help anybody — including, I believe, the people who did this. She was just a good person.”

— Lucille Lane, talking about her sister, Linda Peterson

“The person or persons responsible were known to Linda, associated with her. We’re pretty focused on a very limited number of people, and kind of always have been.”

— Ty Duby, Baker City Police chief