The Routine

Two park rangers in Oregon are kidnapped and marched down a rugged trail along the Pacific coast. One survived and the other didn’t. The hunt for their attacker leads authorities down one man’s disturbing path of murder, kidnapping, and robbery dating back decades.

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  Hi park enthusiasts, it's Delia. If you listen to Park Predators, you already know that sometimes the most beautiful places can hide the darkest secrets. But what happens when the danger isn't miles from civilization? It's in your community, and sometimes even in your own backyard. On Crime Junkie, hosts Ashley and Britt dive into real cases every week, from missing persons to unsolved murders, breaking down what we know, what we don't, and the details that still don't sit right. If you care about the stories behind the headlines and the victims at the center of them, you'll want to check out Crime Junkie. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

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  Hi park enthusiasts, I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. And the case I'm going to share with you today takes place in Oswald West State Park in Oregon. Big draws to this park are lots of trails, sandy beaches, and beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean. If you drive about two hours west of the city of Portland, you'll run right into it. The park is a go-to spot for beachcombers, surfers, hikers, and recreationalists seeking to experience the best of Oregon's coastline. There are several areas that house secluded coves and beaches, and if you're someone who's into long-distance treks, 13 miles of the Oregon Coast Trail wind through the park to give you a pretty decent taste of what it has to offer.

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  You can't camp at Oswald West these days, but it didn't always used to be that way. Back in 1999, there were a few select places where visitors could pitch a tent, and it was at one of those spots that two park rangers came face-to-face with a dangerous human predator. One of them made it out alive, the other didn't. A few months ago, I was able to speak with this survivor, and the story he shared with me is something I will never forget. This is Park Predators.

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  Shortly after 7 o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, April 27, 1999, a park ranger named Jack Kerwin pulled into a parking lot at Oswald West State Park to meet up with his coworker, 50-year-old Danny Blumenthal. The two men were scheduled to complete some ground maintenance at the campsites there before the campground was set to officially open in a few days. So they parked near a small service shed that the park's department used to store supplies and tools in and got right to their duties. As Jack shoveled some rock into a small trailer behind a utility vehicle and leveled out some campsites, Danny made his way to the end of the campground's parking lot to clean the restroom. Jack watched his partner dip into the outhouse some 150 yards away from him, and then he

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  refocused his attention on scooping the rock. When he looked up a few moments later, though, he saw something that stunned him. Danny was being marched out of the restroom by a man holding a handgun. Before Jack could react, the assailant trained the firearm on him and then forced both rangers into the maintenance shed. Once inside, their captor used thick zip ties to bind their hands behind their backs, and then he used an extra zip tie to link their wrists together, making it impossible for Jack and Danny to move independently. After that, the offender frisked both rangers and took their wallets and keys. Jack, who was 51 years old at the time, told me that Danny looked over at him and instructed

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  him to stay calm and go along with whatever their captor wanted. Jack remembers thinking something along the lines of, "Well, he could kill us right here and now, but he hasn't." Shortly after tying the Rangers up, the assailant took a key for Danny's truck and made sure it worked. Then he marched both men through the campground's empty parking lot, across Highway 101, and about 300 yards up a dirt trail into the woods. That path led towards the Cape Falcon area of the park. In that time of morning, Jack didn't see any hikers around or cars passing by on the highway. He knew in the back of his mind that the misty foggy weather likely would keep visitors from traveling to the area, which wasn't a comforting thought because that meant no

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  one would be coming soon to possibly help him and Danny. As the trio hiked, all of these thoughts were swirling through Jack's mind. He didn't speak to Danny though, because neither of the Rangers wanted to upset the suspect. The man holding the gun at their backs barely talked to them, and Jack told me it was obvious the guy wasn't in a good mood. Jack gathered from looking at him that the man had spent the night in the campground and had gotten rained on because he was donning a rain suit and appeared worse for wear. The further the group walked though into the woods, the more concerned Jack became because he wondered why they were going so far from the road and parking lot. Then, in a sudden instant, he heard gunshots ring out, and felt Danny drop to the ground

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  next to him. Jack had only a second or two to try and plead with the gunman to spare his life, but the guy coldly ignored his cries and fired a round into the side of Jack's head. Then, the shooter turned to Danny, shot him one more time, and then fired a final round at Jack. Both bullets that struck Jack were about two inches apart and entered on the same side of his head. He told me that in total, the offender discharged five rounds and kept the sixth bullet in the gun. Miraculously though, Jack didn't die or pass out from his injuries. He just made his attacker believe he had. For a few seconds, which I'm sure felt like an eternity to Jack, the shooter stood over

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  him and watched to see if he'd move. When he didn't, the suspect turned around and headed back down the trail. Now of the two victims Danny weighed more, and according to Jack, after his friend was killed and fell to the ground, the zip tie binding his wrists to Jack's loosened enough for Jack to slip his wrists out and move independently. Jack paused for a beat to assess his partner, but quickly realized that Danny was dead. So Jack made the decision to leave Danny on the trail and get out of the area to find help. Jack told me he was experiencing dizziness after being shot and he was afraid that if he didn't find someone to help him, he would pass out from blood loss. So he made his way down the trail and emerged onto Highway 101.

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  To his absolute terror though, he could see from a distance that he and Danny's attacker had returned to the campground parking lot where Danny's truck was. Jack managed to stay out of sight until the suspect drove off, and then he flagged down a truck driver who was passing by. Once he was safe with the Good Samaritan, Jack explained what had happened, and the motorist quickly dialed 911 on his cellphone. Then the pair drove to a fire station in the nearby city of Cannon Beach, Oregon. There, Jack was able to report the shooting to local authorities. After that, a helicopter flew the injured ranger to a hospital in Portland, and investigators from various agencies, including the Oregon State Police, converged on the trail where Jack said Danny was.

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  Officers eventually found the fallen park ranger and cordoned off the trail as a crime scene. Meanwhile, the manhunt for the suspect was unfolding, and time was of the essence. Jack had provided the police with detailed information about Danny's truck, and sure enough, about an hour after the shootings, a local seaside police sergeant located Danny's vehicle speeding down a highway headed in the direction of Portland. Authorities' aim was to intercept the shooter before he could make it to a more densely populated area, so they set up a roadblock near the community of Olney, Oregon, and eventually forced the suspect to drive into a rock pit where he got out and tried unsuccessfully to escape on foot.

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  Not long after he was captured, he was quickly identified as 52-year-old Larry Jean Cole, a convicted federal felon with a history of violent crimes who was on parole. In the aftermath of the murder, the public and the press had a lot of questions for law enforcement. Who was Larry Cole? How could this have happened? And could it have been prevented?

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  Oregon State Park Rangers didn't carry firearms with them while on duty, and they didn't have law enforcement authority. That responsibility was handled by the Oregon State Police and other agencies. And really, up until this incident, there hadn't been a need for Rangers like Danny and Jack to be armed. Thus far, the worst thing that Rangers had dealt with in Oswald West State Park were parties on the beaches. A public services manager for the state's Parks and Recreation Department told The Daily a story in quote, "I can tell you that this is the only time in state park history we've had anything like this happen," end quote. The newspaper later reported that Danny was believed to be the first state park ranger slain while on duty.

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  But service weapons or not, it wasn't like the parks in that part of Oregon were the Wild West with little to no supervision. Jack and Danny were on a team of several Rangers who were responsible for addressing issues in Oswald West State Park and other area recreation spaces in the region. In 1999, the unit of Rangers Danny and Jack were part of was based out of Nahalem Bay State Park, which was just a few miles south of Oswald West. Jack told me that Nahalem was considered the main attraction of the region because you could rent horses there and camp at some 200 campsites, whereas Oswald West was more scenic and less developed. Jack said that at the time of the murder, he'd been employed with Oregon State Parks

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  for 28 years and was planning to retire after 30 years. Danny had worked for the agency for 15 years, and his plan after retirement was going to be riding a motorcycle across the country to see all 50 states. Originally from Hood River, Oregon, Danny had wanted to be stationed there, but that didn't come to be, and he ended up staying in Oswald West State Park. He was extremely dedicated to his job as a park ranger, and the way Jack put it, Danny was just a super reliable, polite, and endearing guy. He was described as very close with his immediate family, generous to those around him, and well-liked by locals who knew him by the nickname Ranger Dan. He was also a divorced father with grandchildren and quite active in a singles

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  community where he lived in Wheeler, Oregon. Jack told me that Danny always made it his mission to get his single friends together on holidays to make sure no one spent Thanksgiving or Christmas alone. He was also admired by his former wife's extended family, too. His ex-wife's mother told the Observer that Danny was still part of their family picture in many ways, and he made an effort to attend gatherings as well as maintain friendships with people on that side of the family. She described Danny as a dreamer who loved Oregon's parks, especially Oswald West. Jack Kerwin was a married father of two whose children were in their early twenties, and he explained to me during our interview that, leading up to his shooting and escape,

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  he found himself repeatedly thinking of his wife and sons and how grateful he was for them because he genuinely believed he was going to die. It was evident from our conversation that this part of Jack's story still gets him choked up, but he emphasized that what got him through his traumatic experience in 1999 was sheer adrenaline and the realization that he needed to keep going because he had too much to lose. The day after the crime, Larry Cole faced a judge in Clatsop County, Oregon, and was arraigned on charges related to running from authorities and unauthorized use of Danny's pickup truck. It would be up to Tillamook County officials to charge him with aggravated murder and attempted aggravated murder since that's the jurisdiction where the shootings had taken

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  place. Two days earlier, a deputy state medical examiner had conducted Danny's autopsy and concluded that he died from gunshot wounds to his head. Interestingly, while that was all happening, investigators told the press that they learned a second assailant could have been involved in the crime, and they wanted help from the public to find out who that person was. Larry's alleged accomplice was described as a white male in his 30s or 40s, between 180 to 190 pounds, and had a mustache and brown hair. Authorities stated that the individual might have been driving a Ford Escort and likely went by the name Gary. Based on what I read in the coverage about this case and my interview with Jack Kerwin,

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  the information about this Gary guy came from statements Larry provided to investigators while in custody. How true the information was, wasn't entirely clear at the time, but authorities had to make sure they didn't miss anything. What was clear, though, is that on April 30th, three days after the crime, Jack had been released from the hospital and was home recovering from his injuries after undergoing surgeries on his jaw. Doctors were able to retrieve one of the bullets from his head, but they were forced to leave the other one in because it was too risky to try and take it out. Meanwhile, Tillamook County had wasted no time in leveling more severe charges against Larry for Danny's murder, and the attempted murder of Jack.

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  The charges against Larry that had been previously filed by Clatsop County for him stealing Danny's truck and fleeing police were dropped, and prosecutors in Tillamook filed charges for aggravated murder, robbery, and attempted murder. The murder charge alone qualified Larry for the death penalty. And as the case made its way through court, reporters started to dig up more and more information about Larry Jean Cole. And what they found was disturbing, to say the least.

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  One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County. Inside, they found a strange scene. A dining area converted into classrooms, with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  The couple that lived there had 21 kids.

• 15:15Speaker 04

  It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.

• 15:30Speaker 05

  Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp. That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun. I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?

• 15:43Speaker 03

  I'm Eva Kaufman. "The Journey" is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 15:59Speaker 00

  In March 1974, 25 years before the attack on the two park rangers in Oregon, Larry Jean Cole had been at the center of a violent and shocking kidnapping, all the way in Virginia and West Virginia. According to the news coverage I found about that incident, Larry, who was 27 years old at the time, and his then-wife, 23-year-old Bonnie Ann Cole, had set up a ruse to abduct the wife of Larry's former employer. The crime went down like this. Larry had previously worked for a man named Frank Van Balen, who was the president of a fiberglass company in Virginia and was apparently financially well off. Frank's wife, Betty Ann, worked as a real estate agent in Virginia.

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  And on Monday, March 4, 1974, she'd received a call from a woman who stated she wanted to make an appointment to see a house that was for sale near Smith Mountain Lake. The caller explained she was interested in the property as a retirement home for her dad. The women spoke one more time the following evening, March 5, and then again the next morning, Wednesday, March 6, when Betty Ann arranged to meet the potential buyer at a hotel coffee shop close to Smith Mountain Lake. The pair left the coffee shop together in Betty Ann's car, and when they arrived at a parking area further up the road, it was raining heavily. The circumstances began to make Betty Ann feel uneasy, so she tried to leave. But that's when another vehicle pulled behind her car and blocked her in.

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  Fearful of the situation, Betty Ann locked her doors and instructed the woman riding with her to do the same. But instead of complying, her passenger pulled out a handgun and threatened her if she didn't unlock the car. After that, a man who Betty Ann later identified as Larry Cole emerged from the other vehicle, holding a rifle. From there, the couple taped Betty Ann's mouth shut, bound her ankles and hands with tape, and discarded her real estate agent signs and spare tire and a body of water. Then they forced her into the trunk of her own car and drove her to where they'd parked another vehicle. The kidnappers transferred her into that car and ditched her car at a popular tourist attraction in Virginia known as Dixie Caverns.

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  During the ordeal, Betty Ann tried to convince Larry and Bonnie to let her go, but Larry explained that some people who were upset with her husband Frank had paid him $2,500 to do the abduction, and he said if they delivered her to the people who were employing them, they'd get even more money. Later that day, the Coles contacted Frank and told him they wanted $25,000 ransom in exchange for Betty Ann. Throughout the afternoon, they provided him with instructions on when to drop off the money and where. After going to his bank to retrieve the funds, Frank called the FBI and did as his wife's kidnappers asked. In the early morning hours of Thursday, March 7,

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  he drove to an abandoned railroad station near Ansted with a bag full of cash to barter for his wife. The FBI was aware of what was going on, but had been instructed to hang back from the exchange or else Larry and Bonnie claimed they would harm Betty Ann.

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  When Frank arrived at the rendezvous point alone, Larry and Bonnie were waiting for him. And when they got the ransom money, they let Betty Ann go. Together, the Van Balens were forced to face away from the Coles and walk down the railroad tracks without looking back. They walked and then ran for a mile and a half or so before eventually turning around and going back to where the ransom exchange took place. When they arrived, an FBI agent was there and took them to safety. Meanwhile, Larry and Bonnie, who'd hopped into Frank's car and taken off about an hour earlier, were in the wind. That vehicle was later discovered abandoned at an area bowling alley. After the crime, the FBI issued kidnapping arrest warrants for Larry and Bonnie,

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  but the criminal couple had a considerable head start. In early April 1974, so almost a month after the incident, the feds were still unable to pin them down. So they added Larry's photo and information to their 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list. About a day later, state police in Buffalo, New York spotted a sedan Larry and Bonnie were suspected of driving, and they quickly took the couple into custody. Inside the car with them was $10,000 in cash, more than $8,000 of which had serial numbers that matched the bills Frank Van Balen had withdrawn for his wife's ransom. At an arraignment hearing following the couple's arrests in New York, a magistrate there ordered they be held under $100,000 bond each,

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  while authorities in Virginia worked to extradite them so they could face the charges against them there. At the time of the kidnapping, Larry had prior convictions dating back to 1968 for everything from burglary to receiving stolen property to interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle. So the feds knew he was not to be underestimated. During the manhunt, officials had told the press that should anyone come in contact with him or Bonnie, they needed to alert authorities immediately and not engage with the couple. The FBI specifically said Larry was considered armed and dangerous.

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  In the aftermath of the kidnapping ordeal, Frank Van Balen told reporter Richard Lawson he didn't have the faintest idea why he and his wife had been targeted. He said that Larry had only worked at his fiberglass plant for about six months, but other than that, there was nothing else connecting the two couples. Betty Ann later told the Daily Historian neither she nor Frank had ever previously met Larry. In May 1974, a month after being arrested, the Coles both pleaded guilty to extortion and kidnapping and were sentenced to 25 years and 18 years in prison, respectively. During the couple's sentencing hearing, Betty Ann testified about what had happened to her, and she told the court that, based on her experience, it was evident that the Coles'

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  plan was extremely calculated and well thought out. Kind of a side note, but one thing I think is worth mentioning. When I interviewed Jack Kerwin, he told me that he was told that Betty Ann had expressed it was actually Bonnie who'd frightened her more than Larry. Regarding her perception of Bonnie, Betty Ann later told the Oregonian, quote, "She was the hardest female I'd ever seen. You could have hit her with a hammer, and it would have broken the hammer," end quote. And when you think about it, I mean, it was Bonnie who'd made the phone call that caused Betty Ann to take the bait, so to speak. She'd also been the first person to pull a gun on Betty Ann. And according to at least some of the coverage I saw in this case, Bonnie was the person

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  who reportedly drove to the ransom exchange. According to Betty Ann's testimony in court, Larry had sat in the backseat with her, holding a gun, while Bonnie guided the three of them to the rail station for the ransom exchange. Though I did read some articles that stated it was Bonnie who'd held the gun on Betty Ann while Larry drove. But either way, after being sentenced, Larry began serving his time behind bars in June 1974, and he moved between a few different federal penitentiaries until his early release in 1982. That year, he was granted parole, but just two years later, in 1984, he was sent back to prison for a few months for violating the conditions of his release. By August 1984, though, he was once again a free man after serving only eight

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  years of his recommended 25-year sentence. In April 1999, when he attacked Jack and Danny, his parole had either just ended or was scheduled to terminate that summer. The records are a bit unclear as to when exactly his parole was set to expire in 1999, but the point is, had he remained incarcerated and not been let out early, Danny Blumenthal would not have been murdered. And I imagine that was a thought that passed through Betty Ann Van Balen's mind in April 1999, too. You see, while listening to a radio program, she'd heard that a man named Larry Cole had been arrested for killing two park rangers in Oregon. But she told The Daily Astorian that she didn't think the story was referencing the

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  same man who'd kidnapped her years earlier. But of course, that was the case. And what's worse, when Betty Ann realized it was the same guy, she was even more upset because she'd never been informed that Larry had been let out of prison. She'd assumed, for years, that her abductor was still incarcerated for her kidnapping, but he wasn't. While authorities built their murder case against Larry, park officials in Oregon attempted to reassure visitors and residents alike that the state's recreation spaces were safe, despite what had happened. A spokesman for the Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department told a reporter it was unlikely that Oregon's longstanding policy to not allow rangers to carry firearms while

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  on duty would change in light of the shootings. The agency's official position on safety was for rangers to be defensive in nature and back off if a situation was headed toward conflict or violence. The spokesman said it was going to be difficult to even try to implement change to the service weapon policy or opt to arm rangers because that would require the state fund employee training on how to handle and carry firearms. To this day, state park rangers in Oregon still do not carry firearms or have law enforcement authority. Now, regarding the issue of arming rangers or not, Jack Kerwin told The Daily Astorian after the attack that he wasn't convinced rangers should be armed. He remarked, quote, "You're either a policeman or a park ranger.

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  With a gun, I wouldn't feel any safer." End quote. In early May 1999, to commemorate Danny's legacy, hundreds of coworkers, loved ones, and park rangers from other states attended a moving memorial ceremony for him in Oswald West State Park. His brother Stanley spoke at the service and said, "Our bond of brotherly love was shattered by a senseless act of violence perpetrated by a soulless and monstrous human being. The evil in this world has taken him away from us all." Around that time, law enforcement announced that they were no longer seeking information about the guy they'd been told went by the name Gary. Oregon State Police issued a statement that read,

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  "At this time, interviews and investigative leads have failed to corroborate any information to substantiate the involvement of a second person in the shootings." For a while, investigators had been unable to locate the murder weapon suspected to have been used in the crime. It wasn't found with Larry when he was arrested, but in early May, after more than 50 state police recruits volunteered to search for it along roadways in between the crime scene and where Larry was apprehended, a weapon similar to it was finally recovered. Authorities sent it off for testing to determine whether it was a match to the slugs recovered from Danny and Jack, but the results were pending. While that was going on, additional items associated with the crime,

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  including Jack and Danny's wallets, were found along area roadways. Jack told me he later learned Larry had thrown all that stuff out of Danny's pickup truck while he was running from police. By May 10, 1999, grand jurors had decided to formally indict Larry for 19 felony charges, which included aggravated murder, theft, assault, burglary, and first-degree kidnapping with a firearm. The total number of crimes he was accused of was increased to 20 after prosecutors tacked on an additional charge for being a felon in possession of a firearm. At an arraignment hearing in July, Larry pleaded not guilty, and the judge scheduled his trial for May 2000. At the request of Larry's defense lawyers, the trial was delayed a few times

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  and ultimately didn't get underway until early April 2001, nearly two years after Danny's murder. By that point, the state had decided not to seek the death penalty against Larry. Why? No one really knows for sure, but according to Jack, it might have something to do with the lack of physical evidence in the case. You see, even though authorities had found a 22 caliber gun they suspected had been used in the crime, subsequent test results weren't able to conclusively match it to the rounds fired at Jack and Danny. So the way the DA described it to Jack, the gun wasn't going to be super compelling evidence in front of jurors. Which meant the case against Larry was almost entirely based on circumstantial evidence. And of course, Jack's testimony.

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  But that also had its fair share of issues. You see, Jack said because of the trauma he'd been through and the fact that he'd seen so little of Larry's face during the shootings, he was unable to positively identify Larry as the killer while on the witness stand. He knew in his gut that Larry was the man who'd shot him and Danny, but he couldn't be 100% sure. His testimony still packed an emotional punch, though. The Daily Astorian chronicled his recollection of the crime in the newspaper's coverage of the trial. And some of the quotes I saw Jack made in front of jurors about how he thought he was going to die were compelling. After prosecutors presented their case, it was the defense's turn to go. And there was just one person

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  who planned to explain their side of things: Larry Cole.

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  One day last year, detectives knocked on the door of a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles County.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  Inside, they found a strange scene: a dining area converted into classrooms with children and toddlers seated at rows of desks.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  The couple that lived there had 21 kids.

• 31:38Speaker 04

  It's a house that looks like a castle, but it's under investigation for being a possible factory, a baby factory.

• 31:45Speaker 03

  Where had these children come from? Almost all of them were born through surrogates. But those surrogates had been deceived.

• 31:53Speaker 06

  Me and my coworker, we named her the surrogate pimp.

• 31:56Speaker 05

  That's the one time that we called the cops because she was screaming. And then he pulled out a gun. I started crying. I was like, what the heck did I just get myself into?

• 32:06Speaker 03

  I'm Ava Kaufman. "The Journey" is a new series from In the Dark and The New Yorker. Find it now in the In the Dark feed, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  On April 18th, 2001, Larry took the witness stand in his own defense and admitted that he'd planned to commit a crime on the morning Danny and Jack were shot. But he denied being involved in what happened to them. He claimed he'd ended up in Oregon after taking a bus from Florida and decided that Oswald West State Park would be a good place to spend some time. During his travels, he said he'd met a man named Gary Neal, and together, they'd traveled to the Pacific Northwest because they'd heard there was a meth lab in Tillamook County. On the morning of April 27th, 1999, he said they'd been camping together in the park, and after Gary briefly left their campsite, he returned with a pair of car keys.

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  Larry said he'd hiked up to the campground parking lot to pick up a truck Gary claimed would be waiting for him. From there, Larry said he was told to drive the truck to a train station in Portland and then meet up with Gary at a motel. According to Larry, when he arrived and found the truck unlocked, he got inside and left. As he was driving, he noticed there were things on the floorboard, including a driver's license with the name Danny Blumenthal on it, but he didn't think much of it and decided to put the ID in his shirt pocket. He claimed that he was unaware authorities began following him, but then eventually, he did notice police were on his tail. So, he ran, because he knew the truck he was in was stolen, and he didn't want to get caught.

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  After being taken into custody, Larry said he'd spoken with investigators for several hours, but they didn't bring up the fact that two park rangers had been shot. It was during that interrogation, though, that he'd provided detectives with information about Gary, which, we know, investigators later believed was all a lie. In fact, the DA told Oregonian reporter Jonathan Nelson that Larry's version of events were blatantly ridiculous because all of the evidence pointed squarely at him as the murderer. When asked point-blank in front of the jury whether he'd shot Danny and Jack, Larry said no, he had not. But jurors didn't believe him, and on April 24th, 2001, after just a few hours of deliberation,

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  they found Larry guilty of all 20 charges against him. A few months later in July, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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  In some ways Larry's sentence was bittersweet. Jack told me Danny's mother had a hard time accepting the fact that her son's murderer would not be on Oregon's death row. Whereas Jack was fine with Larry not receiving the death penalty. He told me that he personally thinks Larry being forced to spend the rest of his life in prison was the harsher sentence. And eventually it appears Danny's family got on board with that stance because reporting by the Oregonians stated Danny's relatives realized that Larry spending his life behind bars was, in its own way, a death sentence. When he thinks about it today, Jack isn't even sure Larry would have been convicted if it weren't for him surviving the attack and being able to testify against him in court.

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  Jack told me that Larry didn't leave any fingerprints behind that tied him to the crime. And in terms of other forensic evidence, the state's case was pretty weak. What's really wild to me, though, is that Larry's ex-wife Bonnie was never called as a witness at his trial. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, is she mentioned in the coverage about being subpoenaed or interviewed. Jack told me that the district attorney who prosecuted the case told him that his office searched high and low to find Bonnie, but nothing ever surfaced. It was as if she disappeared. Which in my opinion is really strange because, like many other people, I just assumed that in 1999, when Danny was murdered, she was on parole or whatever after serving her time in prison.

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  Because when she was sentenced in May 1974 for the kidnapping and ransom case, she was given 18 years. However, according to appellate documents I found, a few months after receiving her sentence, she requested a reduction. It was swiftly denied, but she filed the same request again in September 1974, which was also denied. However, on subsequent attempts for parole in 1978, the US appeals court ruled to make her eligible for parole. So based on that information, it's my assumption that at some point she probably got out of prison, likely before Danny's murder. And that's when she disappeared.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Where she is today, if she's alive, if she's dead, if she's living under a new name, I have no idea. One of our fact checkers found that she and Larry did eventually divorce in 1980, but after that, it's a bit hazy. I for one, though, would have loved to have heard from her as a witness in Larry's trial, considering the fact that she'd helped him all those years earlier kidnap a woman and hold her for ransom. Like, there's a part of me that suspects Bonnie probably could have shed so much light on Larry's criminal career and past, but with her being essentially a ghost, that didn't happen. What I can tell you is that according to Jack, when investigators looked into Larry's life leading up to the shootings in 1999, they discovered that not long after getting

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  out of prison in 1984, he went to live with one of his sons in Colorado for about a year. Apparently, when officials spoke with that son, he told them that the whole time his dad was living with him, Larry had showed no signs of violence. He said everything seemed fine, then one day his father just up and left. The motive behind why Larry Cole did what he did remains unclear. Jack said that the district attorney explained it to him this way. Larry wanted a vehicle and he saw two park rangers as standing in his way of achieving that goal, so he shot them, period. What's super chilling to me, though, is that based on everything I've gathered about Larry,

• 38:16Speaker 00

  he wasn't someone who necessarily stood out as a suspicious or scary individual. Jack told me that to him, Larry just seemed like a normal guy. A little hard to read, but normal. For the brief period of time Jack spent with him before the shootings, he said Larry was expressionless. Back in 1999, he'd said something similar to the Daily Historian when he remarked that Larry was not someone who he thought embodied what an armed robber would be like. Even more puzzling, it was reported that not once during the eight years Larry served in federal prison for the 1974 kidnapping incident, did he act out or commit an infraction. He'd been, in prison terms, a model inmate.

• 38:57Speaker 00

  Which I find extremely unsettling, especially because we know he was responsible for such violent crimes throughout his life when he wasn't behind bars. After July 2001, Larry remained incarcerated in Oregon's prison system. And on September 27th, 2021, at 75 years old, he died in hospice care at Oregon State Penitentiary's infirmary. To compensate Jack for his time out of work and medical bills that came due as a result of his injuries, Oregon's State Parks and Recreation Department issued him about $30,000 in workers' compensation. He told me most of that money went toward medications, and over the years, he and his

• 39:39Speaker 00

  family have been very grateful for the state employee fund that's paid for all of his ongoing prescriptions. Jack told me that to the best of his recollection, the state park system also awarded Danny's mother $50,000 in compensation. Today, there's a waterfall called Blumenthal Falls that was named in Danny's honor. After the crime, Jack was able to attend a dedication ceremony for that, and was even honored with his own memorial in the park. There's a creek on the Oregon Coast Trail in Oswald West called Kerwin Creek that was dedicated in Jack's honor. In the years after the crime, Jack continued working as a park ranger and retired after 30 years of service. He credits his coworkers and supervisors for carrying him through his final two years

• 40:22Speaker 00

  of employment because, he said, he faced some difficulties while performing his duties, which stemmed from his injuries. To this day, Jack still suffers from debilitating headaches due to the bullet that's lodged in his jaw, but, overall, he told me, his life is great. He appreciates every day a little bit more, and has no complaints. He also didn't lose his love for Oregon's parks, particularly Oswald West State Park. For about 10 years after the crime, he did avoid visiting the area, but eventually, he got to a place where it didn't bother him so much. He's never visited the spot on the trail where Danny was killed, but he has ventured on to other trails. He told me in our interview that he firmly believes, were it not for his friend Danny,

• 41:07Speaker 00

  more people might have been killed that foggy day in April 1999 at the hands of Larry Cole. The fact that things went down the way they did, and Larry was forced to flee in Danny's stolen truck, it all amounted to Larry being unable to go on and commit further crimes in his life. And I have to agree with Jack. In our interview, he mentioned that when Larry was captured, authorities found a variety of disguises with him. The items included a fake beard, a police badge, a fake mustache, handcuffs, and a sheriff's badge, all of which Larry could have potentially used to impersonate a police officer. I think him having that stuff just goes to show that he was up to no good. Regarding that reality, Jack ended our interview with this statement,

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  quote, "I think he would have gone on to kill other people with that kind of stuff that he had. There was no purpose to have it, except that." End quote.

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  Park Predators is an AudioChuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. And you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, @parkpredators.

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  I think Chuck would approve.

• 42:32Speaker 00

  In the dark, even the most familiar trail can feel like it leads somewhere else. Every rustle becomes a warning, every shadow, a doorway. In Full Body Chills, those doorways open into worlds pulled straight from your nightmares. This spooky season classic returns with chilling new tales, immersive sound, and no promise that you'll find your way back. So step off the familiar path if you dare. Listen to new episodes of Full Body Chills every week, wherever you get your podcasts.